Paso Robles Rising
A stricken California town comes back—twice.
BY GILLIAN KLUCAS
Visiting Paso Robles, Calif., for the
first time last summer, I expected the heart of town
to be its popular central square, a harmonious blend
of well-preserved historic and modern commercial buildings
ringing a park complete with fountain, bandstand,
playground, and the brick 1908 Carnegie Library, now
home of the historical society. Shading the park were
the stately valley oaks that give Paso Robles its
name (officially El Paso de Robles, Spanish for "Pass
of the Oaks" and pronounced "Ro-buhls"
by the locals).
But I soon learned that the true hub of Paso Robles
is a cluttered office, hidden from view down an alley
off the main square, and the woman who presides there.
All day long, the office is alive with activity as
merchants, volunteers, and city officials come and
go, the door propped open invitingly. At first glance,
Norma Moye, the executive director of the Paso Robles
Main Street Association, seems an unlikely magnet
for so much attention. A short, solid grandmother
quick to show displeasure, she's a kind of den mother
of downtown Paso Robles—ornery, perhaps, yet beloved.
For without her, as nearly every insider will tell
you, there would be no downtown.
To Moye, downtown is a theater, and its central
park, buildings, shops, and restaurants the stage
where, for the past 13 years, she has channeled all
her efforts into putting on a great show. She started
from the low point in the town center's history, when
its buildings were rundown—a quarter vacant, the rest
housing bars and thrift stores—and the square deserted.
As the leader of the local offshoot of the National
Trust's Main
Street program, Moye and her cadre of volunteers
fought to revive the historical and cultural hub of
Paso Robles; their achievement is representative of
the sort of success the Trust aimed for when it first
developed its novel approach to downtown revitalization
and the preservation of buildings. This year, as the
Main Street program celebrates its 25th anniversary,
it can point to hundreds of towns that, like Paso
Robles, have reclaimed their faded commercial and
community centers.
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