Reviews for Palm Springs: The Landscape, the History, the Lore

The average rating for Palm Springs: The Landscape, the History, the Lore based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-12-11 00:00:00 Henry Maranan The city of Ocean City, Maryland, is a small town that often punches above its civic weight. It has a modest year-round population of around 7,100; but on any given summer weekend, this seaside resort town's population balloons to 350,000 or so - making O.C., for a time, the second-largest city in Maryland after Baltimore. It is a strange and fascinating place, and Mary Corddry tells its story well in her 1991 book City on the Sand. Corddry, a former Eastern Shore bureau reporter for the Baltimore Sun, brings to her examination of Ocean City, Maryland, and the People Who Built It (the book's subtitle) years of observation of the wild, free-wheeling, no-holds-barred business workings of a city that began in 1875 as nothing more than "a name, a hotel, some lots marked off in the sand, and a group of investors who saw big possibilities in a barren, windswept wasteland" (p. 9). Corddry relays in a straightforward and effective manner the story of Ocean City, from the town's beginnings as a coastal resort in the late 19th century to its sometimes frenetic growth and development in the 1980's. Ocean City residents and visitors may enjoy the way in which Corddry chronicles the physical development of O.C., in such a way that a contemporary visitor can walk through the heart of the town, see the buildings whose history she relates, and understand how the seaside city has grown and changed. After telling how what was originally a Worcester County school building was sold to the city, decorated with an eye-catching dome, and designated as City Hall, Corddry emphasizes that "The building…has its roots in the life of a small town, but in recent years has seen issues and controversies of a magnitude equal to those of any big city" (p. 51). Using a series of anecdotes to tell the city's larger story, Corddry recounts effectively a number of highlights, and lowlights, in O.C.'s history. I liked, for example, the way in which Corddry discussed the great storms of 1933 and 1962 - two events that did much to shape the life of the city. The storm of 1933 is often seen as a blessing in disguise because it opened an inlet between Sinepuxent Bay and the Atlantic Ocean and gave rise to Ocean City's sport-fishing industry; the federal and state governments had been trying in vain to open such an inlet, and in this instance "Nature achieved what the government had so far failed to bring about" (p. 101). By contrast, the devastating March 1962 storm was an unmitigated disaster that destroyed or severely damaged hundreds of buildings. Maryland Governor J. Millard Tawes called it "the worst disaster in Maryland's history", and it is easy to understand why: "The beach level had been reduced in some spots by 6 to 8 feet. Some beaches had been narrowed by 100 to 250 feet. Property owners thus lost not only their summer cottages, but the lots on which they stood" (p. 109). Many Ocean City property owners decided to cut their losses and return to the places from which they had come. It was, whether people realized it or not at the time, the start of a process of questioning the rate and pace of development in barrier-island beach towns like Ocean City - even the long-term sustainability of such towns. Corddry also provides illuminating sketches of the lives of the often-colorful characters who have called Ocean City home. Pre-eminent among those characters was former mayor Harry Kelley, a man whose dedication to his city was absolute. One of the best-known moments in Ocean City's history - a time when the little Maryland beach town went beyond local notoriety to make national news - occurred when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in 1977, forbade Ocean City from using bulldozers for beach restoration. The response of the "photogenic and quotable" Mayor Kelley was memorable, and it showed the mayor's awareness of the power of publicity. "In defiance of the agency's prohibition, he called the press and television people he had come to know by first name, donned the hard hat named 'Bully,' got into a big city-owned bulldozer, and personally drove it into the surf to push sand onto an eroded beach at 13th Street" (p. 155). If that's not an Ocean City moment, then I don't know what is! As issued by Tidewater Publishers, a now-defunct Centreville, Maryland-based publishing house that specialized in Chesapeake Bay regional material, City on the Sand is well-illustrated with maps, line drawings, and photographs. Ocean City residents will no doubt find it useful as a chronicle of the life of their hometown. And for O.C. visitors who are back home and missing the place - the ocean, the boardwalk, the fishing pier, the Jolly Roger amusement park, the original Phillips crab house - City on the Sand: Ocean City, Maryland, and the People Who Made It can provide a vicarious way to return to this little city with a big history.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-03-04 00:00:00 Umberto Lanzafame I bought this with the intentions of reading it while vacationing in Ocean City. After the first page I was too enamored with the beauty of the shore, so I finished it after coming back home. I think it was much more enjoyable and understandable reading it after having been there, for now I have an idea of what streets are being referred to. It was very interesting to learn of what streets are original, and what hotels and businesses are still standing. I'm fascinated by this barren strip of land that became almost an overnight sensation and how quickly it grew in a relatively short span of time.