Climate RWC – December 2021

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P u b l i c a t i o n Profile: Shinnyo-en Buddhist Temple Spotlight: Peninsula Ballet Theater Micro Climate: Now that's a Juke Box!

ISSUE SEVENTY SIX • DECEMBER • 2021

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR•

With the welcome rain we’ve received lately, you might wonder why we chose water as the subject for our December feature, but questions about the adequacy of the Bay Area’s supply can’t be washed away with a few good rainstorms. Writer Don Shoecraft dug into history to unpack the allocation framework for Hetch Hetchy water to Peninsula cities, which are making plans decades out into the future for various climate scenarios. One potential solution—reusing wastewater—has already been implemented locally on a limited basis, but some contend that expanded use of treated water is virtually inevitable—and is more cost-effective than desalination. If the whole idea makes you squeamish, maybe you’ll feel less so after reading the story, which begins on page 8.

When Climate elects story topics—true confessions here—our team sometimes wishes for something that’s “not another Covid story.” But the pandemic’s impact continues to be so far-reaching that even stories that are “about” something else can’t be told without bringing in the toll of lockdowns, masking and so on. That’s true of this month’s Spotlight subject, Peninsula Ballet Theatre, which suddenly had to stop offering in-person classes at the school in San Mateo and couldn’t do performances. The good news is that the long shadow of the Covid has lifted enough that the organization has inaugurated a lively season that will include ballet, hip hop, a Broadway musical and more. The PBT season began with performances of “Hip-Hop Halloween” at the Fox Theatre, and this month audiences which have been starved of live entertainment can choose between two versions of “The Nutcracker”—the classic ballet with a top-notch professional cast and a hip-hop alternative. The story is on page 24. For tickets, go to peninsulaballettheatre.org.

Our Profile this month is about a religious institution you might be surprised to learn is in Redwood City, the Buddhist Shinnyo-en USA Head Temple, which occupies grounds that for many years were the home for some Catholic sisters. Writer Aimee Lewis Strain provides the enlightening details in her story, which begins on page 18. Also under the heading of “best kept secrets,” writer Heidi Van Zant visits the San Mateo County History Museum, which has an incredible, but little-known, collection of costumes.

From all of us at Climate, best wishes for an enjoyable and meaningful holiday season, and we’ll be back in January!

Janet McGovern, Editor December 2021 ·

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FEATU RE

Running Out of Water

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PROFILE

Shinnyo-en Buddhist Temple

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SPOTLIG HT Peninsula Ballet

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MICRO CLIMATE Now That's a Juke Box!

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AROUND TOWN ���������14 CHANGING CLIMATE ����18 HISTORY......................30

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Hope through community When we work together to address food insecurity, there is hope through community.

Fletcher, 61, is always the first one to arrive at his local drive-thru distribution in San Mateo. After 15 years as a Muni bus driver, he’s used to getting up early: “I’m usually the first one in line and I like that!”

Right before the pandemic started, Fletcher had knee replacement surgery which left him out of work for about a year. That was the first time he worried about how he would get food for himself and his wife, Kesoan.

Once he heard about Second Harvest, he realized he would always have somewhere to turn for help.

Scan the QR code to read the rest of Fletcher’s story.

Fletcher, San Mateo

shfb.org/donate This ad was provided as a courtesy of

December 2021 · CLIMATE ·5 Neighbors helping neighbors - since 1938

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CLIMATE M A G A Z I N E Publisher

S.F. Bay Media Group Editor

Janet McGovern janet@climaterwc.com Creative Director

Jim Kirkland jim@climaterwc.com Contributing Writers

Don Shoecraft Janet McGovern Aimee Lewis Strain Heidi Van Zant Jim Clifford Photography

Jim Kirkland Editorial Board

Janet McGovern Jim Kirkland Adam Alberti Advisory Board

Dee Eva Jason Galisatus Connie Guerrero Matt Larsen Dennis Logie Clem Molony Barb Valley CLIMATE magazine is a monthly publication

by S.F. Bay Media Group, a California Corporation.

Entire contents ©2021 by S.F. Bay Media Group. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use in any manner without permission is strictly prohibited. CLIMATE is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork.

CLIMATE offices are located at 570 El Camino Real, Ste. 150 #331 Redwood City, CA 94063. Printed in the U.S.A.

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Dinner & a Movie & More!

In the heart of the Theatre District, Redwood City.

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What’s on Tap for a Thirsty Bay Area?

It may sound icky, but the solutions could start at a flush

By Don Shoecraft

Deny climate change? Can’t. Wishing away big government bureaucracy? Won’t happen.

Think you have no fish in the fight over salmon?

You’re invested.

You drink water.

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ife’s need to replenish corporeal water is a struggle against an absolute limit.

There is no new water. A dinosaur guzzling pond water 60 million years ago could have been the first to use the water flowing from today’s tap. Because of that absolute limit, nature imposed the first imperative of water consumption: reuse. What went into that dinosaur also came out, flowed downhill, mingled, evaporated, rained down, ponded and started the cycle all over again.

A more complex version of this limit regulates Redwood City’s water consumption. A bureaucracy established and expanded over more than 100 years and a warming climate add their twists.

Expert opinion is that Redwood City’s water supply probably will be adequate for the next 20 to 25 years. Or maybe not, if the state wins the fight over San Joaquin River salmon habit. Or not, if climate change accelerates. Experts also agree that the city’s supply system is reliable, even in a major earthquake. Small comfort. It’s the supply that is uncertain.

Water Recycled One thing is beyond dispute: water reuse is coming. It’s only a matter of time until Peninsula users, including Redwood City, will be drinking Hetch Hetchy water that at some point has made its way through a wastewater treatment plant.

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• Redwood City’s water supply is 100 percent dependent on the City and County of San Francisco’s Hetch Hetchy water system.

Gunplay often settled water wars in years past, but Hetch Hetchy was established by a legislative settlement, resolved in 1913 when President Taft signed the Raker Act. The act gave San Francisco rights to build O’Shaughnessy Dam in Yosemite National Park and take water from the river that fills and flows from it, the Tuolumne. It gets any amount of water flow greater than 2,400 cubic feet per second for part of the year, anything more than 4,000 cubic feet per second for the rest, usually late spring and early summer. Senior rights holders, the Turlock and Modesto irrigation districts, get the first 2,400 and 4,000. That’s still true 108 years after the Raker Act. Nearly 300 miles of pipeline deliver about 220 million gallons per day of Hetch Hetchy water 140 miles to the San Francisco Peninsula’s Crystal Springs watershed.

