Downtown Fulton Mall
As a lifetime Fresno resident I viewed downtown like many others. Downtown is viewed as a scary deserted place that no one visits past 5 pm. I think there are many reasons for this phenomenon but rather than going into all these details I just want to address one issue, the Fulton Mall. Personally I think the Fulton Mall is one of Fresno's follies. Prior to its establishment Fulton Street was a bustling main street of downtown Fresno. The street was full of automobiles and even had cable cars operating. Ever since the road was blocked off and turned into an outdoor mall the traffic has shrank to a trickle. During lunch time you might see a handful of people walking the mall but after 5 pm stores start to close their doors and people start to disappear. I think this is a tragedy that the people of Fresno shun downtown and we should instead embrace it. Fulton Mall needs a major facelift in the way of entertainment, shopping, and dining. Once some improvements are made I think the Fulton Mall could really take off. If anyone can think of any improvements or additions to the mall that would turn things around please respond to this blog.
I think I may have
I think I may have discovered the reason behind the destruction of Downtown Fresno. It was turned into a mall in the 1960s. That is the approximate time that something else began - the tearing apart of our city. All these years, it has continued without the residents' knowledge. There is very little left of the quality that Fresno was built with. What appears to be original is not. We have been used, lied to, deceived, and forced to pay for what we had no choice in. See pictures and more information on my web page www.myspace.com/marlalk and let me know what you think.
Actually, they did
The trolley line actually stretched all the way north to the San Joaquin River. It's amazing they would make that kind of investment back around the turn of the century.
I'm thinking of another story
...forget about it, Jake, it's Chinatown.
Someone who rhymes with Ron-A-Deli
Maybe someone who had a name that rhymes with Ron-a-Deli would've bought up and yanked the lines cuz they didn't point towards all the land he had ready to be made into houses. Or maybe his fellow developers would've convinced [ka-ching] the City Council to zone the entire city to make it a No-Trolley Zone and then had them build roads that point exactly (and coincidentally) towards the land that they had ready to be made into houses.
Geez, history around here reads wayyyy to much like some kind of Chronicles of Potter (not Harry--but the geezer in It's a Wonderful Life). I guess it's our job around here to try and play the Jimmy Stewart part.
Trolley Cars
Just as a reminder that the trolley cars were bought up by General Motors who then promptly pulled up all the rails. They then started a bus system, but, never put much money into it, thus making it much more convenient to drive cars, which General Motors just happened to make!
I wish I could see what Fresno might have been if the trolleys were never allowed to be pulled up. How different the city would be...
People are the answer!
The only answer to the "problem" of Fulton Mall is people. I've been in the economic/workforce development biz for 15 years, and the answer always begins with people, in this instance - specifically residents.
The City should be doing whatever it takes to get people to live downtown. Everything else will flow from that.
A short story. Prior to Fresno, I used to work at the OED at the City of San Jose. The City, in an effort to "turn around" it's downtown, tore down a series of historic houses and old hotels being used as apartments to build a huge multi-plex theatre. They then spent 10's of millions to run a light rail system down the street on which the theatre was. They moved government offices into the office buildings around the theatre plaza. All this and the place was still a ghost town after 5:30 pm when the workers left.
Unbelievably, they then ended up tearing down the theatre and putting up apartments and condos to bring people back to downtown(much like the structures that had been there 7 years before and that they had town down with taxpayer $). All being said - that worked, residents were the beginning of the solution.
yeah lifeguards!
i appreciate the support. my goal is really to reach my friends, who are essentially the epitome of the north fresno dogma. and they are proud of it. if i can reach them and get them enthused about my ideals, then there is more than hope for the rest of the population here. (i got one sister to go out in the tower last night, one more to go!)
by the way, love the analogy. i was a lifeguard for 4 years..good times.
conservative friends drown you???
Yo, ValleyGirl...
maybe one or two conservative friends may want to send you a cement lifepreserver, --but all of your thinking friends, (be they conservative or liberal,) need to read what you write.
-Not many people on this site, (nor MindHub, for that matter,) have the insight, intellect, and ability to connect so many dots and present it in such a succinct manner...
-Don't worry about the drowning thing... you have liberal friends who have been lifeguards for years...
da pool is open...
-good post.
What is done is done. But?
Riverpark is done. Its a huge success, a victory for the north as some might say. But instead of lamenting what could have been for the Fulton Mall, we should focus on what can be done. Like the multi-cineplex theatre for the FM. Right now, the 2025 Fresno General Plan calls for 2 more regional shopping centers within the city. One is at the NEC of Shaw and Grantland. The other is Clovis/Tulare (although I feel that might be tentative), that the other main one will be located within the SE growth area and not specified yet. I could be wrong. Anyhow, these regional shopping centers will be just like Riverpark, with the multiplex theatres, and the Target, and the Starbucks, and the big boxes and such. These shopping centers will do the same as Riverpark, and further disperse people away from downtown. We need to concentrate activity in our core, and not on the outskirts of the city. It is smart, I suppose, in a financial sense because the location is optimal for people coming from out of town, and we get to keep their tax dollars here in our city. But from a planning sense, it is so 1960esque. We are creating autocentric hubs of activity, which will probably be centered around a sprawling parking lot. Until we slow the development of shopping centers and other hubs of activity outside of downtown, it will stay as is. Its easier to develop in those places, and from the city's standpoint, the planning process will be much easier and the amount of upfront revenue will most likely be greater. There is a lot of risk in investing downtown. But if the citizens of Fresno care, and raise up their hands, and make some noise about these future regional shopping centers, the city will listen. In San Luis Obispo the citizens made such a stink about a similar regional shopping center (the Dalidio Ranch Development) that next week will be the second time it will be on the ballot, even with City Council approval. And the main concern for the Citizens against Measure J is that it will detract activity from the downtown. (And of course, the site plan needs some work, and the developer is trying to circumvent the environmental process). So when word comes along about these developments, speak up! Maybe those sites might become regional parks instead! Or wildlife refuges! (i can dream, right? i haven't officially entered the 'real world' yet. good thing my conservative friends don't read fresno famous, or they would really disown me.)
oh no, not the 3rd street Mall example again!
Yes yes. I've brought it up in various discussions before, but Santa Monica's 3rd Street Mall is definately a success.
Movie theaters are part of their equation.
I cried in my breakfast cereal as I read in the Bee about the invention of Riverpark (yes yes---water under the bridge/old news/or better still 'crying over spilled milk') BUT, you ask what could be done about the Fulton Mall---I just wished they'd built them multi-cineplex-theater thingies THERE instead of inventing an imaginary neighborhood.
But what's done is done.
Fresno Street Cars aka the Subway
Fresno never had "Cable Cars" (cables to pull vehicles) ... Fresno had your typical American Street Car aka Trolley, in the 1890's they where pulled buy Horse and then in the early 1900's they were wired for electricity. There once was 50 Miles of Street Car Tracks that you could ride from Downtown Fresno all the way to Fresno Beach at the San Joaquin River during Fresno Traction Company's peek years in the 1920's. This light rail system lasted in Fresno until it's final day in May of 1939 when it was taken over by a Bus system. It cost millions to build it back then and with inflation it would cost billions to rebuild it now, most of the rails are gone, you can see what is barly left of it on Huntington Boulevard there are indentation on both sides of the grass median were the rails could still be.
When ever the Street Car system crossed under the bigger RailRoad tracks Like the Fresno Street under pass and the under pass on Wishon it was called a Subway, so yes Fresno once had a Subway system even thought most all of it was Surface Lines.
I plan to post more on this topic soon, look for it.
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