Sometimes, what children need most is love. Other times, it’s discipline. But every once in a while, a child in need can use someone who knows how to cut through red tape. Newport Heights resident Don Krotee was able to come to the rescue of 13 children whose San Diego County group home was destroyed…
Read MoreOur historic structures will soon be honored again as the subject of a rewritten walking tour brochure titled Rediscovering Historic Downtown Santa Ana. Our historic buildings, and even some buildings that have not achieved such lofty status in Santa Ana, are the permanent legend of a great city poised at the beginning of the previous…
Read MoreWhen you ask someone to study a photograph, people see and focus on different things. One person might see that this is the Otis Building at 4th and Main—many years ago. The photo was probably taken shortly before the earthquake of 1933. It was taken from the southeast corner, looking north—what my grandfather would sometimes…
Read MoreFor years the management, board persons, worker bees and other members of the DSABA (Downtown Santa Ana Business Association) have entered and left through one entry of the only headquarters they have ever had: 116 West 4th Street. But, what do people know about the interesting building? In 1610 Mr. C. E. French (that would…
Read MoreThen: Donald Krotee, an architect specializing in refurbishing old buildings, gladly lives in the past. In 1993, the Newport Heights resident was busy designing the restoration of the Masonic Temple in downtown Santa Ana. Krotee said the temple is the last unreinforced masonry building in Santa Ana and, unless restored, would probably be condemned. “The…
Read MoreMost of 1920 Santa Ana would come to this Mediterranean building to buy the household food for the week, or to pick up hardware or clothing ordered from back east. Today some of the locals refer to the building as the Old Arcade Building for its long arcade on the lower floor. Three restaurants are…
Read MoreIt’s anyone’s guess when the 82-year-old clock atop the W. H. Spurgeon Building stopped telling time. Some longtime residents say the four-faceted clock stopped after the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. Others say it worked for a while after a 1985 renovation but then stopped. All agree that the clock—frozen on three sides at 5:05—now tells…
Read MoreThere was a time, I’m sure, when the Ebell Club’s building was the talk of the town. Unless you are a member of the Ebell Society of Santa Ana Valley or a member of the Santa Ana Rotary, you may not be familiar with this “east of Main” beautiful Mediterranean building at 625 French Street.…
Read MoreWhen you talk to some people around town, they believe the Howe-Waffle House is a restaurant that IHOP passed up when the pancake magnate purchased all the old waffle establishments (presumably because they wanted to have pancakes instead of waffles on their menu). The fact is, IHOP was never even in the picture. What was…
Read MoreAround the corner from my office stands the largest unaccomplished project we have ever not finished (is that a triple negative?). The main contributor to the project’s degree of difficulty to be developed, in one way or another, has always been the economy. The building is just less than 50,000 square feet, and has stood…
Read MoreThe YMCA building of Santa Ana has a very interesting past and future. The past is nearly 100 years old and the future is affected by a new government grant that could assist the City with the saving of the building and the creation of the Idea Center. Just north of the City’s most significant
Read MoreHave you ever played Monopoly, and the man in blue with the nightstick sends you to the can. “Bummer,” one might say. My first trip to the Orange County Jail, one of downtown’s more ominous structures, was not at all like this. Originally designed in 1969, around the early 80’s the over crowded jail was
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In 1992, a group of Citizens enlisted DSABA to help make the clock tower, a top the 1913 Spurgeon Building, operative- it had been stopped presumably by the 1933 earthquake. The energy of Tim Rush, a north end citizen, and member of the Orange County Chapter of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors
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