San Francisco sells some of that water to cities and water districts along the way, who then retail it to customers. In the Bay Area, 26 retailers buy and resell San Francisco water to serve 1.8 million users.

Redwood City buys some of this water and resells to about 24,000 local customers.

The setup grants perpetual, and irrevocable water rights to the retailers. Redwood City has an ironclad guarantee of 10.93 million gallons per day.

This is the structure of the Regional Water System, the spigot from which the water flows. Several dozen state agencies from the Governor to the Resources Secretary down to a squad of local agencies have their hands on the controls to protect the system and its agreements.

To keep information comprehensible and comparable from agency to agency in

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such a vast system, the state Department of Water Resources requires all water retailers except the smallest to file water management plans and update them every few years, each agency addressing the same issues and answering the same questions in similar format. Redwood City’s and San Francisco’s plans informed much of this account.

Planning Ahead More than just plans, these documents look out and ahead 25 years, crystal-balling what water demand and supplies may look like mid-century. That is just about the point at which Baby Boomers and

SFPUC Hetch Hetchy vulnerability study

Gen-Xers—those who grew up with and sustained a water system, from source to wastewater treatment, that was underfunded and built far too cheaply—will hand it over to millennials, who already know they will have to deal with climate change that may threaten species survival.

There is a growing unease among those entrusted with water resources that the traditional planning approach — study and plan for years before reporting — is not keeping up with climate change. In other words, change is happening so quickly the tools currently don’t exist to accurately characterize what’s happening.

San Francisco’s water boss, the Public Utilities Commission, recognized this phenomenon after commissioning a supplemental “vulnerability” study of the Hetch Hetchy system. Released just last month, on paper it stressed the sys-

tem with 18 temperature rise and climate scenarios that produced more than 1,300 “elicitations,” results that included the best guesses of experts in various fields.

It tested Hetch Hetchy and the upper Tuolumne with temperature rise up to 5 degrees Celsius and precipitation decrease up to 15 percent below “normal.” International agreement is that irreversible global warming occurs when average global temperatures rise 2 degrees Celsius.

Sierra snow already melts 15 to 20 days earlier than it did 30 years ago. The study showed that this effect will accelerate as precipitation decreases and temperatures rise.

Snow Turning to Rain It also showed that the lower mountain snow line will retreat to higher elevations, meaning that the traditional long, slow, steady release of snow melt will be replaced by immediate rainfall runoff. Flooding and overtopping of reservoirs become an increasing possibility.

This happened already at Moccasin Dam on March 22, 2018, when inflows exceeded “unimaginable” flood flows and floating debris destroyed part of the dam, similar to the emergency spillway damage that shut down Lake Oroville the year before.

The study revealed that drought is more than a passing phenomenon whose arrival is unpredictable. Drought also causes more drought.

The chart in the middle of this page looks at three historic droughts and shows how much more likely it is that a similar one will recur, given set levels of precipitation. If precipitation remains the same in the Hetch Hetchy watershed, probability says a drought as severe as the 2012-15 event will happen again in 180 years. Cut precipitation by 20 percent and it’s likely to happen in 35 years.

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The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission controls the reservoirs containing the water on which Peninsula residents and businesses depend.

There are other ways to reduce water supply than wait for Mother Nature to do it. People can. As the state has done by producing the Bay-Delta Plan.

Fish Vs. People?

California’s Department of Water Resources, to the satisfaction of environmental and fisheries groups and the discomfort of water users, has ordered that the three tributaries of the San Joaquin River— the Merced, the Stanislaus and the Tuolumne—maintain an average 40 percent of historic river flow to protect salmon and other fish of the Bay Delta.

That would not hurt under normal circumstances, but, if implemented as planned next year, one dry year will require regional water users to ration, cutting retail customers’ water use possibly by up to 20 percent.

Lawsuits, including some filed by the regional group of water retailers of which Redwood City is a part, have held up implementation.

The dispute is now in fitful diplomacy stage, but negotiations are not going well.

“In their plan,” said Steven Ritchie, assistant general manager for water of the SFPUC, “they make it sound simply, like, ‘if we just restore 40 percent of unimpaired flow to the river, that will be good for fish, and we should just go with that.’

“But then every time you try to pin them down on that, it’s ‘maybe you might be able to move the water around other times and that might be beneficial.’ How that happens is not clear. Just more water would be a good thing, is what they really come down to saying.”

The uncertainty has forced the SFPUC to do more planning and predicting for the benefit of its water retailers.

Trading Water It has issued a backup two-tier water allocation schedule if Bay-Delta is implemented. Projecting to 2045, this plan appears to have found that water users may be able to use legal options to make deals among themselves to bank or shift around enough water to make up the shortfall if water supply is reduced up to 20 percent. More than that and the users’ guaranteed supply may go out the window, not so ironclad nor perpetual as first believed.

As CEO and General Manager of the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency, Nicolle Sandkulla is the representative for the 24 SFPUC water users, like Redwood City, who buy San Francisco water.

She advocates for balance between fish and people. “We are the region in the state with some of the lowest per capita rates of

water consumption,” she said. “Customers have continually committed through their water rates, through their own expenditures, to water efficiencies that resulted in historic low water use as we enter this current drought.

“That speaks to the region’s interests, but it also speaks to the fact that, at some point, how much more can we cut it? We are getting to what they call in the water industry ‘hardened demand.’ It’s not quite as easy to save 20 percent when you’re using 50 gallons per person per day.”

Those numbers fit Redwood City just about right. Across the city among all residential users for all purposes, including landscaping, Redwood City currently consumes 99 gallons of water per person per day. Narrowing the focus to a single user’s average indoor potable water residential use, the average consumption is 48 gallons per day.

To help visualize the statistic, consider an individual Redwoodite weighing 175 pounds. At current rates, that person consumes more than twice their body weight in water per day. Cutting water use by 20 percent for that person is roughly the equivalent of losing nearly 80 pounds.

Cleaning Up Wastewater To return to nature’s first water imperative, the likely next step to backfill water supply when stocks run low or demand goes up is wastewater reuse. It’s a human-centric conceit to call the source wastewater because people have only used it once. Water is water if all the dreck and dross it collects through its cycle is subtracted, just as the natural cycle of evaporation and condensation does.

Redwood City’s water treatment facility is Silicon Valley Clean Water at the end of Radio Road on the Bay shore. It removes 97 percent of the dreck and 100 percent of pathogens from domestic sewage to make 764,000 gallons per day of reused water Decemberr 2021 ·

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City of Redwood City Water Management Plan

available to Redwood City that’s suitable for irrigation or toilet flushing. Not for drinking. Yet. The city has an extensive recycled water distribution system already in place, and plans are moving ahead that would allow SVCW to put up to 12 million gallons of highly treated water a day directly into the domestic water system, half for Redwood City and half for San Mateo, either by piping it into Hetch Hetchy’s Crystal Springs Reservoir for mixing or directly into the water supply.

