California's Central Valley - Part I: Fresno

[plinko]

In 27 years (WTF?) of posting photo threads here, one of the most successful was a thread I did on California’s Central Valley cities in 2007. That thread is long lost to the archives, but I still venture through and around the CV a few times a year.

The Central Valley is an odd place. Ringed by amazing mountains that you rarely can see due to the smog. Set so low in elevation that the fog rolls in and then stays…for weeks sometimes. An agricultural paradise, but one which results in an extremely segregated environment. An area of millions of people, but with those in power seemingly at odds with California’s goals of being a steward for the environment. It is a curious place, as I said.
The majority of people going from LA to SF or the other way jump on the 5 and put it in cruise control down the western side of the Valley, straddling the San Andreas fault. On the eastern side though are some interesting towns and cities. They are generally bloated, overgrown, and very sprawly, but not entirely without their own charms.

These photos are from my last couple of trips through the CV, all the way up to top in Redding, where the Valley finally gives way to the Sierras.

We shall start with Fresno.

I’ve long since given trying to understand this place. It’s a metropolis larger than many places such as Buffalo or Tulsa or Omaha. It’s a center of industry, but the least ‘urban’ of any industry you might think of: agriculture. And while most of the CV cities are dependent upon agriculture, Fresno doesn’t have much to augment that with like Bakersfield for oil, Modesto for wine, Stockton for its port, or Sacramento for the capitol. The resultant city is well…just dreary. I spent a few hours there recently roaming downtown and the nearby Tower District.


FRES 001 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

Someday…sigh…

FRES 002 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

Most Southern Californian’s experiences with Fresno likely result in it being a pitstop on the way to Yosemite…

FRES 003 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr


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FRES 019 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

Fresno City Hall was designed by Candian architect Arthur Erickson (who also designed California Plaza and DTLA). The form is meant to mimic the relatively nearby Sierra.

FRES 021 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr


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The Fresno Grizzlies for years had a AAA Pacific Coast League team, but with the reshuffling of the minor leagues are now just a single A team. Sad, because their ballpark is beautiful.

FRES 062 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr


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FRES 064 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

Fulton Street was for many years a pedestrian mall. I’m not sure when they re-opened it to vehicles.

FRES 065 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr


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Sigh…again…

FRES 091 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

[plinko]

FRES PANO 001 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

FRES PANO 002 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

[202_Cyclist]

Thank you for posting. I don't think I have ever seen photos of Fresno on this site. I lived in California for more than 20 years, including two years in Sacramento, and I have never been to Fresno.

If high-speed rail is ever completed, it seems like it would greatly benefit the city. I know Fresno has ambitious plans for the downtown area surrounding the station.

I read a column in the Sacramento Bee more than two decades ago now suggesting that the UC Merced campus should have been built in downtown Fresno instead. It would have helped revitalize Fresno and lowered the cost of higher education for students, since more students could have lived at home, while avoiding sprawl in the Merced location.

This photo is poignant with the corrupt Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act this week.

[ColDayMan]

Fabulously Rustbelt.

[Echoes]

After reading some Steinbeck over the past year I will be following your CV tour with great interest.

[LAsam]

This shall henceforth be referred to as the definitive Fresno photo thread! Thanks so much for sharing. I don't know what it would take to revitalize downtown Fresno... needs a catalyst. Maybe being a hub for the high speed rail could do that.

[ChrisLA]

Originally Posted by plinko

FRES PANO 002 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

Love this building, I remember when it opened, it was a few months after I moved here. I ended up living here for 5 years and a lot of the residents were very critical of the building.

Many of the new residents would get frustrated with the local city government because they felt it could be a much better city if they only realize it's not a small-town city anymore and becoming a medium size city.

It's sort of a weird place compared to coastal California, but yet still feels very much California with a hint of a conservative vibe. The first time I had ever heard of Rush Limbaugh was when I moved to Fresno, and it was actually from a colleague who was from the Dallas area and would listen to him every day in our office. There were also a lot of bumper stickers on people cars in this area. Even with all of this on the surface you may not notice right away, but it was actually quite a diverse city.

[ChrisLA]

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

Fabulously Rustbelt.

