A warm Thursday morning brought out hundreds of spectators and participants to the World’s Shortest Parade in Aptos for Independence Day, 2024. As usual, hundreds of celebrants watched the homegrown parade amble down Soquel Drive in Aptos, from State Park Avenue into Aptos Village, bringing smiles, cheers and the usual festive atmosphere. This year, many […]
City Life
Posted inLatest News
Carmageddon: This week’s delays and Metro’s ramped-up UCSC campus service
In Metro’s big pursuit of doubling ridership, the transit agency is improving service to the UC Santa Cruz campus. Last week, Metro secured 12 extra-long buses to carry more passengers per ride as it looks to keep wait times no longer than 15 minutes.
Posted inAptos
Aptos library opening delayed until February
The opening of the Aptos branch of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries is delayed until mid-February. The reason is a noise-reduction sound-baffling system to be set up in the children’s area of the new library. The system was originally cut from the project’s budget, but was later restored.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Moe’s Alley taps into Santa Cruz’s love for country music at Western Wednesdays
Santa Cruz country music fans don’t have to go far to indulge their inner Hank Williams. Every month, Moe’s Alley hosts a special evening called “Western Wednesdays” in which a regional and local act headlines a show devoted to the unabashedly crying-in-your-beer style of country music. Lookout correspondent Wallace Baine and photojournalist Kevin Painchaud took in a recent evening of honky-tonk revelry.
Posted inLatest News
Petition to limit building height in Santa Cruz officially qualifies for March ballot
City of Santa Cruz voters will likely get the chance to vote in March on whether they want a say before developers build taller than the city’s existing height limits. The citizen-led effort to put the question on the ballot has citywide implications, but is inspired by a city vision for a 1,600-unit downtown expansion to south of Laurel Street.
Posted inCoast Life
The wild, colorful, monstrous art of Jimbo Phillips
Santa Cruz’s Jimbo Phillips is the middle link in a three-generation line of great local graphic artists. As the son of the man who invented the Santa Cruz Skateboards logo and the Screaming Hand, he has carved out his own signature style with an aesthetic deeply informed by the 1980s, surfing, skating and punk rock.
Posted inArts & Entertainment, City Life
New downtown Santa Cruz exhibition mashes up art and poetry
“Broadsides,” opening at the M.K. Contemporary Art gallery, presents the work of some of Santa Cruz County’s best-known poets alongside the work of visual artists — with artist Rose Sellery playing matchmaker.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Who are the ‘Shapers’ of life as we know it in Santa Cruz County?
Wallace Baine introduces a new Lookout series on highly influential and consequential people who have made an outsized impact in Santa Cruz County. Come back Sunday for the first installment of “The Shapers,” and send us your nominees.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
‘Japanese woodblock’ mural suggests waves as new Cedar Street family apartments get ready to open
Painted by noted Santa Cruz County muralist Taylor Reinhold, the artwork on the development between Cedar and Center streets gives us a sense of what downtown’s new paseos might look like.
Posted inHousing & Development
‘Midtown’ vs. ‘Eastside’: Local readers have their say
After Wallace Baine went looking for whether the part of Santa Cruz east of downtown should be called “Midtown” or “Eastside,” we polled Lookout readers for their opinions. Many weighed in, and though one option was the clear favorite, it definitely wasn’t a debate-ending landslide.