Branciforte Creek

Known informally as the Octagon Building, the redbrick octagonal building at 118 Cooper Street (at the corner of Front Street) in Santa Cruz, California was built in 1882, adjacent to the first (1866) County Court House, to serve as the County Hall of Records. In 1894, a major fire destroyed most of the nearby buildings, including the adjacent courthouse, but the brick Octagon survived. In 1968, the records were moved to a new County Government Center. Many historic brick buildings on the Pacific Garden Mall were damaged during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, but again the Octagon survived. On March 24, 1971, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.Since 1993, the Octagon has been used as the Museum Store for the adjacent Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH), and later as a coffeehouse. Vacant as of October 2016, the building is administered by the MAH.

The Hotel Metropole, built in 1908, was added to the National Register of Historical Places in 1979. It was demolished after being severely damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. It was built as a hotel to offer "forty-eight 'furnished rooms for transient and permanent guests' at fifty cents per day", and also offered space for "a millinery, the offices of C. W. Waldron, a partner of McPherson's, and the C.O.D. Grocery." It was later renamed as the Hotel Al Rose in 1935 and as the Hotel Drake in 1946, and was operated as a hotel until 1961. In 1976, the building housed Plaza Books / Paper Vision.It was deemed notable in 1978 as "a unique Santa Cruz example of turn-of-the-century commercial architecture in the late Italianate style in which pressed-metal ornamentation replaced the more costly and fancy Victorian plaster work it often copied. The four pediments atop the third-story windows, and the acanthus design cornices are particularly handsome. The building is an important part of the physical fabric of the Pacific Garden Mall and contributes to the historical continuity and sense of urbanity along the street. In addition to its inherent architectural value, the building also contributes significant scale to this portion of the street, which is much broader than the tight portion of Pacific Avenue at its northern end."

Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District (SCMTD), or simply Santa Cruz METRO, provides bus service throughout Santa Cruz County, California. In 2022, the system had a ridership of 3,097,100, or about 8,300 per weekday as of the third quarter of 2023. Santa Cruz METRO also operates the Highway 17 Express service for Amtrak Thruway between the city of Santa Cruz and San Jose Diridon station, in partnership with Amtrak California and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority.

The Catalyst is a nightclub located at 1011 Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz, California. The club has hosted big-name artists such as The Beach Boys, Neil Young, Janis Joplin, Pearl Jam, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Phish, Iggy Pop, and Nirvana. The Catalyst moved to its current location in 1976. The main hall is 5,000 square feet (460 m2) and can hold 800 people.

Santa Cruz (Spanish for "Holy Cross") is the largest city and the county seat of Santa Cruz County, in Northern California. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 62,956. Situated on the northern edge of Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz is a popular tourist destination, owing to its beaches, surf culture, and historic landmarks. Santa Cruz was founded by the Spanish in 1791, when Fermín de Lasuén established Mission Santa Cruz. Soon after, a settlement grew up near the mission called Branciforte, which came to be known across Alta California for its lawlessness. With the Mexican secularization of the Californian missions in 1833, the former mission was divided and granted as rancho grants. Following the American Conquest of California and the admission of California as a U. S. state in 1850, Santa Cruz was incorporated as a town in 1866, and became a charter city in 1876. The creation of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in 1904 solidified the city's status as a seaside resort community, while the establishment of the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1965 made Santa Cruz a college town.

Kaiser Permanente Arena is an indoor arena located in Santa Cruz, in the U.S. state of California. It has a seating capacity of 2,505 spectators. It hosts the Santa Cruz Warriors of the NBA G League. It was also the home of the Santa Cruz Derby Girls of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association in 2013 and 2014. The naming rights were bought by health care consortium Kaiser Permanente (KP) despite the company—a sponsor of the Warriors' owner, the NBA's Golden State Warriors—not having facilities in Santa Cruz at the time. KP has since opened medical facilities in Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley and Watsonville.

The Golden Gate Villa is a Queen Anne style house built in 1891 in Santa Cruz, California. The house was designed by San Francisco architect Thomas J. Welsh for Major Frank McLaughlin, a mining engineer and California politician. Visitors to Golden Gate Villa included Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Edison. In the 1940s the house was operated as a restaurant, the Palais Monte Carlo. After passing through several owners, in 1963 the house was purchased by seafood magnate William W. Durney and his screenwriter wife Dorothy Kingsley, who sold it to the present owner. On July 24, 1975, the Golden Gate Villa was added to the United States National Register of Historic Places.

A "Black Lives Matter" street mural has been painted in Santa Cruz, California.

The Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium is an event and convention venue located in downtown Santa Cruz, California. It is owned by the City of Santa Cruz and is located at 307 Church Street. Opened in 1940, it was built in what was described as, "Mission-style in architecture with a modern touch and an arrangement of open porches on the corners and sides." Its style has also been described as Art Deco. It is the home of the Santa Cruz County Symphony as well as other concerts, expos, conferences, and sporting events. A carillon was installed in 1963.In 1956, the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium was the location of a rock and roll concert that drew national attention after the local police stopped the event because of what they characterized as the dancers' "suggestive, stimulating and tantalizing motions".The Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium was the site of the annual Miss California beauty pageant from 1966 until 1985, when the pageant left Santa Cruz after years of protests and a "Myth California" counter-pageant organized by local feminist activists led by Ann Simonton and Nikki Craft.In 1984, artist Guillermo Wagner Granizo donated a ceramic tile mural entitled, "A Gift of Appreciation to this Area," which featured imagery of past events at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium.The auditorium was used as a temporary shelter for displaced and homeless people following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. It was used for this purpose again in 2020 during the CZU Lightning Complex fires.

Mission Santa Cruz (Spanish: La Misión de la Exaltación de la Santa Cruz) is a Spanish Californian mission. Located on Mission Hill, it was founded on August 28, 1791, by Father Fermín Francisco de Lasuén, the successor of Father Junipero Serra. The mission was dedicated that same year. The present mission chapel building is a replica located near the original site, on which Holy Cross Church now stands. Next to the mission chapel is the Santa Cruz Mission Adobe, built between 1822 and 1824. This adobe building served as housing for Indigenous families who lived and worked at the Mission. It is the oldest surviving structure in Santa Cruz County and the best preserved Native American residence at any of the Alta California missions.

The Hinds House is a historic building in Santa Cruz, California. It was built in 1888 and 1889 by Alfred J. Hinds and his wife Sarah. Its Victorian style has been preserved and it is the largest surviving Stick-Eastlake house in Santa Cruz County. Today the Hinds House is a historical inn with rooms rented out to guests visiting or relocating to Santa Cruz.

Casa del Rey Hotel (House of the King) was a resort hotel in Santa Cruz, California. During World War II the hotel was converted to the Naval Convalescent Hospital, Santa Cruz. The hotel was built in 1911 by Fred Swanton on Beach Street as a Santa Cruz Boardwalk development plan. The Resort Hotel had: a pool; gardens; and a grand pedestrian bridge to cross the street to visit the beach. The hotel was at about 500 Beach Street and Cliff Street. In addition to the hotel, there were built Cottage apartments. Later after the war the hotel became a senior citizen housing. In the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake there was serious damage to the hotel and was taken down. The site now is the parking lot across the street from the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk amusement park.