Giving Credit Where Credit's Due

September 24, 2007

Dear Editor,

An addendum to your piece on the Promenade: While it is true that Peter Ehrlich was the artist who sculpted the Dolphins, the whole program was the brainchild of Mark Mawrence, a Santa Monica resident who was a member of the Bayside District Board in the late 1980's and early '90's.

Mark designed the whole program and recruited Peter to design the Dolphins themselves, as part of a strategy to give visitors a way to help the homeless without giving money to panhandlers. Mark also produced a film trailer that explained what the Dolphins were all about and recruited the movie theater operators to screen it .

I don't think Mark was ever properly credited or thanked for his community-spirited efforts on this.

Denny Zane