Razing of Du-par’s Questioned

So, we are to lose another landmark. Du-par’s restaurant is doomed to the wrecking ball for yet another shopping mall. Heaven knows, we have quite enough shopping malls to go around in this area--many of them with a very high vacancy rate.

Granted, Du-par’s isn’t the Brown Derby, and they didn’t hesitate to tear that down. But that was Los Angeles, and this is Thousand Oaks. Du-par’s happens to be a quiet little corner in the midst of many malls, a place to take a quiet lunch in the shade of those old trees, in a building that is certainly representative of a period of architecture that is fast disappearing and worth preserving.

A country and a community gain strength through preserving a historical identity and taking pride in it. If we continue to tear down our past for more and more malls and developments, we are ultimately stealing our own history and forfeiting some of our identity as a community. But, hey, it’s only an old restaurant, right?

MICHAEL W. GOODWIN

Thousand Oaks