Category: Historical

  • The Voice Blog at 22: The more things change…..

    July 26th is the Burlingame Voice blog's birthday and today it is 22.  The hardcopy editions back in the day started several years before–we're not quite sure how much earlier since we didn't put a date on each edition, but the on-line presence has a clear birth date.  Reflecting on the categories and their content, I'm struck by how much changes and yet how many people's points of view and concerns stay the same.  164 posts about high-cost rail?  Still a boondoggle that needs to die.  Overdevelopment in the neighborhoods?  The shift from worrying about McMansions to worrying about huge multi-unit complexes on R-1 lots is a difference without a distinction, just the magnitude.  Keeping our infrastructure, streets and public safety best in class?  The same as it was 22 years ago.  Maintaining our treescape and streetscapes?  Check and continue to question the cheesy little plastic street bollards and visual pollution proliferating around town like rodents. 

    With another year in the books, the 23rd year will bring more change, but the same perspective–that of regular residents who care about our little city and don't want its quality of life to degrade.  The pressures are enormous especially from Sacramento and Redwood City (i.e. the state and county).  If you don't stay informed and stay willing to speak up, you get what you get and have little reason to complain.  If you are vigilant at least you will have the "I told you so" relief.

    I happened to see this gorgeous Burlingame bungalow that is all spiffed up for sale this week and it reminded me of all the early fights that go on to this day.  It reminded me of why we started 22 years ago and why we persevere.  Some lucky new owner will join the community and share our concerns.  Blog on!

    Classic bungalow

  • Two views of the Fourth of July

    As we celebrate the 249th Fourth of July and ponder the Semiquincentennial next year, more commentators are looking back to the origins of the day.  The WSJ had a column whose perspective was sobering:

    Despite having done films on the Civil War and Vietnam, Ken Burns told me he was taken aback by the Revolution’s brutality. One of every three deaths was by bayonet. Warriors were often teenagers and the violence deeply personal, as when a young Vermont loyalist killed his best friend in hand-to-hand combat at the Battle of Bennington in 1777. Per capita there were more deaths in the Revolution than during the Civil War. Yet out of the carnage emerged the world’s first continent-spanning democracy.

    Americans who want to dig deeper need not wait for November. There are many new books on the Revolutionary War that are well worth the read. The best are from Pulitzer-Prize winning military historian Rick Atkinson, who crafted a trilogy on the war for America.

    He provides amazing detail and masterful staging. You’re in the action, seeing the violence that bitterly divided neighbors and families and understanding how close-run the war was. The vivid details, the intimacy, the sense of immediacy are a result of studious research. Like Mr. Burns, Mr. Atkinson mined the vast corpus of memoirs, letters, diaries and dispatches of the surprisingly literate combatants.

    Being a Massachusetts native from the city 50 miles south of Bennington that has traditionally hosted a massive Fourth parade that dates back to 1801 and is often featured on national TV, I've enjoyed many firemens musters, marching bands, car shows and cook-outs on the day.  My Fourth of July birthday girl wife gets tired of my reminiscing about going to the local farm and getting a Baker's Dozen ears of corn for a buck in the '60s.  I was thrilled that our newly remodeled Safeway ran a special that beat the old price!  7 cent corn flew off the shelves yesterday.  I hope you got some.  Have a happy and pensive Fourth.

    Safeway 7c corn

  • Local real estate: High water marks set

    Hot on the heels of the highest-priced B'game house to ever sell, the Bing Crosby estate has finally sold.  Alex Buljan is having a good year–selling both properties:

    It took less than a day to sell an 8,200-square-foot Burlingame home for a record $17 million, at $3.5 million above the asking price.  Jennifer Colvin and Eric Klein sold their century-old home with a modern addition at 133 Pepper Avenue, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The buyer was undisclosed.  “We were on the market for less than 24 hours,” Compass’ Alex Buljan, who held the listing, told the newspaper.  The sale far surpassed Burlingame’s previous highest sale in February last year at 121 Pepper Avenue, two doors down the street, for just shy of $9 million.  They took a historically designated 1924 Tudor home and mated it with a modern addition, on a half acre.

    The Comicle piece on the Crosby estate notes:

    A historic Hillsborough estate once owned by Bing Crosby has sold for $25 million, more than a third below its original asking price but still one of the most expensive residential sales in the town’s history.