It's funny you say that because it makes me think of a friend of mine, I knew from LA but originally grew up in Baltimore, and lived in NYC, Philly, and Nashville for some years as well. His view of Fresno was it isn't a bad place to live but if it was someplace else in the east or mid-west it would be a nice and likeable city.

I would say it has some good things about it and I was told by the transplants it takes about 5 years to begin to appreciate it. The funny thing was the people who told me this was from NYC, San Francisco, and London UK. (lol) I did enjoy that it was central to a lot of popular spots to get to in California, and lots of nature (Yosemite, The sequoias, Lake Tahoe, Bass Lake, Millerton Lake), and the coast (Carmel, Monterey, etc.) I really love the foothills just north of the city, especially in the late Fall and Winter months, it was lush green and look like something out of Ireland.

[sopas ej]

Nice photos of Fresno! A city I've only ever been through, not to.

Back in the mid-1990s, I worked with a girl who was a few years younger than me, who was from Fresno. She told me that she grew up in Ann Arbor, MI, but her freshman or sophomore year of high school, her family up and moved to Fresno. She hated the transition. She remembers when they were building the city hall; she referred to it as the "Millennium Falcon."

[ChrisLA]

FRES 024 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

I really love your photo thread, and I just want to comment on a few photos.

Thanks for sharing as it brings back fond memories, I appreciate now that I didn’t as much back then. I always liked the train station and used it often to go down to Los Angeles on the weekends. I was quite surprised to see when I come in on Monday mornings from LA to see so many people actually using the train to commute from the smaller cities around the valley to work in Fresno. Winter months were especially beautiful to see the sun rising over the snowcapped mountains.



FRES 027 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr
Again, beautiful, I’m glad you captured the waiting room bring back memories of me waiting for the train to head to LA for the weekend.



FRES 085 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr


FRES 086 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

Nice, the Tower District is an underrated area, IMO, it’s a walkable area and pleasant to walk as there are so few like this since much of Fresno is more recent development. With the one-way streets and the mom-and-pop businesses it makes me think of going back in time to like the early 1960’s. At least that is what it was like when in lived there in the early 1990’s. There were some good places to eat, and I recall a nice jazz club, but I suspect it’s not there anymore. Some people may recall this, but a young woman was robbed and killed just outside the Tower Theater when I lived there her father was the one who fault for the 3 Stikes law. It used to be a nice restaurant that was popular because it stayed open very late.

There really are a lot of older charming neighborhoods around this city, but they are more north of what I see you posted in this thread. I really like the Old Fig Garden neighborhood. Also, the neighborhood just north of the tower district by the city college is nice, and they are full of mature trees. The homes are beautiful and full of character. New Fig Garden is quite nice as well, but it looks like where the new money is, kind of like how we have San Marino-Old Money, and perhaps Beverly Hills/Calabasas-New Money.
I don’t know if you were able to make to Huntington Blvd between 1st Street and Cedar, but this is where some of the doctors, lawyers and politicians used to live back in the day. It’s a very beautiful street full of large old charming homes, a must see if you haven’t checked it out before.

Overall if you are into newer suburban communities there are tons of options on the north side. This is actually where most of the population resides, and these folks hardly ever cross over into the areas you covered, unless they work downtown, or at the IRS which I believe is the largest employer in Fresno.

Unless you live in the area there are no reason for most people to go site seeing, and going down Hwy 99 through Fresno certainly wouldn't make anyone want to visit the city. Hwy 41 on the other hand is more pleasant but other than the residents commuting on it, the rest are just passing through going up to Yosemite National Park, or one of the lakes. Neighborhoods such as Woodward Park is one of the prime areas where a lot of the middle-class and some upper middle-class prefer to live. I mention already but the even more wealthy reside in Old Fig Garden and New Fig Garden.

I have some friends who used to live in a gated area on the north side (moved to NYC 10 years ago) and the part of the development had homes where their back yards was on the lake. It was manmade lake, but it was a very nice community with a very large city park that had bike trails that ran by the San Joaquin River. Then there is Clovis, I guess you can say it's a suburb of Fresno. It's popular because they have a really good school district and they have some hidden wealthy communities' that are very low key but very well to do. The best I can describe of this area of Clovis is a cross between Orange County and something like the Santa Rosa Valley up in Ventura County near you. This is far away from the Highways, so it's not really known if you aren't from the area. The only reason I know about this area in Clovis is because my friends lived close by and have driven me through the neighborhoods, I'm pretty sure they like it that way.

