Downtown
By the 1860s, Pacific Avenue had become the main street of downtown Santa Cruz, and remains so today. Local architect Kermit Darrow and landscape architect Roy Rydell were engaged in 1969 to convert several blocks of Pacific Avenue into a semi-pedestrian street named the Pacific Garden Mall. The Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 destroyed nearly all of the 19th-century buildings in the downtown area, including the 1894 Richardsonian Romanesque-style former courthouse, renamed and reopened in the 1970s as the Cooper House. The Cooper House was at the center of the Pacific Garden Mall, and functioned as the heart of the downtown area. The outdoor patio restaurant featured music played each summer weekend day by Don McCaslin's band "Warmth". The Cooper House restaurant and bar went through several owners throughout the 1970s and 80s but consistently attracted locals, guests, and local characters such as "Rainbow Ginger" to the patio and adjacent sidewalks where cocktails, food, music, and people watching were always on the menu. After the earthquake, the Pacific Garden Mall theme was eliminated, and an updated downtown design plan by ROMA Design Group was implemented. As of 2012, only one empty lot remains on Pacific Avenue from the destruction of the 1989 earthquake.
Read more about this topic: Villa Branciforte, Attractions