Alicia Aguirre has a foot in both the water retail and water treatment camps as the Redwood City Council’s representative to Silicon Valley Clean Water, where she is chair. She points out that the wastewater treatment plant’s long-term improvement plan, which goes by the acronym RESCU,

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will pump $550 million into a number of projects leading toward increased reuse.

Aguirre says it will help keep down the cost of water in the long run. “The bottom line is this is going to be a benefit for our society,” she said, “and, by the way, it’s not going to be as expensive” as desalination or other approaches.

Several things have to happen first.

Water retailers — cities and water districts — have to foot the bill for the necessary advanced water treatment facilities. And the sewage treatment agency either has to be given legal authority to become a water retailer or has to partner with existing water retailers. In any case, the fate of the wastewater agency is to become simply a water agency.

What Goes Around Teresa Herrera is the manager of Silicon Valley Clean Water. She thinks these steps “absolutely” will happen. “It’s been such a long time coming,” she said. “I’ve been in the industry 34 years. When I got out of college for my master’s we were talking about potable reuse then, in 1988. It’s such a long time in coming. The concept of ‘water is water’ is finally coming around.”

SFPUC water manager Ritchie says San Francisco also is looking at direct reuse of potable water by injecting groundwater wells with it. “You have to plan for it all,” he said, “reuse, desalination, the suite of diversified water supplies. I think they are very much going to be a part of our future.”

As for the ‘ick factor,’ Ritchie has been dealing with that for years. “Yes, the ‘ick

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factor’ gets in the way, but the time comes San Mateo Man Saved His Trees by Saving Water around when people are going to want to make sure there is water of His beloved Japanese maple trees were stressed. Very dry some kind there. “We’re only rainy seasons over the last decade meant some of the trees dealing with the same set of didn't make it through the winter. Jay Beard figured lack of wamolecules we’ve ever been ter was the problem. Where to turn for a source that wouldn't dealing with before,” he said. increase his usage in a drought?

“They’ve all been through lots He looked to his roof. He decided to collect rainwater. of things over the millennia.”

He started on a small scale, diverting his gutter flow into Apropos of millennia, 45-gallon plastic trash cans on temporary loan from his millennials are far from hapconstruction company. Five years later he has the capacity py about the climate previous to sock away 4,300 gallons of clean, fresh water from the generations have left them sky. He ended last year, the latest in one of the most severe with, nor are they pleased droughts in history, with 400 gallons to spare. with what the current genera Beard has cut his water bill by about half, saving $500 tion has proposed to address to $600 a year. But his 45 Japanese maple trees were the Jay Beard with his reservoirs of recycled water. the crisis. biggest winners. "My maples look gorgeous right now," he The “youth4” movement said. He hasn't lost any since he started his collect-and-reuse project. pre-empted last month’s COP26 interna The view from the street at his San Mateo Highlands home shows few signs that it is tional governmental climate confab with equipped with four 550-gallon water tanks. The only tipoff is a discreet one, a 45-gallon its own global youth-only summit in Miplastic barrel under the downspout around the corner from the front door. In addition to the lan, out of which came a “Youth Driving mass storage at the rear of the property, Beard's collection system includes forty-six 55-gallon Ambition” manifesto and calls to action. plastic barrels and an assortment of 20s and 5s.

Youth want be involved at every level Remarkably, he collects only from three of his five gutter downspouts. One is unavailin the decisions affecting climate because able because it blocks his crawlspace door and it's not possible to get a barrel under “global citizens under 30 are inheriting a the other one. hotter, more unpredictable climate that This amazing production, therefore, is derived from only a part of the modest and typihas enormous implications for their fucal 1,600-square-foot home's roof. ture.”

Beard adds a tap-water supplement in the driest months. Rather than let his backyard They want to halt the rate of climate lawn die in summer, he sprinkles for 10 minutes twice a week, once with California Water change by 2030; the manifesto is called Service water mid-week and once with gray water from the shower at week’s end. "ambition" after all.

The only other accommodation was to replace the 475-square-foot front yard lawn with The wastewater treatment plant CEO penny pebbles. The perimeter plantings remain. would like to see it, too. "It's climate change That's it. for sure," Herrera said, "but also there was Not only is Beard’s system good for his property, it's good for the environment. His elealso a generation that, to put it bluntly, revation is 80 feet above San Andreas Lake, part of the Crystal Springs watershed from where ally got off the hook of not having to invest San Francisco and much of the South Bay derive drinking water. His runoff makes its way too much money in infrastructure." into groundwater and the lake, thereby recharging the source. "I recharge just by feeding my So far, planning for an uncertain water lawn and feeding my maples, and I'm doing it with 85 to 90 percent rainfall.” supply has taken a traditional approach: Simple as his method is, "it takes a good amount of commitment," he said. "You're going see if it's possible to buy a way out of crisis. to have to do a good amount of grunt work, but it will pay off in the springtime. "Intellectually “I don't think there's a way out of it," there's nothing to it. You just have to have some good hooves and the ability to move water. she said, "It's just not sustainable. I don't When it's in a five-gallon bucket, water is 45 pounds. When it's in a 45, it's 460 pounds. think people are going to have a choice.”

When it's in a 550, it's pushing north of 5,000 pounds."

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His message to others is to “get creative and get responsible with the environment that you can participate in." – Don Shoecraft

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Redwood City Woman’s Club Celebrates History Members of the Redwood City Woman’s Club and their guests Oct. 24 turned out for the unveiling of a plaque marking the 110-year-old organization’s historic status. The club, which has the distinction of being a Redwood City landmark, has been added to both the California and the National Registers of Historic Places. After a program which included remarks about the club’s history by Climate magazine editor and club member Janet McGovern, Mayor Diane Howard and fellow member Edythe Miller pulled back the covering over a boulder where the plaque has been mounted in front of the clubhouse at 149 Clinton St. The club was formed to provide social, service and educational opportunities for its members, who spent two years raising the funds so the wood-shingled, Craftsman-style building could be built. Its grand opening was Oct. 26, 1911, and it has been in continuous use ever since.

Below: Club member Edythe Miller and Mayor Diane Howard unveil the plaque.

Left: Club members Dee Eva and Edythe Miller and First Vice President Jane Taylor and President Elaine Park.

