A Millennium Wall in Palisades Park of Santa Monica is located at Ocean Avenue and San Vicente Boulevard. Created in 1999 as a part of beach and coastal projects, it’s a curving thick low wall of concrete. It appears like rough grey metamorphic rock, giving a sense of the Earth’s geomorphology and tectonic plate movement. The wall is about 200 feet in length with each foot of the wall representing every ten years of the past millennium.
Two gaps along the wall occur, first at 154.2 feet representing the year of 1542, when Spanish navigator Juan Cabrillo initially sailed into Santa Monica Bay. The second gap appears at 187.5 feet indicating the year 1875, when Senator Jones and Colonel Baker founded the City of Santa Monica.
On the top smooth surface of the wall, we will see an embedded bronze inscription cited from Rachel Carson who was a 20th century American marine biologist, activist, and leading conservationist whose ocean trilogy and book Silent Spring advanced marine conservation and the global environmental movement.
The inscription reads:
“Meanwhile the sea ebbs and flows in the grander tides of earth whose stages are measurable not in hours but in millennia-tides so vast they are irresistible and uncomprehended by the senses. Their ultimate cause may be found to be deep within the fiery center of earth, or it may lie somewhere in the dark spaces of the universe – Rachel Carson.”
There is a vista point area overlooking the ocean and a plaque reading, “Millennium Wall dedicated to the rich history that defines us and the timeless beauty of our surroundings, second day of October, 1999, City Council of Santa Monica.” Benches are arranged nearby inviting visitors to enjoy the ocean view.
It resonates with aims of the Santa Monica Office of Sustainability of the Environment celebrating its 30 years of conserving and enhancing resources, protecting the environment, human health, and benefiting the social, cultural,
and economic well-being of our community in this century.
We are observing upcoming events in Santa Monica that are considered as jubilees, including the city’s founding 150 years ago, and the same year in 1875, the First Presbyterian Church was established. The Santa Monica Pier was built in 1909. Our seaside city continues to be a world destination.
Looking back, my appreciation goes to Mrs. Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker (1827–1912) who generously contributed a grand stretch of land creating Palisades Park at the edge of the bluff along Ocean Avenue, providing the public with ocean views and walking paths, along with a place of creative installation art.
This Millennium Wall marks the past as we are now proceeding into a regenerative future, reminding us to recognize the Earth’s energy and human activities in unity to flourish together.
By David Blundell
Blundell is a Santa Monica native, world traveler, and cultural anthropologist. He has been active in the fields of environmental sustainability in Asia for decades and is currently teaching in programs at Santa Monica College and UCLA.
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