AllWays Traveller Features
Long Beach: California's coastal gem
It's a soft mist that rises above Long Beach, writes Sally Geffin.
As the sun burns away this daily hillside vapour, Ocean Boulevard stretches your eyes through its long vista of art deco buildings, new restaurants and the village heart of old Long Beach.
Just 20 miles south of Los Angeles lies the curious amalgam of vanquished old Hollywood and a new laid back modernity.
My stay in the East Village is equally hybrid.
More laid back art deco architecture. Eclectic arts and crafts proliferate in shops selling mosaics and ceramics, colourful paraphernalia and handmade garments.
The bourgeois sit among the grunge. Strolling with their toy dogs, local residents pass walls overhung with flowers, an art gallery, a vintage clothing outlet or a bohemian café replete with old outdoor sofa.
The magnificent original 40s diner Americana lies between the borders of the bourgeois area and side streets where the occasional drifter still roams.
My hotel, Courtyard By Marriott offers some of the largest rooms in the East Village. Old style courtesy in a non-intrusive manner.
In the corridors leading off the lobby photos of Long Beach's early 20th century heyday provide a nostalgic reminder of a bygone era before the city was rebuilt after an earthquake struck in 1933.
This is a place of contradictions
Long Beach is wealthy. No doubt about it. The city itself let alone its shores sits on a vat of oil.
The question is – how to get at it? Hence the prettified 'islands' dotted close to the shore.
These oil islands in disguise host drilling rigs but until you get close (via your private yacht or more economically, the Harbour Cruise) you'd never guess it since they are surrounded with condo-like high-rise towers, curving walls, colourful lights, waterfalls, and swaying palm trees.
So convincing is their décor that visitors to Long Beach have been known to enquire about staying in one of the attractive 'hotels' on one of these oil excavation sites, attracted by the bold architecture which acts as a frontispiece.
En route to LAX airport the sight of traditional oil rigs beavering away in their rhythmic isolation seems rather quaint, a testament to the country's oil exploration days.
America's second busiest seaport
But these are miniscule compared to the real workhorse - the massive container port spanning 3,200 acres – America's second busiest seaport.
The wealth and industry churned out by Long Beach is impressive considering it sits side by side with luxury – the yachts owned by America's top millionaires and billionaires, that ply their way to Catalina Island or simply slink around the coast basking in the annual round of sunshine. Playground of the rich, powerhouse of industry – take your pick.
The city of Long Beach is banking on events to boost its visitors and incoming dollars.
It's hard to understand why Long Beach is so keen to attract tourism when it already has the heart and wheels of industry champing at the bit not only in terms of oil but also in the container port.
You have to look back into its recent past to see why. Between the halcyon days of the silent movie and the modernity of today stands a fillip, a gap, a vacuum which the current city is keen to fill.
The downtown area was once populated by famous names from the silent movies such as W.C. Fields, Buster Keaton, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Jackie Saunders.
The streets and boardwalk of Long Beach were once alive with the glitter, fame and fortune that has since come to embody Hollywood.
Fans could observe silent‑era film stars like Keaton shooting comedies along the boardwalk of the famed Pike Amusement Park.
W.C. Fields was regularly seen driving along Ocean Boulevard as he made his way to and from his home at Ocean and Paloma Avenue. (The home, now known as Weathering Heights, is still visible from the scenic palm‑lined boulevard.)
Long Beach was once home to Balboa Amusements Producing Company, the largest motion picture studio in the world, worth an estimated $400,000 in 1916. For more than 10 years, movie making was Long Beach's single largest industry.
Then came World War I and the rise of Hollywood. Second world war movies were still shot there thanks to the proximity of the Long Beach naval station and the Douglas Aircraft Company. Stars like Clark Gable and Carol Lombard summered there.
By the '50s the place was still characterised as the leisurely playground of the rich and famous, reaching its gradual sublimation as the backdrop for the marriage of Elizabeth Taylor to Nicky, son of hotel magnate Conrad Hilton in the erstwhile grandeur of the Hilton, now the Breakers Hotel.
Then the place fell quiet. Sometime during the 60s and 70s this old navy town lost its beating heart.
The magnificent Pike funfair and amusement park, which drew visitors in their thousands, the iconic rainbow road which ran out over the ocean in a horseshoe curve, all these breezy beautiful landmarks were destined for the scrapheap.
In a bold attempt to revitalise this once vibrant mecca, the city planned a complete redevelopment.
The result was a complete eradication of its original heyday on the shoreline including the old Pike funfair and beach, the rainbow road out over the ocean.
These iconic structures were replaced with a shoreline marina, Rainbow Harbor, the convention center, car park, walkway, cycle path, shops and tourist facilities.
The new tourist view from the shore is of the Queen Mary, Long Beach's replacement iconic site. I took a harbour cruise to get a closer look at this iconic ship, and also enjoyed a tour onboard plus a dining extravaganza on the Sir Winston restaurant.
The harbour cruise will take you alongside the massive container ships that dot the harbour at a distance, the 'oil' islands, and the sealions taking a leisurely lunchtime nap on the occasional buoy.
To appreciate the layout of Long Beach a private flight is the ticket. I enjoyed a vintage treat in a lovingly restored Flying Boat which took off from the water next to the Queen Mary, flew me above the port, along the shore, where I could see a pod of dolphins below, and then back to the city and the shoreline of Belmont Shore.