[hauntedheadnc]

It couldn't be helped:

• Video Link

[OhioGuy]

I've been curious about Fresno. Unfortunately I never made it there for a visit when I was living in CA. Interesting to see these photos. Thanks for sharing!

[Evo5Boise]

As mentioned above, it does have a very rust-belt city vibe.

I don't mean any disrespect to any Fresno citizens on here, but there is just something depressing about the downtown area. Some interesting architecture, however.

[xzmattzx]

Nice pictures! I was actually almost going to be in Fresno a few weeks ago, to fly in and visit my brother, who was a park ranger at Sequoia N.P. (temporarily, and is now back at Crater Lake N.P.). But I ended up going to the Virgin Islands instead. Now that there was a chance I was going to fly into there, I am a little more interested in seeing the city, even if it has a reputation for being really sleepy.

On the note of visiting central California, I was in Sacramento last year for some Phillies games over Memorial Day weekend with my aforementioned brother, and people at bars we were at were blown away that someone from the East Coast would go out of his way to visit Sacramento. We were like celebrities. Interestingly enough, these Sacramentans were telling us that it is very rare for Sacramento to get visitors from places other than Oakland or Fresno, and people asked us if we were from Sacramento (the Phillies jerseys should've given them their answer).

What exactly is the Tower District? Why does it have that name?

So that is the infamous high-speed rail line that doesn't have any tracks. It looks it is weathered and old already, despite never actually operating.

[ChrisLA]

Originally Posted by Evo5Boise

As mentioned above, it does have a very rust-belt city vibe.

I don't mean any disrespect to any Fresno citizens on here, but there is just something depressing about the downtown area. Some interesting architecture, however.

I don’t think there are any one from Fresno on this forum, but I lived there for 5 years in my mid twenties. I’m a native Angeleno, and I agree with you that downtown Fresno is depressing. Most of the people in Fresno don’t even visit, they hang out in Riverpark which is one of those suburban fake downtown lifestyle centers that’s rather sterile but that’s where the majority of city residents visit. It’s up on the north side of the city, most outsiders usually wouldn’t see because they are usually passing through town on the older neighborhoods that are usually less affluent and off the highway that all you would see is train tracks and lots of industrial areas.

When I viewed the many beautiful threads on here of Boise, Idaho I immediately can see how much Fresno looks like this city. I made comments in those threads about how much I would love to see Fresno get their act together and revitalize their downtown to look like Boise. I personally think it could happen, they definitely have the bones already. I was told by some of the old timers that the downtown area was the spot everyone visited, but over the years instead of maintaining it as the city grew northward it was just neglected and this is where it’s at today.

[craigs]

Great architectural photos! I love California's old gems. I must admit that I have only driven (very briefly) through downtown Fresno, and I've never actually set foot in the city.

Originally Posted by ChrisLA

I don’t think there are any one from Fresno on this forum, but I lived there for 5 years in my mid twenties. I’m a native Angeleno, and I agree with you that downtown Fresno is depressing. Most of the people in Fresno don’t even visit, they hang out in Riverpark which is one of those suburban fake downtown lifestyle centers that’s rather sterile but that’s where the majority of city residents visit. It’s up on the north side of the city, most outsiders usually wouldn’t see because they are usually passing through town on the older neighborhoods that are usually less affluent and off the highway that all you would see is train tracks and lots of industrial areas.

When I viewed the many beautiful threads on here of Boise, Idaho I immediately can see how much Fresno looks like this city. I made comments in those threads about how much I would love to see Fresno get their act together and revitalize their downtown to look like Boise. I personally think it could happen, they definitely have the bones already. I was told by some of the old timers that the downtown area was the spot everyone visited, but over the years instead of maintaining it as the city grew northward it was just neglected and this is where it’s at today.

I am old enough to have witnessed downtown San Jose transform into a relatively dynamic center from a place just as forgotten and sleepy as today's downtown Fresno. San Jose also had huge blocks lying fallow after mass "urban renewal" demolitions, too. Downtown Fresno could similarly transform into a busier and more built-up place, but that would take a lot of money and a lot of time.