Redwood City Opens Pedestrian Path to Bayfront Redwood City leaders Nov. 10 afternoon opened a new pathway connecting the somewhat isolated bayfront area with the rest of town. It took years—and multiple permits to get the U.S. 101 undercrossing connection for bikes and pedestrians built—and people didn’t wait for the ceremonial ribbon snip to try it out.

Residents from the housing developments which have sprung up east of the Bayshore joined other pedestrians who streamed under the freeway to get to the ribbon-cutting site at the west entrance. A red ribbon was stretched behind them so Mayor Diane Howard and other council members could take care of the formalities and officially open the 700-foot-long travel way.

The west entrance is at the end of Main Street, where bike lanes end, and the 14-foot-wide undercrossing leads to a bike path on Bair Island Road, near the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel. The city says the undercrossing is needed because of the housing development over the past decade which has attracted many new residents and increased the demand for improved bicycle and pedestrian connections.

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Families Remember Loved Ones at Day of the Dead Celebration Downtown Redwood City welcomed big crowds for the traditional Día de los Muertos celebration Sunday, Nov. 7, a colorful and festive time for remembering loved ones who have died. Sponsored in a partnership with the San Mateo County History Museum, the Friends of the Redwood City Library and Casa Circulo Cultural, the Day of the Dead event had to be held “virtually” last year because of Covid-related restrictions. This year’s celebration paid a special tribute to all loved ones lost as a result of the pandemic.

Families and others who thronged Courthouse Square got to see tribute altars inside the museum as well as on the sidewalk and enjoy music and traditional dancers. Many of the altars were decorated with vibrant orange flowers, and votive candles provided illumination for portraits of the family members who were being honored.

At one end of Broadway, vintage cars were on display, some with ceremonial altars in open trunks. Characters elaborately costumed in black strolled among the crowds gathered to watch the entertainment or lined up at food and information booths. Climate was among the sponsors, and representatives were on hand to meet attendees and distribute copies of the November issue.

Organizers of the event say that although losing someone is undeniably a somber and life-changing experience, the Day of the Dead festival provides people with the opportunity to rejoice in the “living memories of their loved ones.”

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Union Cemetery Gets Cleaned up After Storm

After the big late-October storm a group of Union Cemetery volunteers gathered to clean up fallen foliage. Included in the mix was Chris Sakelarios and her 104-year-old Auntie Lou. All told the group managed to gather over 12 yards of fallen sticks, branches and leaves. The area is, once again, suitable living space for the dead.

Street Life Ministries Holds a Fundraiser Street Life Ministries held a fundraiser on Nov. 18 to further their life saving program feeding the homeless and helping addicts get off the streets. Some 150 gathered at Main & Elm Restauant, raising $76,690 (matched by one family to bring the total to $153,381) to support Street Life and its plans to build a new rehab program. Redwood City Police Chief Dan Mulholland was on hand to speak and offer his support. Many former addicts spoke, including one who said she would be in a state penitentry if not for the efforts of Street Life Ministries.

In 2007, the outreach ministry started by pastor Tony Gapastione was entrusted to David Shearin, the current pastor. In 2012, Street Life became an established 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Today, due to the help of many people, SLM now serves over 30,000 meals a year, four nights a week, in multiple cities.

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Top: Shawn and David Shearin Top: Bill Butler with Police Chief Dan Mulholland

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Jess Love Keeps on Winning In Climate's September issue we reported about sixteen year-old auto racer Jesse Love of Menlo Park, noted for being the youngest American Racing Club of America Menard Series West champion in history when he won the title in 2020. Now he has won his second consecutive national championship, beating the competition in dramatic fashion on the last four laps of the last race of the year in Phoenix.

In a race for points, Love was in a battle with drivers Jake Drew and Trevor Huddleston over 100 laps at Phoenix Raceway. Drew thought he had beaten Love for the title by keeping him four cars back in the field. Race organizers and even television media thought so, too, until Love nudged past teammate Trevor Huddleston to finish three cars behind Drew.

Love and Drew finished the season with the same 438 championship point totals, but the win went to Love for his two wins on the season versus Drew’s zero.

Drew did hold the title for the few seconds it took for Love to cross the finish line.

Jesse Love, the son of Jesshill and Elizabeth and profiled twice in Climate Magazine, the first time as a winning 11 year-old driver, has been racing since age five, first for his father’s Jesse Love Racing of Redwood City and for several years on several semi-professional circuits for Toyota and Napa Auto Parts in the number 16 car owned by Bill McAnnally Racing of Roseville, California.

Build a Bear Puts Spotlight on Together Against Hate The Redwood City downtown library became a teddy bear factory to celebrate United Together Against Hate Week on Nov. 14 at an event sponsored by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Redwood City Together.

Children gathered with parents to build a teddy bear and return it for a sleepover "conference" in January where the bears will discuss how to be a more inclusive community and then report their findings to their creators.

The event was the brainchild of Carrie Du Bois, a school board member of the Sequoia Union High School District. "I think we need more ways to blend different communities before kids get to high school," she said. "One of the challenges is that so often we don't know our neighbors."

Librarian Jan Pedden worked to pull the event together and dovetail it into an already planned conference.

Above: Librarians Jan Pedden and Armando Ramirez read a teddy bear story.

Carrie Du Bois

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Digging into the Closet

Huge costume collection is a history museum treasure

By Heidi Van Zant

The Millie Collection of Vintage Clothing, burrowed deep in the basement of the San Mateo County History Museum in a storage room just across from the old boiler, is a magical treasure chest of memories where it’s always dress-up day.

Cabinets stacked high with pantaloons, corsets and gloves of yore and walls lined with racks of Victorian dresses, ’50s cocktail attire and even some va-va-voom orange hot pants – this is a feast of finery unlike any other in Redwood City.

“It’s a collection meant to be worn and touched,” said Carmen Blair, deputy director of the San Mateo County Historical Association, taking in the room stuffed floor-to-ceiling with Edwardian bowlers, silken Victorian dresses and satin dress shoes. “When I wear these things in a show I talk about who wore the dress. I want to give you a sense of history. It brings history to life in a way mannequins don’t.”

Unlike the “permanent” collection of more pristine clothing used in the public history displays upstairs, this is an “education”

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collection of well-loved clothing kept for safekeeping behind closed doors for museum models to wear in historical parades, fashion shows, costumed reenactments and special events including Women’s History Month.

The Namesake Millie The Millie Collection of Vintage Clothing is named in honor of founder Millie Hagstrom, the late museum volunteer who began the costume collection in the 1980s.

The too-many-to-count items are tidily organized, some in old metal filing cabinets with index cards denoting whether it’s long slips from the 1940s and ’50s or shawls from the Victorian era, while other costumes are covered with sheets on hangers with personal notes attached of their history.