The flying boat, the Grumman Albatross built for the US Air Force in 1949, was a one-off experience at Long Beach, owned and operated by Row44, a company which is bringing broadband to commercial airlines so that passengers can safely use their cellphones inflight.
The plane was kitted out with technology to enable inflight connectivity. The paradox of vintage craft as the launchpad for new technology is apposite for Long Beach.
The Queen Mary
Ironically, despite ripping out the heart of its old glamorous past, the Queen Mary, the visitor that came and was never asked to leave, is the best preserved example of art deco architecture anywhere in the world.
Moored in concrete, the city has served this royal vessel of the waves most royally by refusing to tamper with its heritage.
Stunningly outfitted just as she was when she first docked into the harbour the Queen Mary is to my mind, simply the finest example of art and design available today in Long Beach - the requisite salute to the city's 20th century social heyday.
The Sir Winston restaurant onboard offers a lavish and stately interior for dinner, with dishes both colourful and rich to the palate.
Adorned with photos of its late great patrons such as Winston Churchill or Clark Gable, it is a restaurant for those with sartorial, aesthetic and gastronomic appreciation.
The ship's huge banqueting hall is regularly used and dressed for dinner – literally as each seat and each table is curated with the reverence of a former lady's maid.
Pine Avenue is the place to go for live entertainment.
I enjoyed a brilliant performance of salsa dancers at Sevilla nightclub. Restaurants seem to open up all the time.
The birthplace of The Beach Boys is never short of a tribute band to the great 60s surfers.
But new garage bands are also making an emergence – it pays to wander off the beaten track of Pine to find them. I found a great local band, Walk The Rio, winding up an itchy performance in a bar off Pine.
Aquarium of the Pacific
On the waterfront is the enjoyable Aquarium of the Pacific with a collection of fine species of shark and seahorses. It contains 12,500 inhabitants from the Pacific Ocean including 550 species.
Here you can even stroke (if you feel like it!) the live exhibits such as stingrays and starfish. Watching sharks up close in this safe environment can be strangely mesmerising and meditative.
Gondola Getaway
A serene idyll can be found in Little Naples and its multiple lagoons where you can hire a gondola from Gondola Getaway and swish your toes over the side as your gondola and gondolier take you past the home of the idle rich.
And if you're lucky the gondolier may even give you a vocal rendition of your favourite (or his favourite tune). Unlikely performance poets of the inland shores.
Second Street in Belmont Shore
Second Street in Belmont Shore is a 15‑block‑long shopping, dining and entertainment district featuring scores of restaurants, specialty shops and boutiques.
In this neighbourhood you will also find the small town buzz of narrower streets with cafes and boutiques jostling for the locals' and visitors' attention.
The area was once part of Rancho Los Alamitos, an early California rancho encompassing the area that is now the southeast portion of Long Beach, Seal Beach, Los Alamitos and Cypress.
Developers dredged more than 2 million cubic yards of mud and sand from Alamitos Bay, widening and deepening the Bay and its channels in the process. Additional sand was imported from as far away as Mexico and the Pacific Northwest to enhance the appearance of the Shore's beachfront and lagoons.
The shoreline is protected by the world's longest breakwater nine miles long, a man-made rock jetty constructed in the 1920's to slow wave action.
Long Beach Museum of Art
Enroute you might stop for lunch (or in my case breakfast) at Claire's next to the Long Beach Museum of Art housed in a 1912 arts and crafts mansion overlooking Bluff Park and the sheltered beachfront.
The beachfront
If you are looking for a relaxing way to enjoy a lazy Sunday afternoon, Long Beach has over five miles of beachfront to amble along.
You can use one of the free Passport buses to stop off at any point.
The Passport local shuttle service offers complimentary transportation to all of downtown Long Beach's most popular attractions including the Aquarium, Queen Mary, Shoreline Village and Pine Avenue.
For just 90 cents, the Passport can transport visitors down to Belmont Shores/Naples and Cal State Long Beach.
I took the bus to Seal Beach with its vast expanse of white sand, and extended pier ideal for promenading. A sumptuous ice cream can be had among the cafes behind the beach.
And if that is not exertion enough you can try like I did, the latest craze of Segway driving.
This can be quite a challenge to your sense of balance and motion.
Fortunately the bike lanes of the city are ideally suited to the smooth pitch and roll of the Segway. You simply move your centre of gravitation to exert traction in the relative direction.
Long Beach is a tranquil and absorbing surprise once you go looking. People from outside the city told me I had to leave it to find the best beaches and scenery.
Not having the benefit of their panorama I am happy to say that Long Beach is enough all by itself - rich and diverse enough to fulfil my proclivities.
Highlights are the amazing salsa performance dancers, the fun of live comedy at the newly opened Laugh Factory, the luxury and tranquillity of a sunset supper on the Little Naples gondola, and the sublime luxury and art deco feast of five star dining onboard the Queen Mary.
I also enjoyed the simple artistic ambience of the East Village.
Tucked comfortably away from the tyranny of tinseltown, Long Beach offers a soothing insouciance.
As a compatriot said to me while idling on the waterfront, 'This is the end of the line,' and he wasn't just referring to the former transatlantic queen of the waves sitting opposite.
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