Fresno: Heartbeat of the Valley (Urban Tapestry Series)

Reviews

Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2004-01-23
Summary: "Cruzing through the valley"

Incredibly enough, this pictorial sketch of Fresno doesn't even lead off with a photograph of the Water Tower. The Water Tower is commonly regarded as Fresno Du Jour, the landmark that mapmakers and guidebook authors most readily identify with the Great Ash Tree.

However, this book opens with a mixture of some rustic scenes, counterbalanced by a two-page shot of the Kearney Mansion and several shots of downtown Fresno, which actually do include a close-up of the Tower on Fresno and O Streets.and the Santa Fe railroad station. But headlined front-and-center among the opening scenes are two photos of Felchin, Shaw & Franklin's superbly-designed Pacific Southwest Building with the historic "Security Bank" wording at the base of the roof.

This is a terrific landmark to highlight. There can be little doubt that if someone were to remake "King Kong" and have it set in Fresno, instead of New York, it would be at the top of the Pacific-Southwest building that Kong and the fighter planes would have their Armageddon.

California Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante's non-partisan love letter to Fresno, published in 2000, is fraught with some irony, not the least of which is the fact that his own connection with Fresno is somewhat tenuous. He was born in Dinuba, California, which is not even in Fresno County, and his early years were largely spent in and around the San Joaquin area.

Moreover, in the most recent electoral campaign, the Central Valley as a whole was probably the least enthusiastic about his candidacy and it was here that his gubernatorial hopes were terminated. But there's no reason to doubt his genuine affection for The Big O and the surrounding areas, as expressed in this volume, or to even suspect that this affection has been diminished by his electoral woes.

In fact, he exults just a little too much in his commentary. For all of its charm and wonder, Fresno has its share of typical urban problems, and it's overstating the case just a little too much to compare it with "paradise" or to suggest that law enforcement keeps Fresno "safe and sound".

For that matter, was it even necessary to include photos of law enforcement officers in this particular book? The job that they do is necessary and vital, of course, but as Thaddeus Sholto says in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sign of the Four", there is nothing more unaesthetic than a policeman. And it's not as though a picture of one from Fresno is going to differ greatly from a picture of one from Buffalo.

And the revitalization of downtown is in its infancy even in the year 2004, and Bustamante is no doubt waxing too enthusiastically over its progress in the year 2000.

But he selects most of the photos for this book with great care and includes both rural and urban settings. And within the pictures of metropolitan Fresno and surrounding areas, there are a variety of culinary, artistic, cultural, and entertainment options to choose from. Yes, Virginia, there is a "there" here. What with nightclubs in the Tower District and Indian casinos in various locations, there's even a nightlife here, if one must have a nightlife.

The book is slightly outdated in that it shows the world-beating (well, they do their best) Fresno Grizzlies playing their home games in an uptown college stadium that they share with the FSU Bulldogs. Downtown Grizzlie Stadium is still a glint in the eye of its designers.

Yet within a few miles of these metropolitan splendors, there is a young boy plunging into Kings River with all the pastoral enthusiasm of Huck Finn. And before I grow too old, I had better set aside time to visit the Pizza Farm, where wheat, tomatoes, dairy products, peppers, and herbs - the ingredients of a pizza - are grown or raised in an eight-wedge circle.

The shilling of the usual big-money sponsors that foot the bill for these types of books can be best skimmed through. If I had a nickel for every instance in which these pandering corporate goons used the word "diversity" (or some variation thereof), I'd have quite a few nickels. What IS diversity, for God's sake? What do you do with it?

However, Sun-Maid Growers of California is apparently still a grower-owned cooperative, and its story, which includes the legends of the accidental invention of the raisin, is one interesting contribution from the corporate end. Both Fresno and nearby Selma have been known as the "Raisin Capital of the World", and the story of Sun-Maid is reminiscent of a Saroyan short story about how the fortunes of some promoters in early 20th century Fresno rose and fell with the raisin.

Overall, reviewing this collection was an enjoyable experience, and Bustamante's pictorial selections are a pleasing reminder to me that much of the Central Valley is still a very large unopened book.