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Best Landmark
The Orange Grove at Santa Ana and Helena streets, Anaheim
Have you noticed those concrete slabs with bas-relief oranges that decorate Highway 22? Don’t you think it’s hilarious the county still propagates its bucolic orange-crate myth, even though the county’s citrus industry has been reduced to nothing? Isn’t it hilarious that the nothing is really just a fenced-off orange grove on the corner of Santa Ana and Helena streets in Anaheim? Is the fact that this grove—the place where the county’s 1936 Citrus War started—was twice the size just a couple of years ago and is now slated for demolition just so appropriate for who we are, where we’re going and how we just don’t care? What was it that Smokey Robinson said about clowns again?



Best Building
Taco Bell Discovery Science Center
2500 N. Main St., Santa Ana
(714) 542-2823
www.discoverycube.org
Admit it: The first time you drove past that giant, angled black cube beside Insterstate 5, you thought the actual kids’ museum it belongs to was inside. Later, maybe you caught the light shining through it, realized it was hollow, and wondered what the point was. Did the designer of the Discovery Center just really, really like Pink Floyd and somehow figured kids could learn about the actual dark side of the moon? Turns out it’s actually a massive solar-panel array that powers the museum—if you pay admission, you can find out all the groovy details and, yes, even get inside it. If solar power is indeed the future, could it be that one day we’ll all have trippy black cubes attached to our homes? We can but hope.



Best Evidence of a Town In Need of a Proofreader
Golden West, or Goldenwest?
Come on, people. Even Google Maps chokes on this. Pick one and stick with it. Our copy desk will back you up 100 percent.



Best Use of Stucco
The Irvine Co.
You really shouldn’t be a stranger to that 140-year-old real-estate development giant. Based in Newport Beach and owned by squillionaire Donald Bren, the Irvine Co. is responsible for implanting all those suburban master-planned communities you and the rest Orange County are so very fond of. Looking out the window of your basic Irvine Co.-owned apartment in the city that bears the name, you will behold rows upon rows of these planned communities. A truly depressing sight: the nearly identical, neatly trimmed trees, identical neatly trimmed lawns, identical streets of identical houses and identical apartments, all in varying shades of beige stucco.

While the place looks nice (if you dig uniformity), the bland suburban stucco thing just isn’t for everyone. But, it must also be said: The Irvine Co. is ultimately partially responsible for UC Irvine, having donated 1,000 acres (and sold 500 acres) to the school in 1959. And in the years to come, the company and Bren himself have also donated oodles of cash to UC Irvine. As the name of one of UCI’s most popular Facebook groups goes, “I Hate the Irvine Company but Don’t Tell Them or Else They’ll Stop Giving UCI Money.”



Best Example of Gentrification
Floral Park, Santa Ana
Santa Ana stands as one of Orange County’s least upscale cities—and is, as a result, its most soulful. While the lack of general affluence has resulted in some run-down neighborhoods, “Orange County” has reared its wealthy head even here. Located off Broadway, just off Interstate 5, Floral Park is a neighborhood of wide, peaceful streets, huge lawns and beautiful architecture . . . and nary a tagger in sight. Built between the 1920s and the 1950s, the neighborhood features tasteful farmhouses, Tudor- and ranch-style homes, and well-kept lawns. The homes are painted tastefully, and the air is filled with the sounds of lawn mowers and children’s laughter. This is Santa Ana? Sure, the price of a home in this neighborhood far exceeds the kind of money most SanTanans will ever see, but even Orange County’s grittiest town has to have its glamour.



Best Local Legend
The Poker Game That Named OC
Orange wasn’t always called Orange. The city that would go on to be the namesake for the entire county was originally Richland, a name that would have been oh-so-appropriate/ironic, depending on the side of town you’re on. Because a town in northern California already had that name, the southern Richland’s application for a post office was rejected. When that ruling came down, the four men involved in the fledgling community had a dispute over a new name. Being gentlemen, they decided to settle it in the manliest way possible that didn’t involve shootin’ irons: poker. Each picked something that grew on trees, presumably rep’d their respective junk, and Andrew Glassell apparently had the biggest—pot, that is. He won and presumably named the town after his native Orange County, Virginia. The other choices—Lemon, Olive and Almond—were rewarded with street names. The evidence for this game ever actually taking place is a bit dubious, but if the legend is true, we could’ve been a mere river card away from being Almond County, and then the famous line from everyone’s favorite show would’ve been “That’s how we do it in the AC, bitch!”



Best Haunted House
Stanley House
Stanley Ranch Museum
12174 Euclid Ave., Garden Grove
(714) 530-8871
Don’t let its gingerbread-adorned perfection fool you. Stanley House, built in 1891, standing tall and proud in the middle of Heritage Park in Garden Grove, could just be a ghost-infested hellhole. According to former caretaker Don H., the building is crawling with apparitions. Rumor has it that one such spirit paid old Don a visit while he was lying in bed late one night. According to account records, the spirit came to offer him some fatherly advice: “Don’t take any bullshit!” the spirit yelled before evaporating into thin air. Spooky. Other evidence of the building’s ghostly inhabitants can be seen in photographs taken at the playhouse located in the old barn. Images similar to bolts of lightning and fireballs can be seen dangling above the actors’ heads in some pictures. Known to parapsychologists as “spirit energy,” these images can signal the presence of lost souls trapped in our world with no hope of an escape to the other side. The most popular apparition noted by visitors is the sound of a baby crying from the old nursery. Could it be the spirit of a former caretaker’s baby who died while inhabiting the room? Why don’t you go find out for yourself, or are you too scared?