Via California - March/April 2020 - 40

THE WATERFRONT AND CANNERY ROW

Less than a mile north of Custom House Plaza, you'll
encounter San Carlos Beach Park at the foot of Cannery
Row. The park, which delivers sweeping views of the bay, will
host part of the city's 250th birthday extravaganza on June
3. Festivities on deck include the production of a historical
play and the unveiling of a 15-foot-tall ceramic-tile abalone,
a sculpture befitting a city with so many ties to the ocean.
Although Monterey thrived under Spanish and Mexican
rule, it declined during the Gold Rush era, outshone by
boomtowns such as San Francisco and Sacramento. When
prosperity returned in subsequent years, it came from the
sea. Salmon, abalone, and sardines were pulled by the billions from the cold waters of Monterey Bay and canned
along the waterfront. For the laborers, many of whom had
immigrated from Japan, Italy, and elsewhere, cannery life
was backbreakingly hard.
But it was colorful too, as the writings of John Steinbeck
suggest. Steinbeck memorialized his wild waterfront youth
in Cannery Row, the 1945 novel that made the raffish row
famous. (He later won the Nobel Prize for Literature.) The
author and his marine biologist pal, Ed "Doc" Ricketts, are
captured in bronze at Steinbeck Plaza near Prescott Avenue.
Call (831) 646-5640 for an appointment to visit Pacific
Biological Laboratories, the nearby lab where Ricketts wrote
the classic textbook Between Pacific Tides.
From Steinbeck Plaza, wander north among the old can40

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neries now occupied by shops and restaurants. Pop into
ZFolio Gallery for ethereal Czech art glass or Fine Art
Turkish Grand Bazaar for sumptuous rugs and hand-painted
ceramics. Treasure hunters may want to scoot up the hill to
Cannery Row Antique Mall, at Wave Street and McClellan
Avenue. Midcentury modern furniture, carved wooden
seagulls, Steinbeck first editions-they're all here, somewhere, among the wares of 100 different dealers. The 1927
warehouse, one of the least altered structures still standing
on Cannery Row, merits a peek on its own.
The canneries' heyday ended after overfishing and industrial pollution left the bay filthy and dead. Citizen activism
and new state and federal environmental protections led
to its cleanup in the 1970s, enabling a habitat once again
hospitable to marine life. In 1984, the entity that defines
the area today, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, welcomed its
first visitors. Through its sustainable-seafood program and
allied research institute, the aquarium has helped establish
Monterey as a global leader in marine science. The institute's many achievements include the discovery of deep-sea
organisms: To date, its experts have identified more than
200 previously unknown marine species.
Research aside, the aquarium knows how to entertain
the masses. It effectively immerses visitors of all ages in the
bay's utterly strange and fascinating underwater realm. You
can stand before a kelp forest and eye leopard sharks as they
glide through the sinuous, waving fronds, or get hypnotized

BOTTOM LEFT: DANIEL BIANCHETTA

DAY 2

Via California - March/April 2020

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