Why Is the Catalyst Bigger on the Inside?
How many of us have met someone at the Catalyst for a date? Back in its earlier decades, the Atrium at the Cat was not the austere black box it is today, but a bright open room, with a wall of windows that opened onto Pacific avenue, the beautiful bar that wrapped around to the concert hall, and art, art, art. I remember the happy hours in a happily crowded bar, with plenty of chairs and tables around the room where you could sit and get to know someone. On a date.
During the days of the Santa Cruz Bowl, people came here on dates too. Bowling is such an easy and social game, you can play it and become acquainted with someone outside of church or school while doing something together that doesn't disturb anybody’s parents too much.
When the Santa Cruz Bowl opened, reporter Ernest Otto wrote an article titled New Bowling Alley Located in Old Industrial Center. “Where the Bowl is now located a planing mill once stood and was one of the city’s bigger industrial plants.” The neighborhood may have been “industrial” in a sense, but from looking at the Sanborn Fire Insurance Company maps and newspaper articles, the immediate block around the Santa Cruz Bowl were saloons, billiard parlors and short-order cafes. (See Part 5, Cafes, Billiards, and Beer)
In the middle of all those entertainments, where the Catalyst is now, was the Bonner Stables, built in 1887. If you look at a Google Earth picture of the block today, you can see that the footprint of the Catalyst is exactly the same as the Bonner Livery Stables.
The reason why the Catalyst is able to have its huge concert hall, and why so many lanes could fit into the SC Bowl before it, is because the Bonner Livery that preceded them on that particular lot. The little Castle Bowl next door never could have been as grand.
(You can see the footprint of another livery stable at the Palomar. Its arcade stretching back to Front street marks the extent of the old City Stables.)
Before the age of the private automobile, people in towns rarely owned their own horses or carriages; they rented them. The few people who owned their own horses would board them at a livery too. Young people would rent a “turnout” at a stable like the Bonner’s and go out on a drive. Together. Alone.
My point being, since the 1880s, people have been coming to this place on Pacific avenue on dates.
The Finest Horses
In a 1944 “Old Santa Cruz” column which chronicled the changes in town since the coming of the Automobile Age, Ernest Otto wrote:
Stables Were Entertainment
Riding Popular
Stables always gave employment to many. As it was a resort town and with the beautiful surrounding country, among the visitors riding parties were popular. The women wore the long riding habits, hanging over the side from the side saddles and looked quite important.
Either or ten horses would be ordered by guests at a single hotel, would be led to the hotel and when the ride, toward the close of the day, was over the riders in their picturesque garb would dismount and the horses would on a trot return to the livery stable.
Visitors especially rented horses and buggies daily. The greatest day for local residents was Sunday , especially for the young fellows who would take their lady friends or sweeties for a drive.
Of all the stables in town, Bonner Stables had “the finest horses and carriages in the area.”
The Bonner Livery started as one of the enterprises of A. P Swanton and his son Fred. The Bonner Stable was associated with their hotel near where the Post Office is now. Their ads promised “stylish turnouts.”
But the Swantons’ hotel and livery burned down in a spectacular fire in May of 1887 . Judge John H. Logan financed new stables at the other end of downtown, just south of Cathcart street, and leased it to the Swantons, who kept the name of their previous business. Both father and son sold their interest in the stables the following year, and went on far more important things than renting horses, such as founding the Santa Cruz Electric Light and Power Company (A. P.) and building the Boardwalk (Fred).
After the Swantons , the Bonner stables were owned by a succession of businessmen .
Two of them were the brothers George and Robert Cardiff who bought the stables in 1894. An advertisement from this period gives an idea of what the business provided, and what its customers expected.
Everything pertaining to the livery business is present; first class turnouts, saddle horses, buggies, carriages, etc., that would do honor to the leading stable of any town are to be had at the Bonner Stables at reasonable prices. There are no more stylish or better appearing outfits than are given the patrons of the Bonner Stables. ... Orders for picnics, excursions, funerals, etc, are filled promptly.
They didn’t own it for long. George Cardiff soon started an industrial supply company that was bought out by Henry Cowell Lime and Cement. He continued working for that firm in a long career. By the 1960s Cardiff was the property representative for the Samuel H. Cowell Foundation when the it donated 2000 acres University of California. He and his wife Violet lived there in the pioneer Cowell Ranch home and greeted dozens of visitors and dignitaries as negotiations for the campus progressed. It is these Cardiffs for whom Cardiff House at UCSC is named . He died in 1966 at the age of 93. Cardiff’s brother Robert is an ancestor of the family who founded Cardiff Pest control.
Earlier posts in this series describe what kind of neighborhood around the Stables, especially before Prohibition. Sometimes when vice is seen historically, its caustic effect on family and civic life is obscured by the winking and smirking at “quaint old customs” of our grandfathers. This story from 1913 is very clear that people having hard times then are just the same as people now.
