Pacific Garden Mall

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The Pacific Garden Mall is a shopping area on Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz, California, and arguably the city's cultural center with several book stores and independent movie theaters. The atmosphere is generally peaceful and relaxed; people play music and sing. On weekends, at the fork of Pacific Avenue and Front Street, near Jamba Juice cafe and the Town Clock, representatives of the local Brazilian and Portuguese-speaking populations have dance contests.

Roy Rydell was engaged as the landscape architect for the Pacific Garden Mall and other notable places in Santa Cruz including: Abbot Square beside the Octagon Museum, Plaza Branciforte on Soquel Avenue, the Town Clock Plaza, the Communication Building at UCSC, Deer Park Center, Santa Cruz City Hall Annex, and the Alfred Hitchcock estate.

During the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, several buildings along Pacific Avenue were destroyed, including the Cooper House; a few remaining undeveloped lots are now covered with weeds and murals. Clint Eastwood's 1983 "Dirty Harry" movie, Sudden Impact, includes a car chase filmed in the business district several years before the earthquake.