“Well…..it’s Pomona.” 

There are names on maps that beckon seductively.  In Africa, I trace the route that will get me to Timbuktu in Mali.  In Spain, one day I’ll meander down to the South to visit Cadiz.  In more familiar cities, there are still areas of the unknown that murmur their siren song in my daily routine.  When I ride down the moving staircases of the London tube, my eye is drawn to circles that punctuate the familiar web of lines; stops called “Cockfosters,” “Chalfont and Latimer,” and “Elephant and Castle.”  I haven’t visited those areas of the city yet, but I will. 

          In the Los Angeles area, there are names in my Thomas Brothers map book that I have driven by hundreds of times but not stopped to see.  The freeway signs point me towards them but I don’t take the off ramps, so when I received the mandate to visit a place unknown to me within the greater Los Angeles area, I had the reason I needed to see at least one of the places where a name intrigues me.  Where to go?  I flicked through the lists of names in my mind and found the one that fit: Pomona, named for the Roman Goddess of fruit trees, gardens and orchards.  She is particularly associated with the blossoming of trees versus the harvest and maybe the name spoke to me because at my house, we just put in a herb garden by our back door, which is growing noticeably by the day in the strong Claifornia sun; or, maybe it was because we just celebrated the Persian New Year, Now Ruz, on March 21^st, the first day of Spring.  Whatever the association, Pomona was my destination on a warm, early April afternoon.

The town was on my list because a section of its old downtown area is an Art Colony, one of the many such designated areas in greater Los Angeles, in areas as diverse as Long Beach, San Pedro, Santa Monica, downtown Los Angeles, Chinatown, Venice Beach, Santa Ana, and most recently, Culver City.  I’m interested in how those areas function within their larger communities and how they find their publics, so I set off with anticipation.

            The Art Colony on Second Street in Pomona on a late Tuesday afternoon in April has the look of a sleepy Midwestern town—one that used to be 5,000 strong in the fifties and has now dwindled to “Population 2,076” on the sign as you drive into town.   In Pomona, at least on the afternoon of my visit, the tumbleweeds appear to outnumber the population; but it’s a tidy place,  so they stay obligingly off the street and in their pen as if obeying the many prohibition signs punctuating the Arts Colony: notices against skateboarding, parking, loud music, dogs, and loitering.  I approach some loitering kids to see if they are willing to talk about their impressions of Pomona.  Seeing me and my camera headed in their direction, they stop smoking, untangle themselves from each other, and leave precipitously.  This is a setback to my plans as the loiterers are the only people I have seen so far on the streets and so my subject pool has just dried up.  I decide to focus on the “art” in “art colony” and leave the interviews until later.           

          The buildings mostly date from the turn of the century through the 1930’s.  A mural covers the side of one of the bars, and it blends local narrative of native people, immigrants, and agriculture, with images of arts practitioners.  Tell tale signs of arts-districthood dot the landscape, a stenciled image of a striding figure carrying a painting under her arm randomly marches across the sidewalk every few hundred feet.  Plastic fruit eclecticize the window box gardens outside gallery spaces, which are all closed, and a sixties structure breaks the rhythmic brick patterns of the other buildings on the street.  It is the Cal Poly Pomona Downtown Center, described in their materials as: “an inviting place where the University and the community work together to promote the unique cultural heritage of Pomona. We respond directly to the needs of the community as articulated by our community partners and advisors.

The Cal Poly Pomona Downtown Center provides programs in the performing arts, technology, and small business development. We also present a wide variety of learning opportunities in a multitude of disciplines.  The Cal Poly Pomona Downtown Center is a lively place where families can gather for events and find exciting opportunities for personal growth and learning. We work with partners in the community to obtain funding for programs that enrich the quality of life in downtown Pomona.”  The Center and the Charter School of Arts and Enterprise sound very interesting, but today the place is a ghost town.  Buildings appear closed and empty; they might contain artists’ studios, but if so, they are well hidden.  I cross over to look more closely at a dog in the window of an electrical contracting company to find that he is not so much a well-trained guard beagle, as I had originally thought, but rather a plaster replica—a fake protector against loiterers already scared away by the signs. The building is, of course, closed, but I stop to read a sign: “Sorry, we do not stay open for walk in business. Our hours of operation for contracting are 8:00am to 4:30am, Monday through Friday.  If you need anything special, please call 909-623-2521 and we will help you if we can.  We still do lamp repairs and sell parts for some small appliances.  Please call before coming in.  Thanks.”  Next door, the Samoan Church promises fellowship on Sunday mornings but not, apparently, on Tuesday afternoons.

