CLIPBOARD

Southwest Orange is that part of the city just east of the Santa Ana Freeway and north of Santiago Creek. Homes are corralled by Chapman Avenue to the north, the Garden Grove Freeway on its southern border and, to the west, the Santa Ana Freeway. And the Santa Fe Railroad tracks a borderline across the neighborhood’s east side streets.

But if there is one thing that changed the neighborhood, it was the automobile. Transportation is the key to the onslaught of towering offices that have replaced the orange groves and modest homes, once the mainstay of this quietly retiring neighborhood.

The traffic has brought business. In fact, within the dozen or so blocks of streets, this little piece of Orange could erect a billboard boasting, “If you lived, worked, shopped, ate out or needed medical care--you’d be there now.”

Main Street, which splits the neighborhood, is dotted with a diversity of activity. Chiropractors and insurance salesman, nurses and doctors, executives and computer programmers-- all stepping to a quick lunchtime beat. They wander into sandwich shops and hair salons. Their cars remain parked in high-rise garages for the day. Imagine, no lunchtime commute. No noon excursions to the gas station. But that is exactly what some folks lament.

The gas bays of Don Clark’s Auto Service are empty. This tiny station with the ski-sloped roof was built by two Danes in 1927. Clark, a third-generation county resident, had owned the area landmark since 1953. Since his death last year, the pumps have been locked. When Don Clark died, a part of Orange history left with him.

Old-timer Fred Gerjets, 78, remembers many a Saturday afternoon spent at the station chatting with Clark. “People would drive up and ask if the station was a historical landmark. Before you knew it, Don was gassing up their cars, showing off the old hand-cranked gas pump and regaling the folks with stories,” Gerjets said. “I spent a lot of good times up there just watching the people.”

But Gerjets has spent the past 75 years watching the area change, too. “We’re overbuilt with offices,” he said. “Too many vacancies in all those buildings. It’ll take years to fill them all.”

Indeed, since the early 1920s, the neighborhood has undergone tremendous physical change. And a major part of the shifting facade is due to the growth of St. Joseph’s Hospital of Orange, whose own history began 65 years ago when a group of Catholic nuns in Eureka was called on to nurse influenza victims here.

It was to have been a temporary assignment, but after the nursing experience, they recognized a challenge--and an opportunity to help more people.

A 10-acre parcel of land on the corner of Batavia Street and La Veta Avenue was purchased by the nuns in 1922. Six years later, groundbreaking ceremonies for the hospital were held. And by 1939, the Sisters of St. Joseph were operating five hospitals. The St. Joseph Health System was alive and growing.

Today, pin-stripe suits with wing-tip shoes have replaced black habits and wimples, but the commitment to health care, and the strength of purpose, remains intact. An example of that commitment is the Children’s Hospital of Orange.

The 200-bed Children’s Hospital of Orange County isn’t owned by St. Joseph Health System but the two health care organizations are connected in many ways. Underground passageways link the buildings, thus allowing the two facilities to share equipment, services and, sometimes, patients.

Although an emphasis on treating children exists in the CHOC system, several elder care convalescent homes have been set up throughout the neighborhood. As a greater portion of the population reaches 65, the need for these centers will increase.

Fred Gerjets has seen this trend as well. “Not many of my friends are here anymore,” he said. “The new neighbors aren’t near as old as I am, but I do OK. Still got a little apartment to call my own.”

Having a little place of one’s own is the key to many of the area’s homeowners. A little place that’s close to the freeways, close to shopping centers like Main Place Mall and Town and Country Center. A home where it’s safe to leave the garage open all day. A place where you know your neighbors for the best part of 78 years.

“People moving in these homes today, “ Gerjets said, “want the same things in a home we wanted three-quarters of a century ago.”

While some things change, some never do.

Population Total: (1990 est.) 6,751 1980-90 change: +1.6% Median Age: 31.4

Racial/ethnic mix: White (non-Latino): 66% Latino: 19% Black: 2% Other: 13%

By sex and age: MALES Median age: 29.9 years FEMALES Median age: 32.8 years

Income Per capita: $16,951 Median household: $35,195 Average household: $37,802

Income Distribution: Less than $25,000: 30% $25,000-49,999: 41% $50,000-74,999: 20% $75,000-$99,999: 6% $100,000 and more: 3%