All of them come with a story to tell.

There are the orange 1970s hot pants that Auxiliary member Betsy Bogel donated and a pair of black velvet shoes with a jeweled clip from the Civil War period that came “from the great-grandmother of Betty Burton.” Then, there’s the black-and-white woman’s wool bathing suit which did the flapper era proud. The costumes are predominately for women although there are some men’s suits, hats and military uniforms.

Some things likely won’t see the light of day again – older dresses from the 1800s too frayed to be restored, once-coveted fur coats from the 1930s with a dead animal head and paws draped over the shoulder, a purse made of alligator skin, and drawers full of very old unmentionables. The oldest item is a woman’s silk taffeta day dress from the 1840s with pagoda-style sleeves.

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C H A N G I N G C L I M AT E • In October 2013, reenactors donned history museum costumes to recreate a celebratory picnic held in Menlo Park in 1863 marking the completion of railroad service from San Francisco and on south.

Governor Leland Stanford and other notables were among the picnickers celebrating the milestone.

Raiding Closets The museum culls from estates, attics and closets across the region but on occasion Blair has even raided her own wardrobe to donate a woman’s blazer with padded shoulders and a bridesmaid’s dress when more “modern” offerings from the 1990s and beyond were needed for a show.

Also lovingly tending to the Millie Collection is volunteer Laura Cox of Belmont, who with her background in theater, costume design and teaching has found her calling in this crowded room. Her favorite part is seeing the reaction when schoolchildren touch the clothing that youngsters their age wore in the 1800s. “I see this light go on in this little girl’s face as she asks, ‘Who do you think wore these?’ ” Because of Covid restrictions, the popular 2021 Victorian Days fashion show was done online and the models wearing their hoop skirts and corsets also had to wear masks.

The hope is that the 2022 events will be live again but that has not been decided yet.

Prior in-person events have included Caltrain’s 150th anniversary celebration with a reenactment of an 1863 picnic at the Menlo Park train station and the popular Wedding Fashions Through Time event, where many of the clothes have to be worn by teens and preteens because of the narrow measurements of the dresses.

Museum volunteer Cox has had many personas in her years of putting on costumes from Millie’s Collection but a favorite is dressing as a Victorian-era maid for re-enactments.

“I have a white shirt, black skirt, a beautifully starched little hat, and these wirerimmed glasses,” she said.

“Depending on the house and the estate, there would be different maids for cooking, dusting, mending.

I was a lady’s maid – you dress the lady and listen to them. But I like the fancy attire, too.”

C

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PROFILE •

For Two Faiths, Common Ground A Buddhist temple has a home in the Redwood City hills

S

hinnyo-en USA Head Temple sits on a majestic piece of open space on Bret Harte Drive. Its existence isn’t well known even by neighbors, despite the temple’s significance to its practitioners and the welcoming attitude they have when visitors wander onto the grounds.

“Many people don’t know that we’re here,” said Facilities Manager Mark O’Malley. “We bought this property in 2004 and we had our dedication in 2008, but many people don’t know that we’re an actual functioning Buddhist temple.”

Bret Harte Drive ends at the white gates of this beautiful property covered in trees and relatively untouched by development except for the 100,000-squarefoot temple. The gates are open for residents to walk through each day; many are on their way to Roy Cloud School or just taking a stroll.

O’Malley says the public is welcome during daylight hours to walk the loop road through the property, but should be cautious since the road is shared with traffic.

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The Redwood City Parks and Arts Foundation twice has held its Picnic en Blanc fundraiser on the grounds of the temple. The location of the picnic is always kept secret until the day before the event, adding to the surprise of attendees who previously hadn’t known that a Buddhist temple even existed in Redwood City.

Former Home to Nuns The property was purchased from the Sisters of the St. Francis of Assisi, who had the building constructed in 1958 positioned on a hill overlooking the Bay Area. The congregation of Catholic sisters used the building as a place for worship and also as their living quarters, much like a convent, according to the Reverend Shunichi Ikehari, of Shinnyo-en. At one point about 100 nuns lived on the property. They would open their doors to various groups, including those seeking to complete religious retreats, he said.

As the sisters aged and became less capable of maintaining the property, they chose to sell the parcel. They interviewed many of the potential buyers but settled on the Shinnyo-en Temple because of its mis-

By Aimee Lewis Strain

The Japanese word “shinnyo-en” is defined as a garden open to all, where everyone can discover and bring out their true nature. That description precisely fits a 26-acre spot in Redwood City that is occupied by the U.S. headquarters of an international Buddhist community by that name.

sion and intentions for using the site.

“The sisters prayed inside this temple day and night and when we purchased the site, we took over their wishes to worship,” Ikehara said. “We made a promise to preserve what the sisters of St. Francis of Assisi had built.”

The connection between the Buddhist temple and the St. Francis sisters is one of mutual friendship between religious traditions. Still, nearly two decades after the sale of the property, many items inside from the Catholic days remain, a legacy to the sisters who built it, according to O’Malley.

Honoring the Sisters The temple’s architecture is in a cruciform shape, with pews in all directions. The Shinnyo-en Temple adherents chose to keep the pews out of respect for the sisters.

The sisters also gifted the temple with a statue of St. Francis, which still today sits in the main altar room.

“The sisters gave us their statue and we sent it to Japan so that we could replicate the statue and create one of the 7th Century Prince Shotoku,” the Reverend Leopold Fan

•

PROFILE •

A statue of Prince Shotoku, regent of Japan who promoted the growth of Buddhism and established numerous monasteries and the first free hospital in Japan.

said. Both statues sit across from one another, a symbol of unity between the sisters and the Buddhists.

There are four 12-foot stained-glass panels that the Shinnyo-en Temple replaced with their own, features not traditionally seen in a Buddhist temple, O’Malley said.

An artist in Japan created the stained-glass panels—four in all—which depict the various stages of Buddha’s life.

On the altar there are three buddhas, one standing, one sitting and one lying down, to represent his last teaching.

The large building holds a meditation room, an auditorium, many classrooms, cafeterias and an industrial kitchen. There are also dormitories on the property, but at this point they are not being used by the temple, as they are not up to code.

Shinnyo-en is an international Buddhist community founded on the ancient wisdom and compassion taken from the teachings of Buddha Shakyamuni. Shinnyo-en is a lay Buddhist order that is based on the Nirvana (Mahaparinirvana) Sutra, according to Ikehara. Considered the final teaching of Buddha, this set emphasizes

that all people have the capacity to find their true selves and that acting with compassion and concern for others, this authentic self will be found.