    The property at 1200 Jackling Drive, a 14,000-square-foot French chateau-style mansion on 5 acres, was listed in January for $40 million following the death of Crosby’s widow, Kathryn Grant, in 2024. The deal closed Thursday, according to Compass agents Alex and Pierre Buljan, who represented the buyer.  “This property is one of Hillsborough’s legacy estates with an extremely storied background and impeccable vintage craftsmanship,” Alex Buljan said in a statement. “The buyer is a Hillsborough local with an appreciation for classic properties, adamant about maintaining the character and history into the next generation.”

    That intent is a relief since H'borough has been looking around at big pieces of land in town to find ways to meet the ridiculous housing requirements from Sacramento.  Five acres would cause some developers to drool especially with all the new free-for-all rules if you can jam a bit of subsidized housing in there.  The bet is when H'borough finally has to come up with more units, they will be as close to ECR–and B'game–as possible.  And this won't be the end of 8-digit houses in B'game even without multiple acres of land to work with.

  • Historic ECR buildings: “Mogies” make the cut

    As we wait for The LIttle Big Dig to start on El Camino it's worth delving into one of the useful things Caltrans did during the planning phase.  They had to commission an historic inventory report on the buildings along the historic thoroughfare–at least the ones that are left after the teardown trend of the last 20 -30 years.  All the way at the south end of town there are two distinctive buildings across from each other at the five-way, St. Catherine's intersection.  They are known as "Mogies" after architect Mogens Mogensen who did a number of projects on the Peninsula as described here:

    Mogen Mogensen (1920-1997) Was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He graduated in 1942 in Architecture from the Technical School of Copenhagen. Between 1942 and 1946 he worked in architectural offices in Denmark and Sweden.  Mogensen had early success, winning awards for designs for a school in Malmo, Sweden in 1945, and a City Hall in Ulricehamn, Sweden a year later. He arrived in the U.S. in 1946 with the help of a great uncle and aunt who ran a dairy near San Luis Obispo. He quickly found a job with Wurster, Bernardi, Emmons in San Francisco, leaving them in 1947 for a two-year position as a designer with the David D. Bohannon Organization in San Mateo.

    During this time, he became a licensed architect in California. From 1950 to 1952 he worked in several architectural offices in San Francisco and on the peninsula. In 1952 he returned as chief architect for David Bohannon. He opened his own office in 1956. His Bay Area practice consisted primarily of apartment buildings and condominiums although he also built private homes. Mogensen was also involved in master planning, office buildings, and commercial projects.

    If you click through on the link you can see he designed the Adeline Apartments in Burlingame, the Ambassador Apartments in San Mateo, the Belmont Executive Center, and for the Bohannon Corp, the Hillsdale housing development and shopping center in San Mateo.

    Here on the South end, the Mogie at 90 El Camino has been deemed historic in the report which is timely since the building has also gone up for sale for the first time that I can remember in the 34 years I have lived a block away.  Disen Cai has the listing and it pops up on-line for $2.8M.  We will revisit the other "Mogie" across the street–an angular apartment building–at another time. Here's the little Mogie gem:

    Mogie office

  • B’game Night: When trivia takes center stage

    It was a standing room only crowd at the historic Burlingame Women's Club Wednesday night as newly minted 2024 Citizen of the Year Russ Cohen and past Citizen of the Year Mark "Mark at the Mic" Lucchesi led the crowd through more than an hour of entertainment and education.  The first ever Burlingame Trivia Night hosted by the Historical Society and some local partners saw attendees vacillate between nailing trivia answers and flailing away until Russ gave mercy answers.

    It's one thing to know there are seven creeks in B'game.  It's quite another to know all seven names.  Same goes for the decorative sculpture above the door of the Old Post office that lives on in the new building–it's called "The Letters".  Nobody got that one!  Russ has a true skill with the microphone, a la Phil Donahue, that kept everyone engaged and entertained.  It's just one example of the many contributions to community spirit he has made and continues to make.  The Citizen of the Year nomination noted his work leading the Historical Society Museum refresh, donating poster designs (like the Pet Parade), serving as a city council member and, of course, co-founding the Voice as noted here.

