Opening the Fox Theater Pomona was an audacious, ostentatious, expensive proposition—both times. Its original grand opening on April 24, 1931, took place in the midst of the Great Depression and cost a then-exorbitant $300,000. And funnily—or terrifyingly—enough, the theater’s recent grand reopening happened just two months ago, during our current Great Recession. The restoration took a year and a half and cost $10 million. Was it worth it? Brothers and Pomona locals Ed and J

Beauty in the downtown part of a city is a necessity, not a luxury. People will always respond to beauty if we make it intimate and personal and related to the charter and integrity of the city. This was how Millard Sheets summed up his philosophy for the design of the Pomona Mall shortly after it opened in 1962. The Pomona Mall was hailed as one of the first pedestrian malls in the United States and nationally recognized as a blueprint for urban revitalization. Five years in