Agonizing Over Art : Rathskeller Paintings, but Not Building, Receive Historical Status

For four hours Tuesday, the San Diego Historical Site Board strained to reach a decision over what to do with the old Aztec Brewery and the long-forgotten murals, paintings, stained glass and other artwork in its taproom that Chicano artists have rallied to save.

In the end, two certainties emerged: The building housing the artwork--called the rathskeller--will be demolished, but the pieces of art--from the carved beams and painted doors to the chandeliers and furniture--will be saved.

There were too many unanswered questions, though, for either the developers or the artists to get too excited.

No one knows what will happen to the art--who will get final custody and where it will ultimately be displayed. But the building’s owner said that San Diego State University has been approached about taking the collection, which depicts Aztec life.

Another thorny issue was the revelation that the owners have in recent days closed the building to outsiders and taken down much of the artwork, including the murals. The works have been crated and put in storage, which raised the ire of historical site board members and barrio artists.

“I’m taken aback,” said board member Jeff Shorn, “that these were snatched off the walls, so to speak . . . and I take it as an offense.” Others, including Salvador Torres, chairman of the Chicano Park Arts Council Inc. that is spearheading the effort to preserve the artwork, said they were outraged.

“They removed the murals and that’s pretty outrageous,” said Al Ducheny, chairman of the Haborview Community Council. “People are taking what they want . . . it should be condemned.”

Beric Christiansen of Phoenix-based Northern Automotive Corp., which owns the Kragen auto parts stores in California and also owns the old brewery, defended his corporation’s actions, saying the art was carefully put in storage to save it from harm as the bureaucratic process of what to do with it slowly inches its way to a resolution.

Christiansen said his firm intends to turn over custody of the art to some group for public display. But he drew jeers from some in the crowd in the City Hall hearing room when he characterized the artwork as “corporate art” and “corporate assets.”

He deflected criticism of his company’s role in taking down the murals, likening it to having a Picasso in your house and then being told by an outsider “to move it . . . because they liked it better elsewhere.”

In voting to designate the inside of the rathskeller an official historical site, the board rejected the city planning staff’s more encompassing recommendation that the entire brewery, including the rathskeller, receive historical site status. The recommendation was based on the fact that the two buildings next to the rathskeller, built between 1911 and 1920, were significant because they housed the old Savage Tire Factory, the city’s first large-scale industrial facility.

Scott Benjamin, a partner in Ramser Development, the company that is buying the property from Northern Automotive to build a warehouse, said that the old brick buildings are dangerous because they aren’t reinforced and that rehabilitating them would be prohibitively expensive.

He estimated that moving the rathskeller, for example, would cost about $500,000.

While the historical site board’s action won’t save the buildings, it does give the artwork some form of official protection, unless its decision is overruled by the City Council.

The board also recommended to the City Council that a “preservation plan” for the art collection be hammered out through discussions between the companies, the city and the public. It is through such a plan, said Kathryn Willetts, chairwoman of the board, that questions like who will pay for what can best be answered.

Christiansen promised the board that his company would keep the art in storage for at least a year while the issue is being resolved and would give the city 60 days’ notice after that if it intended to do something else with the pieces.

The brewery, at 2301 Main St., opened in 1933. One of its highlights was the rathskeller, where now-deceased artist Jose Moya del Pino and other artists created one of the finest and least-known collection of murals, paintings, stained glass and tile work depicting Aztec life to be found anywhere in Southern California.

When the brewery went out of business more than 30 years ago, the rathskeller art was vanquished from public view. The property changed hands--it’s now home to a tire distributor--and the rathskeller remained closed. But last month, Torres, the artist from the Chicano Arts Council who is best known for his murals on the pillars under the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge, became aware by chance of the rathskeller and its pending demolition.

Since then he and others have pushed to save the rathskeller and, at the very least, to have the murals and other elements of the room preserved. Torres would like to move the art to a museum that would be built at Chicano Park. Ron Trujillo, a representative of the Chicano Park steering committee, told the board his group is opposed to the plan because they weren’t consulted.