    In his acceptance speech last week, Russ quoted Mark Twain's obituary description of Anson Burlingame (they were friends) as one of his aspirations.  Twain wrote “In every labor of this man’s life there was present a good and noble motive.”  Mr. Cohen is well on his way to achieving that life goal.

    The Dairy Boy was a featured question at Trivia Night.  The treasure chest of questions is deep enough for a repeat performance in the future.

    Trivia night 2025

     

  • Revisiting the ’06 Quake in style

    Today, April 18, at 5:12 am is the anniversary of the Big One that hit EssEff in 1906.  The festivities at Lotta's Fountain will take place as usual on Market Street, but this year there will be a special attraction from B'game.  I happened to be at an event at the Candy Store last night where it was announced that the 1906 Locomobile Model H seven passenger touring car that lives at Candy Store will be fired up and driven to Lotta's Fountain to join the remembrance.

    It cruises comfortably at 40 mph, so the owner will only have to leave around 4am after he lights the carbide head lamps.  How fun!  Here it is.

    Locomobile

  • Peanuts and Vince Guaraldi in B’game

    The B'game Historical Society had standing room only on Wednesday at the Lane room for a presentation about the history of the Mendelson/Melendez production company and the Charlie Brown TV specials.  Voice readers know the company is born and bred Burlingame and may recall when Lee Mendelson himself did a presentation back in 2013 here.

    This time around Lee's sons, Sean and Jason, focused in on the music that accompanied the various TV specials.  The driving force behind the music was local composer and jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi who passed away in 1976.  After the sons did some archival digging in various places, the original tapes of the Peanuts music were located, remastered and repressed (on bio-vinyl no less!).  It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown! is the current release.  Originally recorded in the famous Wally Heider Studios in EssEff, it was the twelfth Peanuts score by Guaraldi.  I won't attempt to tell the whole story that can be found in the liner notes, but Linus continues the proselytizing that began with A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965.

    The story Sean told about how the Christmas special came about was pure local gold.  The TV sponsors (mainly Coca-Cola) had turned down another of Lee Mendelson's shows but offered him a chance to fill a Christmas slot if he could give them a script in a couple of days.  He rushed back to his partner Bill Melendez and to Charles Schultz who pulled the script together over a weekend.  Guaraldi put the music together and Lee added the lyrics on the back of a napkin.  The Coke execs were unimpressed, but Lee told them to let their families decide if they liked it and the classic was born.  That's the short version.  To get the long version, you hadda be there.

    Peanuts presentation

  • Avenew update: Bye bye pavers

    We haven't addressed any changes on The Avenue recently although there has been bits of news and commentary.  So here goes.  Burlingame native turned San Franciscan, Peter Hartlaub of the SF Chronicle, did a piece this week titled "Nostalgia and progress are a tough balance. This Bay Area downtown gets it right." that was highly complementary of the San Mateo downtown.  He likes the B Street closure and all of the restaurant choices down there.  Regarding his hometown Avenue, not so much:

    The Peninsula has changed so much since I grew up in Burlingame in the 1970s and ’80s that I sometimes wonder whether I imagined the whole thing.

    All of my favorite South Bay movie theaters, comic book stores and sandwich shops are long gone. Marine World Africa USA’s dolphin shows and waterslides were replaced by Oracle headquarters. Main drag Burlingame Avenue turned from a haven of small businesses catering to the middle class to a Boulevard of Things I Can’t Afford.

    On that "boulevard" the city has finally thrown in the towel on some of the pavers that are cute, almost nostalgic in a faux cobblestone sort of way, but a maintenance headache.  The replacement project was scheduled to be complete last night:

    Several downtown Burlingame Avenue intersections will be under construction from March 24 through March 27. At the intersection of Burlingame Avenue and Primrose Road and the intersection of Burlingame Avenue and Lorton Avenue, the City will remove existing pavers and install new asphalt concrete, which will reduce the maintenance required for the pavers. At the intersection of Burlingame Avenue and Park Road, pavers will be replaced both in the intersection and in the crosswalks.