A cyclist rides by, but as I stop to document his existence, he gets away and I lose my chance to talk to him.

          I return to the intersection of Garey and Second Street, where I had started my exploration—there are a few open stores there and I reason that if I am their only customer, they won’t begrudge me a little conversation.  First, I enter “The Magic Door IV,” where I meet one of the owners, Dwain Kaiser, resplendent in full beard and salt and peppery hair halfway down his back.  Surrounded by books, boxed, shelved, and teetering in piles on his desk, Dwain holds bibliophilic court in his two year old business.  This Magic Door is the fourth incarnation of his dream, named from the 1923 short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle about his boyhood library, Through the Magic Door.  Dwain is hopeful about the prospects for the Arts Colony to thrive and grow; he says that “it has been getting better in the last half dozen years,” and that I should come back to see the place during the next artwalk on the second Saturday in April.  Crowds of people descend on the area, all the galleries are open, and there is often a concert at The Glass House music venue across the street.  The rest of the time, he tells me, it’s quiet, although “sometimes at the weekend, there are people around.”  Dwain says, in answer to my question, that he likes Pomona but that he doesn’t live there.  I thank him for his time, buy a book and ask if I can take a photo.  He says that would be fine and ignores me while I take several shots.  As I leave he beckons me back and hands me a card with his email address, asking if I will send him copies of the photos.

A few doors down the street, I go into “Passion 4 Fashion.”  As you enter the turn-of-the-century brick building, the clothes look much like those on racks in any junior girls’ department, but as you go through the archway into the other half of the store, the walls turn blood red and every article of clothing on the racks is black.  There are touches of white or silver in skeletons and other graphics, or splatter of blood drops falling from daggers emblazoned across t-shirts, but basically it’s goth heaven.  After her customer leaves, the very friendly salesperson is happy to chat about Pomona.  She tells me the business has been open for about three years and that it is usually quiet like today, except at the weekends when there’s a band playing or during the Saturday artwalks,  and adds that February’s artwalk was the one hundredth event in the series, drawing an estimated 3,500 people.    She says that Pomona is “ok, it’s better than it used to be but still a lot of people don’t want to come here.”  I ask why and she answers, shrugging, “well…..it’s Pomona.”  Like Dwain, she is not a resident of the town, but she is a big fan of the artwalks and the artists who show their work on those Saturdays, “They’re really good artists, and you can carry your wine with you when you walk down the street.”  I thank her for talking to me, buy a t-shirt and move out of the dark side and into the light.

            Next, I entered Second Street Bistro in search of a cappuccino while I looked for another interviewee.  The bistro is empty of customers, so I introduce myself to the waiter, Chris, who also works at the Pomona College Student Center.  He is able to expand a little on Nebula’s cryptic assessment of Pomona’s dubious attractions for visitors and tells me that people used to be scared away by the reputation for gang activity and general seediness, but that was mostly in the nineteen eighties.  The restaurant has been open for 3 years now and they haven’t had any incidents, so Chris feels that it’s safe, although he doesn’t live here.  Chris places Pomona’s Art Colony within the context of any arts area, “There’s always the possibility of trouble but it’s generally ok.”

            After my cappuccino I drifted back out to the street.  I notice that the trash containers are decorated, in a casual kind of way.  Yes, we’re in an arts colony, they seem to say, but we’ll just keep things low-key and see how it goes.

            I could see the rest of the city spreading out from the intersection of Garey and Second, and I think about surveying the surrounds but decide to save that for another foray into Pomona, with its motto, “A rich heritage, a bright future.”  Maybe I’ll take the train next time, as Amtrak gets you from Union Station to Pomona in 41 minutes.