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10. The I.V. Clinic Building's Intriguing Story
By Carmen Lodise
Convicted murderer Jack Quaglino was paroled in 1989. And the Isla
Vista Medical Clinic expanded its building, known since 1970 as
the Isla Vista Community Service Center, in 1990.
Why are these two events mentioned together? It's all part of
Isla Vista's dark past. Murder, intrigue, sex scandals, and more,
figure in the history of the building--one of the most valuable
assets owned by any Isla Vista community agency.
The Old Days
Two of the 4,500-or-so buildings thrown up in Isla Vista during the development orgy of the 1960s was an office complex consisting of a one-story building at 966 Embarcadero del Mar and a two-story one behind at 970. The local pharmacist, Phil Quaglino, financed the complex, but it never really caught on. Even before the Bank of America was burned (leaving in its wake a 20% decrease in UCSB enrollment and a 25% vacancy rate in I.V. apartments), the complex was never fully occupied.
Between 1970 and 1976, the Isla Vista Community Service Center Corporation held the back building under a master lease. The IVCSC housed several community agencies, most of which paid their rent through grants from the county, the UC Regents, and even the Bank of America. Tribute money, some people called it.
It was during this period that "Pete the Freak" painted
a mural on the north end of the building, dubbing it the "Isla
Vista People's Center." That mural, along with one of a joint-smoking
freak on the south end of the building, were both painted over
during the re-modeling of the building in 1989-90.
During the early 1970s, Suite C in the front building housed the Isla Vista Community Council and its Planning Commission (where a Mexican cantina is now), and Suite D held the local, weekly newspaper, the Town Crier (where Traveltime makes travel arrangements today). Also at the time, an organic grocery store (Sun and Earth) held forth where the Deja Vu bar and grill is today, while another restaurant dishes up Mexican food in Suite A where a dry cleaning establishment used to be located.
Besides the Open Door Medical Clinic, the IVCSC held the first community credit union in the country, a legal collective, Switchboard (a 24-hour hotline for people in distress), and a counseling service.
By the mid-1970s, the Isla Vista Recreation and Park District
had been established, and with its financial power forced its
parent organization--the IVCC--into a smaller office in the back
building (you know how rebellious youth can be).
By then, too, the orgo grocery store had gone out-of-business,
as had the community newspaper (the latter's space first having
been taken over by a blood-collecting business).
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