    I just walked through the busy core intersection of Primrose and The Avenew where a few loose pavers are hanging on.  Maybe they stay for historic reasons?  Or the project is just going slower than planned.  Be on the asphalt alert.  Right at that crossroad, Joe and the Juice is closing "for maintenance".  The windows were being papered over this morning.  I admit being surprised a coffee and juice place of that spacious size can survive on the Ave with all the coffee competition.  It never looks even half full, but they say they will be back.  Maybe Hartlaub will stop by Broadway on his next journey down the Peninsula?

    Joe Juice temporary closure

  • Brutalism in Burlingame

    Empty buildings in B'game make me nervous.  I envision the Claw showing up some day and the whole structure being gone in a couple of days.  Many of the replacements are sterile.  It happens all over town in both commercial and residential areas.  That's why I got nervous after seeing our only local Brutalist building appearing to be empty.  It sits at 1825 Magnolia behind The Trousdale and Burlingame Plaza.  Borrowing from Wikipedia, we learn:

    Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era.  Brutalist buildings are characterized by minimalist constructions that showcase the bare building materials and structural elements over decorative design. The style commonly makes use of exposed, unpainted concrete or brick, angular geometric shapes and a predominantly monochrome colour palette; other materials, such as steel, timber, and glass, are also featured.

    Descending from the modernist movement, brutalism is said to be a reaction against the nostalgia of architecture in the 1940s. Derived from the Swedish phrase nybrutalism, the term "new brutalism" was first used by British architects Alison and Peter Smithson for their pioneering approach to design.  In the United Kingdom, brutalism was featured in the design of utilitarian, low-cost social housing influenced by socialist principles and soon spread to other regions around the world, while being echoed by similar styles like in Eastern Europe.

    Brutalism has been polarizing historically; specific buildings, as well as the movement as a whole, have drawn a range of criticism (often being described as "cold"). There are often public-led campaigns to demolish brutalist buildings. Some people are favorable to the style and in the United Kingdom some buildings have been preserved.

    I asked around a bit and some think it was built as the Teachers Association headquarters (now a few blocks away) and was later a bank.  The good news is that rather than being empty, an on-line search shows it is owned by the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, also known as "The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, which is based in Ukiah.  The parking lot must be chained when not in use.  I think the building is oddly cool and worth taking a moment or two to appreciate.  Here is it

    Brutalist1

    Brutalist2

  • City Hall Moving Around the Corner?

    We covered the shortcomings of the historic City Hall here last September when the search for alternatives started.  As we noted then, a central downtown location is an intangible that is hard to value and harder to replace. Right on cue, staff is recommending a move around the corner to 1440 Chapin Ave–across the street from Mollie Stone's.  The move would involve two phases–a leased period followed by a purchase of the building and inheriting some of the existing tenants.  Per the Staff Report

    Pursuant to the Lease and Purchase Agreements, the City is required to purchase the building by June 30, 2027, for a price of $34,500,000. After the building is purchased, the City plans to retain existing tenants in office suites not occupied by the City, which will serve as a source of revenue for the City and offset some or all of the costs associated with purchasing 1440 Chapin. Revenue is estimated to be $1,656,000 per year from rental income.

    The city as a landlord could also extend to "the opportunity to collaborate with other public agencies, if they would like to lease space in the new City Hall."  The plan is up for discussion at tomorrow night's city council meeting and as these things go, I would think the deal is basically done.  Enough ground has been laid and there are enough short-tenured councilmembers that staff's say-so will suffice.  We don't have a Rosalie O'Mahony to issue a caution that would prevail.

    The real question is what of the current City Hall property?  The DJ piece raised the question, but the answer is "we'll figure that out later"

    Nearly 10 years ago, Burlingame had weighed the possibility of developing housing at the current City Hall site, though (Mayor Peter) Stevenson said conversation around the fate of the old building would be held at a future date.

    Engaged locals are already worried about the open space in front of city hall.  The holiday tree lighting is a classic B'game community event.  The pressure to flip it to a developer who would "stack and pack" it with a mix of "affordable housing" will be high.  Is there enough backbone to resist it and make the best use of the aging facility possible?  Are there potential tenants who don't need Class A space?  What about those "other public agencies"?  There is also a decent amount of parking on the site so if a Return to Office move is afoot for city staff, those spaces are a short, healthy walk to 1440 Chapin.  We shall see.  An eagle-eyed reader sent me the Instagram post about tomorrow's meeting.  I didn't know the city was posting there.

    City Hall purchase Instagram post

     

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