Local history on the minds of Santa Monicans with the opening of Belmar Park, SMMUSD historical resources policy and the Discovery Building
By Rachel Levin, Copy Editor
On Feb. 28, Historic Belmar Park had its grand opening over Zoom. The park across from the Samo campus will serve as space for school and community sports. It will also honor the Belmar neighborhood, an African American community from the 1900s that was burnt down by white land developers. This new addition to Santa Monica comes with progress in construction and preservation on all fronts on the Samo campus.
Historic Belmar Park is built on what was once an African American neighborhood. The houses and shops that once stood where the Civic Center, Samo, the new field and the various buildings surrounding these were burned down in the 70s to make way for gentrified, white tourism and the freeway. The new field is named after that neighborhood, and is surrounded by plaques containing information about the Black history of Santa Monica. There is also a sculpture, “A Resurrection in Four Stanzas,” created by artist April Banks, meant to represent the homes that once were. Buried below the sculpture is a time capsule, meant to be opened in 2070, filled with art, writing and documentation of Black Santa Monicans today.
The opening of Historic Belmar Park goes hand in hand with the institution of a new SMMUSD historical resources policy. This policy came in part in response to protests against the demolition of the History Building. SMMUSD now promises to bring in preservation consultants when planning for construction and have resources and information about the history of the land on which they are building available where the new structures will be built. This also fits in with environmental requirements the district must fulfill, a guideline that had a hand in guiding the renovation of Samo’s older buildings.They will factor past architecture and adaptive reuse, the process of taking an old building or site and reusing it for a purpose other than it was designed for, into future planning.
“This robust historical resources policy will guide our facility work as we continue to modernize our campuses to accomplish our 21st-century education goals,” Superintendent Dr. Ben Drati said in the press release regarding the policy.
In other news, Samo’s newest project, the Discovery Building, is well on its way to completion. The outside is fully constructed, complete with a waterproofed roof and walls, and work on the interior has begun. To review, the new features this building will have are an Olympic size swimming pool, common areas, rooftop aquaponic agriculture and 251 more parking spaces. The building is on schedule to be in use by Aug. 2021. The district is also on schedule to begin phase three of construction—the demolition of the History Building and the erection of the Exploration Building that will take its place.
Overall, Samo and its surrounding areas have reached the final steps of the current phase of construction and are headed into a new one, all with regard for the rich and newly respected history of Santa Monica.
