November 4,  2004 - Ed Stops the Bus

In February, we got the smart idea to ride the Number 3 Bus from start to finish and back, counting the number of people who got on and off at each stop.  In the story, we included the “Say you’re the bus driver joke”, a link to an anagram generator, and a reference to a bus stop that looked like a day-at-the-beach.  As it turns out, the mention of the bus stop was foreshadowing.

You see, the picture shown in Yesterday’s Wednesday Where Is It (WWII) was of one of the two beach ball seats at that bus stop.  The stop itself is located on Hitchcock Road in front of the Rancho Franciscan, an apartment complex for persons 62 years old and older.  Besides the beach balls, there is also a wave, an ice chest and a big umbrella. They are arranged in a random pattern as they often are on a real beach. The bus stop was built and designed in 1983-1984.  If we remember correctly, beach balls were very trendy back then.

The dedicated staff of edhat.com discovered yesterday that the apartments and the bus stop were the creation of Barry Berkus.  Mr. Berkus is a local architect and UCSB graduate who has the distinction of being called, “one of the top ten residential architects of the twentieth century.” And, he is still going at it in twenty-first century as well.  His current projects include the new Mosher Alumni House at UCSB. The project is scheduled to be completed in 2006.

BTW, the Rancho Francisco is not the only building/bus stop combo built by Barry Berkus.  He also brought us the Galleria and the palm tree bus bench in front of its entrance on State Street.  You know, the Galleria. It’s the home of bagels, a bridal boutique, and Bikram’s Yoga. Beyond beautiful buildings, Barry Berkus also tried to bring beach basketball to Cabrillo Boulevard, but bad blood between Berkus and beach drummers brought an end to that.

“I guess I’m going to learn how to play drums on the beach,” said Berkus as he threw in the proverbial beach towel.

Fact:  for the 1984 Olympics, Berkus was the Commissioner of Rowing.

So, the next time you are on the old Number 3 Bus as it heads down Hitchcock, take a look out the window at the little piece of beach life across from the car lots.  Maybe you’ll even see Ed catching a wave!

We had nine Edhat subscribers successfully identify the bus bench. They are all winners. But we could choose only one for the daily prize, so we used the popcorn method to decide.  One of the dedicated staff has a dog who can catch pieces of popcorn in mid-air.  So, we wrote the winners names in order on a piece of paper and tossed the popcorn at the dog until she missed. The third toss bounced off her teeth and onto the floor. The third name on our winner’s list was Nisers who wins an Edhat t-shirt and an Edhat hat – good for the beach, or the bus.

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