The always-forceful What I Say column from the Lookout News delves into the recent vote to suggest landmark status for the city's last Quonset hut, located at Ninth and Broadway. Columnist Frank Gruber is up in arms about how anyone can landmark just an object--the land underneath wasn't landmarked--and argues that while culturally significant (Quonset huts were used during WWII), the hut has little connection to Santa Monica--it's like landmarking an Airstream in someone's backyard, he argues. Meanwhile, the commission said the hut qualifies under this rule: it has "architectural characteristics valuable to a study of a period, style, method of construction, or it [uses] indigenous materials or craftsmanship, or is a unique or rare example of an architectural design, detail or historical type valuable to such a study." As for the site itself? A developer wants to put up a four-story building with 129 affordable single apartments. [Photo via Lookout News]
· Landmarking Another History [Lookout News]
· Portable Landmark [Lookout News]
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