Back in 2000, a house in Manhattan Beach's Tree Section cost "only" $800,000. A plate of bacon, eggs, hash browns, and pancakes from Uncle Bill's would set you back just $5.25. And cell phones hadn't even evolved to flip phones yet: A Nokia cell phone weighed about as much as today's skinny laptops. 

These and other treasures were revealed as the Leadership Manhattan Beach Class of 2000 formally unveiled its time capsule on Saturday, offering a glimpse of life in Manhattan Beach from a quarter-century ago. 

The time capsule contained news papers, restaurant menus, local souvenirs, and more. The items had been stored in a stainless steel box, encased in a concrete platform, on top of which rested a bronze sculpture of waves. Located on the Greenbelt at 18th Street, the sculpture and platform were marked with a plaque noting that the time capsule had been placed there in 2000. 

On Saturday afternoon, a crowd of about 100 people - including current and former City Council members and Leadership Manhattan Beach participants - gathered on the Greenbelt to recognize the unveiling. 

Project lead Cynthia Cohen said that when the group had been trying to come up with an idea for a project, the time capsule seemed like a "perfect fit." Entering into a new millennium, "It united us, and it united our community," she said. 

"It's a really cool type of project, because look what it's doing - it's bringing our community together," concurred Manhattan Beach Beach Mayor Amy Howorth. "It brought people together then, and it's bringing us together now."

Former Manhattan Beach Mayor Linda Wilson said that the town's major concerns in that year were completing the police and fire facility and Metlox Plaza. "Things have changed in the last 25 years - but not that many. We as council always tried to focus on keeping the town with a small town atmosphere. We still have The Kettle, we still have Uncle Bill's, we still have Ercoles," she said, adding, "In the year 2000, if I were to project anything for 2025, I would have bet my bottom dollar that Steve Napolitano would still be on council." 

The time capsule was not actually opened at the ceremony; Cohen said that to open the capsule, the Public Works Department had to saw the stainless steel top off, and then it took her and class member Liz Laffoon "a good two hours to shake everything out of the packaging." 

 

Instead, class members had categorized everything neatly and laid all of the items out on tables at the Joslyn Center. After the brief ceremony, members of the Mira Costa High School marching band led participants down the Greenbelt pathway and across the street to where the items were on display. 

Items of curiosity included issues of the Beach Reporter, Daily Breeze, and Easy Reader; a copy of the city budget ($42.8 million in operating expenses); yearbooks and programs from Mira Costa and Manhattan Beach Middle School; a Manhattan Beach 10K tshirt; and menus from long-gone restaurants including Francesca's (now Rockefeller), Auberge at Barnabey's (now Second Story at The Belamar), Little Havana (now Nawa Thai), and Houston's (now Wood Ranch). (Current favorites such as Uncle Bill's, OB's Grill and Bar, The Local Yolk, and Pancho's were also represented.)

Leadership Manhattan Beach Class of 2000 member Liz Laffoon told MB News that the group is working with the city to determine where those items should "live" now that the capsule is open. Furthermore, the sculpture will stay where it is on the Greenbelt and there are no plans to put anything else in the capsule space. "Though who knows if a future LMB class might choose to do another time capsule?" added Laffoon. 

(See more photos and curiosities from the time capsule below.)

Leadership Manhattan Beach is a comprehensive 9-month leadership program to educate and develop future community leaders. More than 875 community members have graduated from the program since it began in Manhattan Beach in 1992.