On The Road – Steve from Mendocino – Mendocino Village – fourth set

The Mendocino Babtist church is a cheap, basic structure which, in this light, really shines.  It is down the hill from the high school, and the students use the picnic benches behind the church as a spot to hang out and smoke dope (Mendocino being one corner of the “emerald triangle).

Main Street, which includes the Mendocino Hotel, consists mostly of tourist-oriented shops and establishments.  This shot was taken on a rainy winter morning not long after dawn.

The second and third floors of a little apartment building in the center of Mendocino Village.  I try not to think of what it would be like to be up there during a fire.

View east on an early winter morning.  Toward the commercial center of the village.  You can see the freemason statue on top of the savings bank.

The Presbyterian church sits on a cliff overlooking the Big River bay.

The residential west end of the village looking out toward the ocean on an overcast morning.

Temple of Kwan Tai.  From Wikipedia:  “The temple was constructed from local redwood in the mid-19th century and served what was once a large population of Chinese immigrants who worked in or supported the lumber industry in Mendocino, including survivors from a fleet of Chinese junks that sailed to California for the gold rush and landed instead on the Mendocino coast. The temple’s ownership was passed down through Chinese families until, in 1995, a nonprofit organization was formed to restore and maintain the temple.”

I’ve been told that at one point, there was a lot of noise from the white population about how the Chinese were taking lumber company jobs from locals, so the Chinese workers were sent away.  Nobody applied for the jobs, so they were subsequently brought back.  Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Intersection of Lansing and Main, the two primary commercial streets in Mendocino.