Name: Santa Cruz California.
SKU: NL-02481
Availability: InStock

A charming 1988 promotional pictorial view of Santa Cruz, California.

Santa Cruz California.

$425

1 in stock

SKU: NL-02481 Categories: Bay Area & Silicon Valley, Bird's-eye-views, California, Pictorial maps

Cartographer(s): City Designs

Date: 1988

Place: Pleasanton

Dimensions: 91.5 x 61 cm (36 x 24 in)

Condition Rating: VG

Description

Description

Oriented towards the north, with redwood forests and the Santa Cruz Mountains in the background, this bird’s-eye-view takes in the picturesque city of Santa Cruz, highlighting local businesses and attractions, ranging from restaurants, cafes, and surf shops, to mechanics, realtors, and an early purveyor of ‘cellular telephones.’

Notes on local history are included throughout, and local landmarks are labelled, including churches, the Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse, and the nearby Santa Cruz Surfing Museum. The University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Roaring Camp Railroads steam train appear at top-left. At left in the foreground is the Santa Cruz Wharf, which was partially destroyed during a severe storm in December 2024, but has since reopened after repairs were completed on the surviving portion.

Census

This view is quite scarce, with only two institutional holdings noted in the OCLC (49499130), located at Stanford University and UC Santa Cruz, and limited market history.

Cartographer(s):

City Designs

“City Designs” was not a single cartographer but a small California graphic-arts studio active primarily in the 1980s–1990s, best known for producing whimsical, advertisement-supported pictorial maps of Bay Area communities. Because these maps were created as local commercial art rather than through a traditional cartographic publisher, very little formal documentation survives, and the firm is largely absent from major bibliographies and map-trade reference works.

Condition Description

Very good.