The Starbucks at the Mission Promenade building in downtown Pomona is due to close Feb. 15. That was noted in passing in a column last week just to get that out there. I’d happened to be in the cafe when the manager made the announcement. As promised, here’s more. I worked from the cafe on Monday afternoon to watch the flow of traffic. There have been incidents with homeless people, yet the cafe attracts a cross-section of Pomona. I tell you more in my Wednesday column.
I was an admirer of the 1956 Covina Bowl in its latter years before its 2017 closure. Now, a housing developer is putting 132 units on the property while saving the bulk of the building, the 60-foot-tall sign and other distinctive features. I took a tour for my Sunday column.
By way of background, I’d been mulling writing a column on this for a long time but wondered if I could justify it, in my own mind at least, since Covina is a little west of even the westernmost part of the IE. Then, by chance, I learned that the historic consultant for the project is a Riverside acquaintance who is active in historic preservation there. She offered to arrange a tour with the developer. Bingo, column achieved!
Peter Schickele, a.k.a. classical-music parodist PDQ Bach, performed several times in the region, including in Claremont, Riverside and San Bernardino. Also, four more items from around the IE, all in my Friday column.
In an emotional but mostly respectful meeting with 40 speakers, the City Council in Pomona OK’d a resolution for a Gaza ceasefire. “We’re doing what we can,” one member says. Many cities have ducked the issue, saying the matter isn’t in their jurisdiction. Can’t blame them, but I respect how Pomona handled it. That’s the subject of my Wednesday column, along with three other Pomona tidbits at the end.
For what it’s worth, this column was cranked out in three hours Tuesday morning/early afternoon to meet our early deadlines (and a lunch engagement). Due to how interesting the outcome of the meeting was, how many people spoke and how quickly I had to write, I relied more than usual on my overall sense of the proceedings rather than my copious notes.
Nick Cataldo has been writing about San Bernardino history for decades, including almost 26 years for The Sun, where his column began in March 1998. He and I had lunch recently to talk shop. I brought my notebook just in case, and when he started telling me about how he got to San Bernardino, I picked up my pen. Seemed a shame to let his story go to waste, you know? He’s the subject of my Sunday column.
In its 93 years, Bridges Auditorium in Claremont has seen a veritable A to Z of household names on its stage. Pomona College is already beginning to plan for the venue’s centennial in seven years. I visit and learn some of its storied history, shared in my Friday column. Have you ever attended an event at Bridges?
I return to the subject of audiobooks (and what a subject it is) in my Wednesday column, presenting some wacky examples of listening to them in my car when they were interrupted by Google driving directions, and also offering some of your comments on the form, pro and con.
In Sunday’s column I reflect on a year in reading, on how I’m apparently in the top 1% of U.S. as a reader of 50 books or more, on how I inspired someone to read “Don Quixote” and about Inland Empire mentions in three nonfiction books.
Riverside’s Judy Lewis has run marathons in 49 states. This weekend, she’ll compete in her 50th — in Hawaii. I talk to Lewis about her 30 years of marathons, which she began in her 30s, and what this race means to her for my Friday column.
At the City Council meeting Monday in Pomona, 15 people demanded the council take a stand about Gaza. Only one person brought up the local issue. Nevertheless, I delve into the payout to the former city manager. Also, I make my triumphant (?) return to a Pomona council meeting after four years away. That’s my slightly nostalgic Wednesday column.