The Way to Happiness Shinnyo Buddhism teaches that finding happiness is dependent on the way individuals interact with the people and the world around them. The term “shinnyo” combines spiritual awakening and the nature of reality. The “en” refers to open space or a boundless garden. Put together, “shinnyo-en” becomes a place for people to come together and bring out their inner buddha or awakened nature, according to Fan. “We believe in three endeavors— community service, donation and sharing Dharma,” Fan said. “We place great importance on what we can do to make the world better.”

Shinnyo-en USA’s first temple on the mainland was in 1982 in a small house on Jefferson Street in San Francisco’s Marina district, a home the order still owns. Once the temple outgrew the house, the Buddhist practitioners moved into what is now

Hoover School in Burlingame, until they outgrew that site as well, O’Malley said.

Today, Shinnyo-en USA boasts nearly 500 members who come from different counties including San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara. There are weekend services, meditation sessions, and many planned pride-and-beautification activities.

Canned food and toy drives and community service projects are scheduled for members to work together to improve the surrounding community, according to Fan. A youth association has nearly 100 members.

As is true with many churches and other religious organizations, the Covid pandemic had a negative impact on the number of members in the order, but online services have helped, O’Malley said.

During the pandemic, many services were held outside and a gravel area was tented so services could be held. Many rituals are broadcast from Japan. Services are translated into English, Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin Korean.

For more information, visit the website at shinnyoenusa.net. C December 2021 ·

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M I C R O C L I M AT E •

No Dime Needed When You Own Your Own Jukebox Growing up in San Carlos, Bruce Anthony had to stretch his allowance to afford the 45s he so desperately wanted. “If the allowance was 50 cents, you had to make it last all week,” he explains. “So that had to cover baseball cards, an ice cream cone, a matinee. … Comic books were a dime a copy. So 50 cents didn’t go that far.” But anyone who grew up in the ‘60s listening to the Four Seasons wail about Sherry baby will have no difficulty at all identifying with what the music-loving youngster did: Anthony scrimped and saved to be able to buy pop treasures like “The Tracks of My Tears” and the novelty tune “The Purple People Eater.” As a result of his boyhood thriftiness, today, at the age of 73 the retired Serra High School teacher/administrator is sitting on a sizeable collection of classic vinyl, meticulously catalogued and preserved in pristine condition.

For his birthday in August, Anthony gave himself the ultimate gift for a grown-up oldies’ lover: an authentic Rock-Ola jukebox. The glowing behemoth sits in the family room of his Redwood City home, where he can spin platters to his heart’s content. After his wife Teresa goes to bed, he usually picks out seven or eight 45s for a bedtime listening snack. “One last blast from the past before heading to sleep,” he says.

Bruce Anthony can listen to the same nostalgic tunes on Apple iTunes but the sound doesn’t compare to the richness of vintage vinyl, reverberating through the five speakers of the marvelous music box.

More to the point, each record triggers memories. A good friend may have loved the song. Or a tune resonated as a “breakup” song. “Besides being a little time machine for me, it kind of brings back the people that were a part of my upbringing

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Bruce Anthony with his jukebox.

and part of my youth,” he says.

Similarly, he notes that the Beatles’ Paul McCartney is 79. But when the jukebox’s pick-up arm plucks “Yesterday” from out of the magazine (carousel), “suddenly those people are in their prime. They’re 20, 25, 26, whatever.

So it’s not just me stepping back in time.

It’s also getting to experience people from the past … and appreciating what those songs meant.”

Anthony grew up in the White Oaks neighborhood, and he and his friends would ride their bikes to Brown’s Music (later Eddie Kramer’s World of Music.)

Once a week, the newest record survey by local radio stations was posted, and the boys would track which record had moved up from number 7 to 2, or how many weeks it had been on the survey. They could even take the record into a booth to listen to it.

The first time Anthony saved up a dollar to buy a 45 rpm record, it was the 1957 release “A Teenager’s Romance” by teen idol

Ricky Nelson. He croons about the wellknown travails of first love: “A teenager’s romance is red hot or blue. You’re either in misery, or high on a crest.”

Anthony owns about three hundred ‘45s—not a vast collection—but what they have in common is that they’re meaningful to him, or to friends or family. The format was produced from 1948 to 1991, and jukeboxes were converted from 78s to 45s. Randy Vogel, a longtime friend and Serra colleague, gave Anthony a copy of Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock.”

Anthony owns many of Gene Pitney’s hits, including “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence” and “Only Love Can Break a Heart.” The flip side of that one is “If I Didn’t Have a Dime,” which is about being able to play a jukebox. (No coin is required for Anthony’s.)

• Among his unusual treasures: “Stand

by Me”—sung by boxer Cassius Clay before he became Muhammad Ali. The singing is surprisingly good. The back side is called “I Am the Greatest.” Anthony’s collection goes back to the Big Band era of Jimmy Dorsey and up to Barbara Streisand, Simon and Garfunkel, Rod Stewart and Cher. The jukebox holds 100 records, and Anthony had to create the tabs for each 45, so a listener who punches in “130” gets to hear the Everly Brothers singing “Let It Be Me” and not another selection. He’s compiled an extensive color-coded database on his records, with such minutiae as the record label, year of release, and whether a record reached the top 10 or top 40.

Anthony had dreamed of having a jukebox so he could enjoy records he hadn’t been able to listen to for decades.

Begun in 1927, Rock-Ola is the only company which still manufactures jukeboxes, and on a drive to Southern California last spring, Bruce asked his wife of 45 years if it would be okay if they stopped in at the company’s showroom in Torrance. The LED fluorescent lighting in the jukebox he ended up buying cycles from red to orange to green and purple, and eight handmade glass tubes create a “Bubbler” effect. Anthony was impressed to see how much, from the glass-blowing to sanding and staining the wood, was done by hand.

He’d prepared Teresa for the price— about $9,000—but she had no objection whatsoever to her husband’s splurge.

“You know because he doesn’t spend a lot of money on himself,” she says. “It’s something he wanted for probably 20 years at least.” The Anthonys had to get rid of a piano to make room for the jukebox, which Bruce concedes is “a little garish.”

Though it glimmers in the corner, at the press of the remote, the bewitching box can turn into a pumpkin. When Bruce has his friends over, “My guy friends say,

M I C R O C L I M AT E •

‘Oh my goodness, I wish I had one of those. But my wife would never let me.’” Well,” Bruce adds, “it helps to have a good wife.” Could that be a song title?