F. H. Weinberg Suicides; Wife Says Gambling Joint is Responsible
Made desperate through financial troubles which had been increased recently by reckless gambling, and grown despondent over the loss of his baby daughter, Nola, a few months ago, Fred H. Weinberg, manager of the Bonner stables at 268 Pacific avenue, this morning about 8:30, in his apartments over the stable, placed a revolver to his right temple, pulled the trigger, and sent a bullet crashing into his brain and himself into eternity. He was alone in the room at the time and apparently had just finished a letter written to his mother, which was found later by Coroner Wessendorf upon his arrival.
At the sound of the shot Mrs. Weinberg, who was in a back room, rushed to the front room in time to see her husband partly standing and with the smoking revolver still in his hand, sink into the arms of Thomas Kelly, foreman of the stables, who had arrived ahead of her. The dying man, addressing Kelly by his nickname, said, "Oh Charlie," and expired in his arms. For an hour or two following the shooting Mrs. Weinberg and her mother, Mrs Nunes, were distracted with grief, refusing to be quieted by the many neighbors who called to offer their aid.
The deceased was a native of Germany and thirty-two years of age. He had been connected with the Bonner stables for several years and upon its purchase recently by J. P. Brazil, his wife's grandfather, he took up his residence in the apartments upstairs above the stable. H e was well liked by the patrons of the stable and had many friends in Santa Cruz.
His first real trouble in Santa Cruz came with the death of his only child, Nola, the latter part of July. It affected him greatly and added to financial troubles, made him very despondent at times . During the last two months he began gambling quite heavily, telling his wife that he must make an effort to obtain enough money to meet his obligations. He lost steadily and became desperate. Last night he returned home very late, and it is though that he had been gambling again and finished "broke." He was in a pleasant frame of mind, however, this morning and the deliberate and tragic happening which occurred between 8:30 and 9 o'clock was a terrible blow to his wife, who only a few minutes before had been chatting pleasantly with him.
Mrs Weinberg Tells Her Story
To a News man this morning Mrs. F. H. Weinberg, wife of the manager of the Bonner stables who this morning shot himself to death, told the story of the incidents leading up to her husband's tragic end.
"Gambling was the cause of my losing my husband, and nothing else," said the young woman, her lips trembling and making a brave effort to keep back tears." For the last two months he has been led into it right along. Some man would call him up and tell him of the big money to be obtained and he would go. It was his only habit—he thought that if his luck was good he could make enough to pay off our debts. He always lost. I tell you the gambling joints have got to go. They are responsible for his death and nothing else.
"Last night," she continued, " he didn't come home with us early in the evening. He told me that he had hurt himself, when he did arrive , and couldn't get home. We lost our little girl two months ago and he felt the loss terribly, and has been despondent, but he has been cheerful, too, like he was this morning just before he shot himself.
Mrs. Weinberg's eyes filled with tears, but she controlled herself and in a voice vibrating with anger verbally lashed with fiery vehemence the gambler who had led her husband into his repeated gambling exploits.
"I know what killed him," she said. "It was despondency over his money troubles made worse by the joint where this man got him to go to, only to take his money."
The story of a much happier couple appeared in the paper a few years later.
Nuptial Couches Were Bus Seats in Bonner Stable
Newlyweds, Separated on Way To This City, Reunite And Sleep with Horses.
Mr. And Mrs. Newlywed, for such they were and must be called , since they failed to register where they lodged last Friday night, came from San Francisco on a motorcycle thursday —at least they arrived at a point the other side of the summit, where the machine broke down. Mrs. Bride was given into the care of a passing motorcyclist with an unoccupied tandem seat and instructions given the driver to drop her at the summit.
But he didn't. he took her straight to Santa Cruz, where the lights brightly shine and where honeymooning couples moon under starlit skies. Hubby meanwhile sparked up "one lung" and started for the summit. No wife.
Seventy-give miles an hour for Santa Cruz and death for the fiend who stole his bride!
Arrived he he set the police to work to find wifey . Motorcop Beauregard found her in a candy store sipping the great American drink and ruminating on the contrariness of motorcycles, and wondering whether married life was really a series of accidents after all .
The pair were happily reunited , the thoughtless motorcycle stabled, and the search for rooms for the night begun.
Where do you think the bridal suite was finally engaged?
Not in the Casa del Rey; not in the St. George hotel. Each took a seat in the Waldo hotel bus in the Bonner stables long after midnight, and tired out as they were, slept like logs until morning.
Can you beat it?
Decline
By 1917, the car culture had changed the livery stable business enough that a Halloween dance was held in the “old stable,” which contributed its atmospherics.
