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Funded by California Natural Resources Agency, Community Foundation Santa Cruz County and local donors, this convenient, inclusive walkway is one of several additions and restorations to the beloved and bucolic area since 2015.
Experience the inspiring commitment to Evergreen, which features this and other significant projects, as part of the 2022 Santa Cruz Film Festival. The Restoration of Evergreen Cemetery directed by author Dr. Traci Bliss and produced by Andrew O’Keefe / Amotion, captures the spirit of community and volunteerism at its best. A focus of the short film is the Chinese Gate made possible by the philanthropy and vision of George Ow Jr., the expertise of historians Sandy Lydon and Geoffrey Dunn, and the artistry of Tom Ralston of Tom Ralston Concrete who also created the new ADA pathway.
(Photo by Crystal Birns)
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Tom Ralston Concrete poured a Plaza slab at the new green/blue glass Glacier building at 601 5th Avenue in Anchorage Alaska on Sept 7th.
The building is getting a new look (and a new floor-plan) loosely inspired by Alaska’s glaciers. Tom Ralston Concerete was asked to pour a specialty slab with dark grey concrete, sand wash finish, and 16-grit black Sparkle Grain to match the glacier-inspired design.
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How often is roadway design still making waves (and headlines!) six years later? The Tom Ralston Concrete Dolphin Design at the Santa Cruz Municpal Wharf is both beautiful and functional in helping traffic flow.
Be sure to get all the details from this recent front page story at in the Santa Cruz Sentinel - https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2022/07/14/photo-traffic-follows-the-dolphins/
Also archived here - https://archive.ph/lVVfs
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Tom Ralston Concrete designed and built the Concrete China Town Monument in 2015. The Monument honors their makeshift burial ground built far in the back of the Evergreen Cemetery as the Chinese were resented by much of the local populace.
Evergreen Cemetery is one of the oldest public cemeteries in California, and it is the final home to many of Santa Cruz County's early pioneers, leaders, and makers of history. The Cemetery is owned and managed by the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH) with the leadership of a group of energized volunteers.
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Tom Ralston, at bottom right in black jacket, and his crew pour new stepping pads this week for visitors to access the rocks and water below Lighthouse Point in Santa Cruz. The new concrete steps create a safer pathway, and according to Ralston, replaces a path that was “very dangerous and slippery with moss, and the angle of the rocks was not conducive to a safe pathway especially for small children and elderly surfers.” Ralston’s crew chipped down the granite rock, which was imported from the foothills of the Sierra and poured flat areas in between the jagged rocks to provide an easy traverse. (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel)
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Tom Ralston Concrete was honored to be able to work on the monument for the City of Santa Cruz with Chinese philanthropist George Ow. Tom was interviewed for a documentary on the Chinatown Bridge on Inside Santa Cruz after the work was completed. In this episode, Inside Santa Cruz documents the inspiration, design, and construction of the Chinatown Bridge Dragon Gate Monument over San Lorenzo River, and discusses the history of Santa Cruz's Chinatowns.
In the documentary, George Ow introduces Tom saying, "Tom Ralston is a master cement artisan and artist. He wrote the book on fancy cement and we get the benefit of three generations of experience and knowledge. Tom and I have worked on a previous Chinese gate over at Evergreen Cemetery, and we had so much fun with that we decided to do one here."