Summer in the Cities: Brea, Fullerton Start Feudin’ Over Their Downtowns

Which has the better downtown, Brea or Fullerton?

No, it isn’t a trick question (Brea does have a downtown), but the issue before the house is whether it’s better than Fullerton’s. While such a question might well have lain dormant for decades without needing to be answered, it has been raised in the neighboring cities and, for the lack of anything better in Orange County, could spark a feud that’ll enliven the summer.

Fullerton apparently started things by advertising in a Brea theater, touting itself as having “a real downtown.” That’s just the kind of remark that’ll get a city’s goat, and it did. Brea fired back with a letter to Fullerton city officials, suggesting they were trying to pirate business from Brea.

That charge may require a grand jury investigation, but the other question lingers: which downtown is better--Brea’s modish offering or Fullerton’s somewhat more lived-in look?

I patrolled both of them Tuesday morning, carefully jotting down observations as I walked under a boiling sun. The first problem was determining exactly where downtown Brea begins. Banners have sprouted all along Brea Boulevard between Lambert Road and Imperial Highway, but much of the uninspiring stretch could pass for the outskirts of Topeka, Kan. I hope the city isn’t touting the whole stretch.

Eventually, though, I found what must be the heart of downtown--the famous Birch Street corridor.

It’s a short corridor, and I’d been there before and had the same weird feeling--that I was on the back lot of a Hollywood set. The street seemed created from a set of instructions. It could have been featured in the movie “Pleasantville.”

An old-style clock on the sidewalk even bears the inscription “Good Old Brea.”

You could stand there on Birch Street for a long time and try to think of a word to describe the personality of the downtown. Believe me, I tried.

I met a drywall finisher named Jonathan Swift (that’s what he told me). He says he has done lots of work in South County, where they’re also trying to invent “downtowns” where none existed.

He seemed to know a lot about old-time American downtowns, and finds Brea architecture lacking. “See, it’s very square, very cut out. There’s not a lot of feeling. In the old buildings, the crown moldings, the edgings, the windows, they were built to detail.”

If Brea is too artificial for you, you’ll love Fullerton. Nobody could call its downtown contrived. In one stretch of six storefronts, I counted four that are either closed or going out of business. Perhaps “in transition” would be a nice way to describe what’s going on there. While downtown Brea has two theaters within a block of each other, downtown Fullerton has one--the Fox, which has been closed for 15 years.

On the other hand, Fullerton scores big with the Chapman Building, which opened in 1923 and is still going. The downtown, which definitely has a flavor and personality that Brea’s doesn’t, still is a bit too heavy on the antiques/collectibles industry to suit my taste. Or, for that matter, to qualify as a downtown by any standard other than Orange County’s.

Sadly, isn’t that the issue? Who cares if Fullerton’s aging quaintness compares favorably with Brea’s manufactured hipness? We’re not exactly talking Vienna and Paris--or even Minneapolis and St. Paul.

“Brea’s downtown is more like a moneymaker,” Fullerton bank employee Chad Dewey says. “Here, there’s more history.”

Are downtowns even relevant in today’s hip world, where The Block rules?

“This one is nice,” Dewey, 20, says of Fullerton’s. “It’s something for the tourists to come and see.”

“Do you really think tourists would come out to see Fullerton’s downtown?” I ask.

“They probably won’t,” Dewey says. “But it’s still nice to have.”

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com.