Shaping up Newport’s city hall

There’s a new one. Did you see it? A new design for Newport Beach City Hall.

When they ran the first design up the flagpole to see if anyone saluted, people just, well, stood there. The reactions ranged from “I’m sorry, what is it?” to “ugly industrial warehouse,” which is not a good range.

Almost everyone agrees that the city needs a new hall to call its own, desperately. But the questions of what it should look like, what it will cost and how do you pay for it, rank right up there with why can’t you tickle yourself and, if you have a dozen eggs, can you go through the 10-items-or-less line?

I’ll leave the pay-for-it part to the City Council, which is scheduled to deliberate, cogitate and ruminate on the proposal Nov. 22.

But as far as the design for a new city hall goes, I am pleased to announce that I got it. I’m on it. I’m all over this thing.

It came to me in the middle of the night, as things often do. It was an epiphany, a revelation, a vision, a moment of clarity, which is something I hardly ever have.

What should the new city hall look like?

I have two words for you: John Steinbeck. Pay attention. This could get complicated.

When I saw the first design, “ugly industrial warehouse” is not what came to mind. What did immediately came to mind was “Cannery Row,” Steinbeck’s laugh-out-loud novella about a very odd cast of characters who are trying to get by along the long row of sardine canneries on the Monterey Peninsula -- there’s Doc, the soft-hearted marine biologist; Lee Chong, the grocer-philosopher; and Dora, the overly generous madame of Cannery Row.

What does any of this have to do with a new city hall for Newport Beach? I told you this might get complicated; now it has.

Besides being one of the greatest American writers who ever lived, Steinbeck could write like the Dickens about the human condition. If you can read “Of Mice and Men” and “The Grapes of Wrath” and not be moved, you need to have your mover checked at your earliest possible convenience.

In “The Grapes of Wrath,” Steinbeck describes a long highway that carried an endless river of down-but-not-out people, who had been displaced by the Great Depression, from the Midwest to the promised land of California. The highway was called U.S. Route 66, and Steinbeck gave it the nickname that would sear that road and everything it stood for into the American consciousness forever -- “The Mother Road.”

Now then, on the evening of the day preceding the night of my epiphany-slash-visionslash-revelation, I heard an interview on National Public Radio about the celebrations being planned for the 80th birthday, which is next year, of Route 66.

Hours later, when down I laid my head to sleep, it hit me like a ton of briquettes, jarred me awake and made my hair stand up straight, which was embarrassing.

John Steinbeck, Route 66, and a new Newport Beach city hall. Could it be any more clear? I don’t see how.

What are some of the classic sights that make Route 66 the most entertaining road in the world (if not the solar system)? Buildings that are shaped like stuff, that’s what -- motels shaped like tepees, diners shaped like airplanes, souvenir shops shaped like dinosaurs.

Don’t you see?

Tell me I don’t have to spell this out for you.

There is your answer, as clear as a desert sky halfway between Gallup and Flagstaff.

We need a city hall that’s shaped like something!

Talk about making a statement!

Try to see it in your mind’s eye. A three-story whatever that brings people from as far away as Tustin to just stand there and marvel at the largest whatever-shaped building in the western hemisphere, which is, like, half as big as the whole world.

I know we’re a little skimpy on design details here, but we’ll get to that in a minute. There are possibilities by the boatload, and we’re not just talking about Route 66.

Speaking of boats, a big ship would be too obvious, and it’s already been done if you’ve ever seen the Coca Cola headquarters in Los Angeles, which is a stunning, four-story ocean liner built in 1939 at the height of the “streamline moderne” period.

There was the original Brown Derby, which opened in 1926 and was the birthplace of the Cobb Salad by the way, on Wilshire Boulevard. There are tons of food shapes, such as Randy’s Donuts, just off the 405 in Inglewood, beneath the giant doughnut; the Tail o’ the Pup in West Hollywood, a hot dog stand entirely encased in a giant bun; and the Clam Box in Ipswich, Mass.

Kentucky is big on these things. There is the Mother Goose House in Hazard, Ky., a perfect replica of Mother G.’s place down to the round windows completed in 1940; and Bondurant’s Pharmacy in Lexington, Ky., a drug store inside a giant mortar and pestle.

Actually, forget those two. Fairy tale icons are not a good choice for a city hall, and a place that sells drugs is even worse.

There is one of my favorites, the Big Duck on Long Island, a two-story duck built in 1930 as a stand selling duck eggs and chicks, and it still gets decked out in Christmas lights and a giant wreath around its neck every year.

There is the giant Shoe House shoe store in York, Pa., and enough dairies inside huge milk bottles to scare a lactose-intolerant person silly, including but not limited to the big bottles in Libertyville, Ill., Spokane, Wash., and New Bedford, Mass.

I suppose a giant shoe might make an interesting city hall, but being Newport Beach it would have to be a Manolo Blahnik, which would be a problem in a major quake.

Anyway, you get the idea, which brings us back to the question: Exactly what shape shall the brand new city hall be?

You know better than to depend on me to figure anything out, and thus, we hereby announce the 2005 International Name-That-Shape for Newport Beach City Hall Competition.

Yes, the title is a little unwieldy. We’re working on it.

In the meantime, if Irvine can gather designs for a really big park from around the world, we should be able to decide between a giant whatever and a larger-than-life whatzit, no?

The grand prize will be announced when all the entries have been received, which will happen at an indeterminate time, and no, there will be no fact-finding tours to Europe. We might be able to swing a trip to West Hollywood to see the big wiener, but that’s about it.

Get busy. We have a city hall to build.

Think no small thoughts. Make no small plans.

I gotta go.

* PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected].