Easter 2013 at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium

The Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium is an event and convention venue located in downtown

Santa Cruz, California Santa Cruz (Spanish for "Holy Cross") is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, in Northern California. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 62,956. Situated on the northern edge of Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz is a pop ...

. It is owned by the City of Santa Cruz and is located at 307 Church Street. Opened in 1940, it was built in what was described as, "

Mission-style The Mission Revival style was part of an architectural movement, beginning in the late 19th century, for the revival and reinterpretation of American colonial styles. Mission Revival drew inspiration from the late 18th and early 19th century ...

in architecture with a modern touch and an arrangement of open porches on the corners and sides."Bruce Bratton
"Civic Virtues: Rare among town halls, the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium has held a central place in the area's cultural and political life for 60 years"
''

Metro Santa Cruz ''Metro Santa Cruz'', a free-circulation weekly newspaper published in Santa Cruz, California from 1994 to 2009, was renamed the ''Santa Cruz Weekly'' on May 6, 2009. The weekly continues, under its new name, to cover news, arts and entertainment ...

'', March 29, 2000. Its style has also been described as

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

. It is the home of the Santa Cruz County Symphony as well as other concerts, expos, conferences, and sporting events. A

carillon A carillon ( , ) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a keyboard and consists of at least 23 cast-bronze bells. The bells are hung in fixed suspension and tuned in chromatic order so that they can be sounded harmoniou ...

was installed in 1963. In 1956, the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium was the location of a

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from Africa ...

concert that drew national attention after the local police stopped the event because of what they characterized as the dancers' "suggestive, stimulating and tantalizing motions". The Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium was the site of the annual

Miss California The Miss California competition selects the representative for the state of California in the Miss America competition. The pageant began in Santa Cruz in 1924 and was held there in 1925. During the years 1926 through 1946 in years when the Mi ...

beauty pageant from 1966 until 1985, when the pageant left Santa Cruz after years of protests and a "Myth California" counter-pageant organized by local

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

activists led by

Ann Simonton Ann J. Simonton (born 1952) is an American writer, lecturer, media activist, and former fashion model. She founded and coordinates the non-profit group "Media Watch", which challenges what they see as racism, sexism, and violence in the media throug ...

and

Nikki Craft Nikki Craft (born 1949) is an American radical feminist activist and writer. Activism 1970s In 1975, Craft presented the Rockwell International board of directors with "...naked doll splashed with blood-colored paint" to protest their B-1 bo ...

. In 1984, artist

Guillermo Wagner Granizo Guillermo "Bill" Wagner Granizo (né William Joseph Wagner; March 11, 1923 – November 1995) is an American artist, known for his brightly colored ceramic tile murals which often featured historical or autobiographical references. He was active i ...

donated a ceramic tile mural entitled, "A Gift of Appreciation to this Area," which featured imagery of past events at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium. The auditorium was used as a temporary shelter for displaced and homeless people following the

1989 Loma Prieta earthquake The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake occurred on California's Central Coast on October 17 at local time. The shock was centered in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Santa Cruz County, approximately northeast of Santa Cruz on a section of t ...

. It was used for this purpose again in 2020 during the

CZU Lightning Complex fires The CZU Lightning Complex fires were wildfires that burned in Northern California starting in August 2020. The fire complex consisted of fires in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, including fires that had previously been separately tracked as ...

References

External links

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"History of the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium"
Santa Cruz Public Libraries. Buildings and structures in Santa Cruz County, California Convention centers in California Santa Cruz, California {{California-struct-stub