Monday, February 04, 2008

Howe-Waffle House, tikis, and La Palma

Today's "before and after" photos show the Howe-Waffle House (1889) at Sycamore St. and Civic Center Dr. in Santa Ana. The top photo was taken in 1975, when the house had just been moved to the site for preservation and was not yet restored. I took the second photo recently. This historic residence is maintained as a "house museum" by the Santa Ana Historical Preservation Society.
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There's a nice slideshow on Flickr, depicting the 1996 exhibit, "Tiki: Native Drums Among The Orange Groves," at the late lamented Anaheim Museum. The show was the creation of artists and pop-culture gurus Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily. It examined the Mid-Century "Polynesian Pop" phenomenon in Orange County.
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There's a curious blurb from La Palma in today's Register: "The City Council will consider whether to allow historical photos and documents to be released to Arcadia Publications for the publication, "Images of America: La Palma" at Tuesday's council meeting."
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I'm confused. If the City of La Palma doesn't own the photos and documents in question, then the Council has no right to control their use, right? But if the City does own the photos and documents, then they really belong to the public and should be available for anyone's use, right? So which is it? Or perhaps the Register, (in their attempt to edit the story down to one sentence,) left out an important detail or two. Feel free to post a comment if you think you can shed light on this one.

3 comments:

ItsNotAPlace said...

looks like the city does own the photos, and it is not a matter of allowing the publication of the photos... but rather that there are two publishers looking to publish a book about the city, and the city is deciding between the two publishers.

found this PDF file on the City's website about this agenda item.

Anonymous said...

Now, now, Christopher. The Anaheim Museum still exists, and the recent restoration is actually VERY good. They really brought back the intent of the Carnegie building. However, the organization/exhibits have been swallowed by the Muzeo, which could or could not be beneficial, depending on who you talk to. But I am thrilled to say the Anaheim Museum still exists at Anaheim Blvd and Broadway. You do not want to go panicking people.

Chris Jepsen said...

itsnotaplace: Well, I'll certainly be buying any La Palma book written by Ron and Elfriede Mac Iver! But I still don't understand the City's role. I don't think any of the other Arcadia books had to get sign-off or editing from city staff. It shouldn't impact their staff time, since the authors and Arcadia are developing the content.

ColonyRabble: The old Carnegie Library building is still standing, true. But isn't the entity called the Anaheim Museum actually dead? Even the website is gone now and the old URL forwards to the Muzeo site.