One might not expect a track coach to spend hours searching The Sequoia Times online or reviewing microfilmed newspapers at the David Stahler Redwood City Library’s Local History Room. But that’s what it’s taken for Sequoia High School coach David Stahler to gather the names for an historical record board for placement at the school track next year. He’d seen similar signs at other high schools and thought it would be inspirational for student athletes to see who’d set track-and-field records in the past. “The main thing is I feel it’s a really good incentive for young athletes to either join the track team or try to push themselves in their particular event,” the Menlo Park resident says. “It’s just basically a great motivating factor.

And also to reward athletes that have really devoted a lot of time and effort into doing well, to honor their work.”

Stahler, who is a retired Redwood City police officer, was a pole vaulter when he was a St. Francis High School student and he made the school’s list of the top vaulters.

He and another coach started researching the Sequoia High records about two years ago, but the effort intensified over the last six months. They located about 30 names,

including an amazing group of girls who competed in the 1970s. Stahler would like all the recordholders and other alumni to attend an unveiling ceremony at the start of track season early next year (the date is TBD so stay tuned.) C

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SPOTLIGHT•

On Their Toes Again Peninsula Ballet Theatre returns to center-stage in Redwood City

Peninsula Ballet Theatre launched its 2021-22 season in October at the Fox Theatre with “Hip-Hop Halloween,” a popular production which features the Tribe dance company in a spooky 75-minute show.

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SPOTLIGHT•

By Janet McGovern

Christine Leslie surveys her inventory of taffeta and tulle fabric, tiaras and frothy sequined tutus and does not behold effete fluff. Dance and performance, the president and executive director of the Peninsula Ballet Theatre firmly believes, are essential to good community, providing an opportunity for dancers to express themselves—and for audiences an entertaining time out of the house.

A

bout a year and half since the Covid pandemic arrived, the San Mateo-based performing arts organization is reclaiming its home stage at Redwood City’s Fox Theatre—and branching “out of the box” too. Following three Halloween “hip-hop” shows, Peninsula Ballet Theatre will be presenting Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” in two versions in December and then taking a literal leap next year into musical theater.

All the while, conducting rehearsals and classes at PBT’s school with required Covid protocols,

which has meant practicing en pointe, in mask. And hoping that audiences are as ready as they are for a return to live performances.

“We can sit here and wait and wait and wait,” Leslie describes the thought process she and her staff and board of directors went through before deciding to go ahead with the new season. “It’s been too long,” she says. “Art is too important to not provide this for the community and for the dancers and the art itself. It’s just too vital. We haven’t worked this hard to get through this pandemic to sit in our houses for the rest of our lives.”

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• A Fresher Theater During the pandemic hibernation, the historic theater itself has undergone major renovation including the installation of a state-of-the-art heating and ventilation system which filters out and traps fine particles, potential allergens, bacteria and viruses. Restrooms were updated with touchless technology. Hospital-grade ultraviolet light installed throughout the Fox allows for a cleaning before each performance, according to PBT spokesman Michael Davis.

From the lobby to the interior, the theater has a noticeably fresher feel. “It’s for the audience and I think the Fox has done a really nice job,” Leslie says. “It feels cleaner, lighter, brighter welcoming.”

Founded in 1967, Peninsula Ballet Theater offers dance classes seven days a week—ballet, tap, jazz and more—teaching students from the age of 3 on up and prepping them for performance. The organization also has a professional ballet company led by Artistic Director Greg Amato, which includes 12 dancers. PBT will be celebrating its 55th year in 2022 with ambitious plans including a new production of the “Cinderella” ballet and for the first time tackling a Broadway musical, “Guys and Dolls.” A possible international dance festival is on the horizon as well.

With a corps of great dancers, Leslie says Peninsula Ballet Theatre is fully capable of delivering a musical, and the Frank Loesser hit was chosen because “it’s fun, it’s lively. We wanted this season to be one of celebration so everything has a happy ending. We’ll go back to do some of the more serious things, obviously, but not this season. Not this season.”

26 · CLIMATE · December 2021

SPOTLIGHT•

Artistic Director Greg Amato with Executive Director Christine Leslie with the Nutcracker head.

“Art is too important to not provide this for the community and for the dancers and the art itself. It’s just too vital.

We haven’t worked this hard to get through this pandemic to sit in our houses for the rest of our lives.”

Dancers Grounded When the Covid restrictions hit in March 2020, the dancers had been gearing up to perform at a new theater at San Francisco’s Presidio. Like many people Leslie assumed it would only be a couple of weeks before life returned to normal—but that still hasn’t happened. With an MBA and a background in business, she had never been comfortable running a deficit and PBT had almost 10 months in reserves for what turned out to be a prolonged period without the normal earned income.

About 30 percent of the $850,000 annual budget comes from ticket sales and another 30 from tuition (the remainder is from donations and some studio rentals).

Everything that wasn’t essential was chopped, while Leslie sought outside funding. She is grateful for an $8,000 operating grant from the San Mateo Arts Commission plus funds from the county’s Measure K for a new media center. A supportive landlord also reduced the already below-market rent, she adds.

Both the school and the dance company are housed in the former Circuit City store on South Grant Street north of Highway 92, space big enough to warehouse decades of costumes, wigs, scenery, props and specialty gear, including a rack that allows ballerina tutus to dry out flat.

The organization was able to keep up its key mission, though, thanks to its teachers, who sprang into action to put together classes on Zoom. “They worked for no salary for quite a few weeks,” says Leslie, who became CEO in 2008. “They just wanted to stay connected to their students.”

Secondly, the majority of parents and students who were offered refunds opted to make them donations to help the school survive. Zoom classes were offered but at a lower rate.

Chloe Watson is a principal dancer who directs the school. “We closed on Friday and Zoom classes were set up for Monday,” she recalls. Pretty quickly, the teachers saw the demand for online dance instruction and students from as far away as Boston enrolled. “We saw lots of kitchens,” she says. “Everyone was dancing in the kitchens. Basements, garages.”

In her ninth season as a professional dancer, Watson found it jarring suddenly to be without a schedule and the goal of working on a production. “I really struggled with motivation so I’m happy to be back,” she says, “especially with this group of dancers who are super talented, super professional.”

•

SPOTLIGHT•

Top: Backstage and scenes from the latest Hip Hop Halloween production.

Right: Hikari Jacobson rehearses the role of Rose in Waltz of the Flowers in the Nutcracker production.

Arranging Flowers On a recent weekday, Greg Amato and his ballet master wife Nina watched intently as dancers rehearsed the “Waltz of the Flowers” number for the “Nutcracker” production, refining nuances in corps spacing and synchronizing arm movements and head tilts. “The steps are syncopated so we all have to be on the same rhythm,” Greg Amato explains. “Otherwise, it looks like a mishmash as opposed to one beautiful bouquet. … Everyone’s got to be in the right position so visually it’s pleasing.”

