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Santa Cruz bronze artist Sean Monaghan and concrete virtuoso Tom Ralston install solar-powered bronze lanterns that Monaghan hand-crafted in his Santa Cruz foundry on the “Chinese Arch” at the entrance to the pedestrian bridge over the San Lorenzo River connecting San Lorenzo Park and River Street. A community-driven effort to commemorate the city’s historic Chinese neighborhoods, and actualized by Ralston, Monaghan and mosaic artist Kathleen Croscetti. The arch will honor the city’s Chinatown neighborhood which stood until the middle of the last century on the site where DNA’s Comedy Lab and the Galleria now stand. The project is in part a vision realized with the help of local businessman and philanthropist George Ow Jr., who lived his earliest years, from 1943 to 1948, in the last of Santa Cruz’s four former Chinatown neighborhoods before it was destroyed by flooding in 1955. A mosaic-covered concrete dragon will be installed atop the arch Sunday morning. Ow and Ralston also were behind the creation of a commemorative monument honoring deceased Chinese residents which stands at Evergreen Cemetery. (Shmuel Thaler — Santa Cruz Sentinel)

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