Travel Guide to San Sincero, California
Imagine that you are flying over the waves of the Pacific, approaching San Sincero, California. The first thing you see is a tall, off-white lighthouse in good repair, although it has been years since it’s had a decent paint job. Its light is still strong, cutting through the thick fog that enshrouds the city in an intimate embrace from late fall to early summer. Looking past the lighthouse, you see the beaches and the boardwalk, whose arcades and stores are frequented by locals and tourists alike. There is a pulse of life and magic that hums here—a sense of peace that is unknown elsewhere in San Sincero.
Farther south on the coast are the piers and docks of the Port Weyer district. The water here is dark and murky, and the buildings are run down. Long shadows fill with the secrets of souls too cowardly to strive for anything that would expose their hopes and dreams.
North of the lighthouse and boardwalk is where those dreams have turned into old money. Magnificent gothic mansions and estates curve north and then east. The mansions sit upon Mt. Sincero, delineating the northernmost part of the city. The effect is marvelous on clear nights when the lights make these estates appear as monoliths overlooking the city.
To the southeast lie the suburbs, as does UC San Sincero, which sits on the border of the wealthy district and the suburbs. The middle-class suburbs run on rituals perfected by the champions of the rat race—rituals that the painfully mundane perform to keep their mediocrity at bay. It is here that tract housing is truly appreciated, and where strip malls prove that the American dream is alive and well. The suburb dwellers are the ones who know that cul-de-sacs are not really dead ends.
East of the docks is San Sincero’s downtown, which contains a thriving financial district on the northwest side. To the southeast, the financial district gives way to the condemned buildings and aging skyscrapers of a bygone peak of success and glory. The biggest and grandest buildings in downtown were built from the 1920s to the 1940s, and in 1983, programs for the historic restoration of downtown began. By 1990, the original section of downtown was renovated and gentrified. The San Sincero downtown skyline is one of the most impressive and beautiful sights in this fair city.
North of downtown is uptown. Uptown used to be where the folks who worked downtown would live. It was a thriving community with friendly people who worked hard to make their dreams come true. This energy has attracted students and artists since the 1950s, and uptown is known for its bohemian flavor. This used to be a home of possibilities, but within the last decade, that hope has mixed with a fear of neighborhoods that have ceased to be safe. San Sincero State University is in uptown.
The buffer zone between the uptown/downtown areas and the projects to the east is what the locals call the Pleasure District. This is a classic “Red Light District” where activities and merchandise that are illegal elsewhere are legal—or at least tolerated to a certain extent—by the police department. It is here that demons are traded and heavens sought after.
Farther east is the projects, where the unskilled, unwanted, and unlucky end up. As in the Pleasure District, different rules apply here. Tenement housing creates the landscape where people of all creeds and colors come to roost when they gain secure positions at the docks or the downtown warehouses. This is where the projects have been built and forgotten. Drive-by shootings and gang violence are increasing.
East of the projects is the Kelley River (formerly Rio de la Soledad), which runs north to south, curving west to empty into the Pacific just south of the docks. This river separates the city proper from the rural areas. Even though the rural parts are officially part of San Sincero, the residents from both sides of the river treat them as two separate worlds.
During the gold rush, people came to the Rio de la Soledad to pan for gold. Too bad there wasn’t any gold in the river. Entrepreneurs soon discovered that the maritime trade opportunities were far more lucrative—and a lot easier—than panning. Some of the country folk refused to leave. They survived by hunting in the woods that surround the city. The city folk are a little bit scared of the rurals, partially due to not understanding them or their lives and partially because of the rich folklore from the turn of the century.
The San Sincero schoolyards buzz with legends of forbidden pacts, haunted woods, and the insane asylum with patients so dangerous the sanitarium was built across the river to protect the citizens of the city. Adults know that the San Sincero General Hospital and Mental Institute was built by John D. Kelley, a medical doctor from Boston, Massachusetts. The only property available that would meet his needs was just across the river from downtown. He figured it would be easy enough to build a new bridge, and he loved the woods. He and his family lived in a modest home on the east side of the river that was later renamed after him.
As middle age set in, Kelley spent a good deal of his money buying the undeveloped land on his side of the river. He wanted to guarantee that no one would ever destroy the woods that he loved so much. Before he died, he forged legal documents that protected the woods and the folk who lived there, no matter what his descendants would do.
He was well-respected and liked, although he was considered by most to be somewhat eccentric (and some legends about the family are, literally, sinister). His family has lived on this modest but beautiful estate for five generations. His great-great-granddaughter, her husband, and their ten-year-old daughter live there now. She has kept the family name out of respect for her lineage, and even her daughter is legally a “Kelley.” Rumors talk of a bitter husband who doesn’t like to be outshone by a long-dead eccentric, but the husband always seems friendly and happy whenever they go to social events, so who knows what really goes on behind closed doors?