Peninsula Ballet Theatre will be presenting an urbanized “Hip-Hop Nutcracker” Dec. 17 and 18 (in the afternoon) and the Amato-choreographed classic version Dec. 18 and 19. PBT also offers a “reimagined” version for young audiences called “Nutcracker Sweets” Dec. 4, 5, 11 and 12 at the school.

Of the 50 dancers who will be stepping onto the Fox Theatre stage for the classic “Nutcracker,” 20 are professionals, 12 of them full-time dancers. “We have some dancers who are world-class here on the Peninsula,” Greg Amato says.

To be sure, there will be plenty of dancing kids. As is typical of dance schools, PBT students between the ages of 6 and 17 will be performing, from the opening at the Stahlbaum family home with Clara and her brothers to the scenes involving soldiers and mice.

If they’re typical of the adult dancers, multiple “Nutcracker” encores could lie ahead for those kids. Nina Amato played Clara as a child. Ballerina Hikari Jacobson, who relocated from New Jersey to appear as Rose in “The Nutcracker” and next year as Cinderella, got started in “Nutcrackers”

at about the age of 8 and has danced in them just about every year. Even if a role is a repeat, she tries to give it something new and is looking forward to dancing before a live audience again.

“Performing is really like the cherry on top of the cake,” the Daly City resident says, during a break in a six-hour day of rehearsals. “It’s not really all of it.

I think what makes performing special is that you’ve worked so hard for weeks up to that moment just to share with the audience what you’ve been working so hard

December 2021 ·

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SPOTLIGHT•

on. But the real joy is what you do in the studio every day, getting better, working on yourself.”

A New Take on a Classic In 2016, the Peninsula Ballet Theatre took a gamble by introducing a “Nutcracker” with fancy footwork that includes backflips and cartwheels. Leslie had seen hiphop teachers at the school and thought a touch of it before the show or during intermission might be good for marketing. She asked hip-hop artist Stuck Sanders what he could do with some of the divertissements, telling him “Take the beats and add your beats. Harmonize the music.” He ran with it, choreographing almost the entire ballet. Everybody who saw it loved it.

Still, it was a reputation-risking venture when Peninsula Ballet Theatre first presented a “Hip-Hop Nutcracker,” but all 1,100 seats at the Fox were filled. Leslie cried tears of joy—and relief: “It sold out the first year. It sells out every year and it was just fabulous.” Sanders and his team, which includes his wife Alee Martinez, have not only returned, they’ve added crowd-pleasing “Hip-Hop Halloween” shows to the calendar.

Enticing audiences to forgo TV screens to go to the theater “has to be part of our mission,” Leslie says, whether that means doing musicals or mixing hip-hop with ballet. “I think we owe it—those of us who have been around—to find a way to get the younger generation into a performing arts center.” C

Top: Dancers from "The Nutcracker."

Right: The 8,000-square-foot warehouse for costumes and props.

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Redwood City’s Oldest Building Has Quite a Story A one-story brick building across the street from the Wells Fargo Bank in downtown Redwood City looks out of place, like a leftover set from a Western movie. Don’t let the looks of 726 Main St. fool you. As Redwood City’s oldest commercial building, it has many tales to tell, some dating back to the horse-and-buggy era. The building’s lasting legacy, however, may be that it was once a Chinese laundry, a remnant of American history.

Chinese immigrants dominated the laundry business in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, according to John Jung, author of “Chinese Laundries – Tickets to Survival on Gold Mountain.” In the late 19th century “the most common occupation for Chinese male immigrants was laundryman, even though they had no experience with this business in China,” Jung wrote. “It was not so much their choice but one of the few ways afforded to Chinese who were excluded from more desirable and better paying work.”

Besides, he noted, there were a lot of single men coming to the West and they weren’t going to do their own laundry.

French immigrants also opened laundries and were famous for the handling of delicate fabrics. According to the 1940 Redwood City City Directory, The Louvre French Laundry was located just doors away at 721 Main St. Speaking of French laundries, the French Laundry Restaurant in Yountville, where Gov. Newsom dined and drew unwanted headlines, was a French steam laundry in the 1920s. That, however, is another story.

30 · CLIMATE · December 2021

San Mateo’s Chinese Laundry In 2016 the Ching Lee Laundry in San Mateo closed its doors, drawing national media attention with its status as the oldest Chinese-owned laundry in the United States. The laundry was operated by the same family for 140 years. The Redwood City Chinese laundry didn’t come close to that run, having become a laundry in the 1930s when the building was remodeled.

The changes included painting the façade pink, a coat of paint that was removed by volunteers in 1990, exposing the lettering of the building’s second owner, P.P. Chamberlain, along with the business designation of “general store.”

Chamberlain, San Mateo County Treasurer from 1878 to 1927, always went by his initials, which stood for Philander Perrigreen. In addition to operating the store, for several years he ran the Wells Fargo Express Agency inside the building.

Chamberlain bought the building from its original owner, John Diller, who built it in 1859. The red-brick structure was the hub of a thriving waterfront in the days when Main Street was Redwood City’s commercial center. Boats docked near the Diller General Store to unload or load cargo, activity depicted on a mural in the Wells Fargo Bank on Broadway.

A great deal is known about Diller and Chamberlain. Diller served as the first chairman of the Board of Supervisors of newly

formed San Mateo County. In fact, the first board meeting was held in Diller’s store, on July 7, 1859. Diller also served three terms as president of the Redwood City Board of Trustees, forerunner to today’s City Council. Chamberlain, a Civil War veteran from Minnesota, came to Redwood City in 1868 and by 1882 he owned the building, which, according to La Peninsula magazine, “was more than a place to transact business. It was for many years the gathering spot for many Redwood City men.”

Who Was Quong Lee? While the names of Diller and Chamberlain can be found in history books, little is known about Quong Lee. Jung, the aforementioned author, cautioned that Quong Lee might not have been a person. Many Chinese laundries were named for a spirit or a motto. Quong Lee could mean “vast profit.” However, in a 1971 article in the Redwood City Tribune, history columnist Otto Tallent wrote that “Quong Lee made the building into a laundry” which was bought by Gong Yuey in 1934.

Ten years later the building was purchased by Nelson Lee, who “operates the business as a family affair,” Tallent reported in a piece which captured the work ethic of the Lees: “Among those working in the laundry are his wife, Sun Que, and four brothers. Even little sister Anna can be found playing in the historic structure.”

In its long history, the building has had many functions, including serving as an aviation classroom during World War I. Who knows what its future role will be?

The last time I was there, a “For Lease” sign stood over its main door. C

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