Mark your calendars! Santa Monica’s world-famous 3rd Street Promenade is turning 25 (and you can bet there will be some fanfare), Santa Monica gets ready to celebrate Park(ing) Day, and our City Council Candidate forum is only a week away.
City Council Candidate Forum
Join the League of Women Voters of Santa Monica and Santa Monica Next for our City Council Candidate forum on Monday September 22.
The forum will take place in the MLK Auditorium at the Main Branch Public Library (601 Santa Monica Blvd., 90401). The forum will start at 7 p.m., doors will open at 6:30 p.m.
The City of Santa Monica will be providing free bike valet until 9:30 p.m. While the bike valet will be set up for the City’s Pedestrian Action Plan workshop, which will be held up stairs in the library’s Multipuprose Room starting at 5:30 p.m., all are welcome to use it.
For more information about the Candidate Forum, please email Barbara Inatsugu at program@lwvsm.org or Jason Islas at jason@santamonicanext.org.
The forum is free and open to the public, but seating is first-come, first-served. The forum will also be broadcast and archived at our Live Stream page, StreetsblogTV. As mentioned above, there will be free bike valet available. The Main Branch library is also served by Big Blue Bus lines 7 and 10. Big Blue Bus lines 1, 2, 3, 8, and 9 stop within a short walking distance. Motor vehicle parking is also available. Enter on 7th Street.
Park(ing) Day
Join Santa Monica Next and Santa Monica Spoke in celebrating Park(ing) Day this Friday.
From Santa Monica Next’s Damien Newton: “Friday is Park(ing) Day, the international day of protest for open space and celebration of creativity. Every year, people from around the world set up small parks in metered parking spaces to make the point that as a society we allocate more space for public storage of people’s personal property and less for open space for everyone to use than we should.”
There will be three impromptu parks on Friday, that we know of: Next and Spoke will set up in two parking spaces outside of Swingers and there will be another park set up on 26th Street. If you plan on doing one, let us know by sending an email to damien@streetsblog.org.
Should there be enough of them, Next will be creating a map of Park(ing) Day parks and we will host a guided bike ride between them.
Happy Birthday, Promenade
On September 16, 1989, the newly-redesigned 3rd Street Promenade (formerly the 3rd Street Mall) opened to the public. Today, what was once a struggling, run-down shopping center has turned into an international and regional destination.
Every day, thousands come from nearby neighborhoods and far-flung cities around the globe to experience Santa Monica’s “living room.”
To celebrate a quarter century of unqualified success, Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. will host several events starting with a symposium on how the Promenade came to be Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at the Santa Monica Bay Women’s Club at 4th and Wilshire.
“It didn’t just happen. Hear from urban planning experts how the Promenade was created locally, and now celebrated globally,” according to Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. officials. RSVP to info@downtownsm.com or (310) 393-8355 by Tuesday.
Speaking at Wednesday’s symposium will be:
- Carol Lemlein, Santa Monica Conservancy
- Woodie Tescher, Third Street Urban Planner
- Denny Zane, Former Mayor of Santa Monica
- Kathleen Rawson, CEO of Downtown Santa Monica, Inc.
- Rob York, Third Street’s Retail Consultant
On Saturday, from 5 to 10 p.m., the Promenade will host KCRW DJs Raul Campos, Mario Cotto, Chris Douridas, Travis Holcome, and Garth Trinidad for a “one-night only musical journey.”
Rounding out the festivities on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. will be a community parade and celebration. From Downtown Santa Monica, Inc.: “Join the fun by participating in a parade down the Promenade, followed by an ice cream party with musical performances by the Promenades most talented buskers.”
For more information, visit downtownsm.com or santamonicacentric.com.