The Wisteria club gave a Halloween dance Saturday evening in the hayloft of the old Bonner stables. Two ghosts greeted the guests, who numbered about fifty-five, and led them through vacant rooms, which was a wee bit spooky. But in the loft there was plenty of light from pumpkin faces and lanterns. Victrola music sufficed for dancing and a merry time was had dancing and indulging in Hallowe'en pranks. Pumpkin pies, doughnuts and cider were the appropriate refreshments.
In the early 1930s, well into the Depression, city leaders decided to tear out old buildings which were standing in the way of a progress that wasn’t arriving. As they put it, they began “an effort to identify old buildings that were a hazard to human life and business wellness.”
After the entire half block was torn down, Ableson created a cement-covered lot on the entire corner. He said he planned to rebuild, but there doesn’t seem to be evidence of that he did.
Ableson had been in the used clothing business on Pacific for twenty years and sold Chevrolets in the 1920s—perhaps across the street where the Prollo Chevrolet eventually was. He was well known in town, although by the 1930s he had moved to San Jose. A few months after this bruhaha with his ancient stable, the manner in which he celebrated his birthday was reported in one of those odd newspaper stories that you know had layers of meaning we can no longer detect.
E. J. Ableson Has a Birthday
E. J. Ableson, popular furniture dealer, informed his friends yesterday afternoon that his birthday anniversary had arrived and then proceeded to show how to put money into circulation by buying cigars for all, including Police Commissioner John C. Geyer and a Sentinel man.
By the time all of Ableson's friends had arrived to extend "best wishes," a couple of boxes of high grade cigars had been passed around. Although Ableson is in his forties, his friends insist he looked about 28 and then he bought some more cigars.
The site of old stable remained a vacant lot until the Santa Cruz Bowl was built six years later in 1938.
Before the Stables
John Logan built a home for the Bonner Stables in 1887 after fire at Swanton’s at the other end of Pacific. What was here before the stables?
Chinese Gold by Sandy Lydon and Santa Cruz in in the Heart by Geoff Dunn are two indispensable sources for stories about the Chinese community of the Monterey Bay, and these books are my sources for the following.
In the 1860s when Santa Cruz was only about ten years old, the main business street was Front parallel to the river, and Willow was its back street. Santa Cruz’s first Chinatown was on that less mercantile side of town, on the west side of Willow on the block between Lincoln and Walnut. By the 1870s, Willow had become the main business street and renamed Pacific Avenue. As rents rose, Chinese businesses moved into the now vacant buildings on Front.
However, the area around the Bonner stables also were the home of Chinese stores, outside of the main Chinese neighborhood. Before the Castle Bowl was built next to the Bonner stable in 1903, its address, 270 Pacific, was listed in a classified ad as “the bamboo store.”
After the fire in 1894 which destroyed Santa Cruz’s main business district and the Front Street Chinatown, the Chinese community settled in Birkenseer and Blackburn Chinatowns. Lydon writes, “Regardless of the cause, the Santa Cruz Chinese went to onto the last half of the 1890s divided, weakened by the fire, and lacking the unity which they had displayed in the 1880s.”
Outside of those Chinatowns where people lived, in 1892 there was a Chinese store next to the Bonner stables, just two blocks down from the old Chinatown of 1860s. The place described are near where Old School Shoes is today at the corner of Pacific and Cathcart.
Chinese Stores
An adjacent building [to Wilkins house] which had second floor rooms operated in connection with the rooming house, was razed to make way for the Cathcart street extension. In one of his storerooms Quong Di Lung long had a Chinese Bazaar. He was followed by Pon Fang, who combined store keeping with being a missionary of the Chinese Congregational mission. Later the store was occupied by the first of the Pacific avenue Chinese cafes.
So, in addition to the residential Chinatowns on the periphery, Chinese merchants and restaurateurs kept a presence in this part of town. Another Chinese Cafe opened in the 1940s in the building next door to 270 Pacific, where Union Grove Music is now.
This 1892 Sanborn map of the block between Cathcart and Elm shows the building that was torn down when Cathcart was extended in 1947 (marked 254 and 256 Pacific) The insurance company’s denotation for the shop was “Jap Goods.” The second story hotel rooms are there just as Otto said they were.
Varieties of Entertainments at the Rough End of Pacific
This end of our main street has never been as wealthy as the northern end, but it is a place where an actor with a dream could build a theatre; a family who lost everything in a fire could start over; and where Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce could gamble on a wholesome entertainment like bowling.
And what was here before all that?
Before Willow street came down this far, there was probably a footpath between the vineyards of the mission and the beach. A forest grew at the bottom of the hill and along the river. Before the Spanish came, the path was probably there too. If you walked along that path, a person might find all the bounty of the river estuary. It might where you could run into a friend. This was a place where you could play and flirt, and dance. Just like now.
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