The Historical Society of Long Beach’s new Bixby Knolls  home helps legitimize the area’s Midcentury Modern roots

JULIE BARTOLOTTO by RUSS ROCA

By the time you arrive at the new home of the Historical Society of Long Beach you’ve probably already experienced the most important message of its inaugural exhibit: The trip up to Bixby Knolls—which is to say, not to downtown—not only explores an often-overlooked part of Long Beach, but also expands the concept of its history.

“There are people who feel the Historical Society should be downtown because that’s where the city was born,” acknowledges executive director Julie Bartolotto. “But the growth of Long Beach in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s was an important era, too.”

That’s the era when Bixby Knolls bloomed. Atlantic Avenue’s airy width and the into-the-future movement suggested by the low-slung architecture along its banks exuded a post-war optimism so unabashed that, a half-century later, it can embarrass us. These days we often treat it like kitsch and deploy it ironically to accessorize our hip pessimism. We tend to shortchange its significance.

But the going-places energy that inspired the Bixby Knolls retail strip at mid-century was as sincere a historical force as the declaration of unwavering permanence that gave rise to the tall and serious structures of longer-ago Pine Avenue, which made their case for tradition with brick and stone and columns and gold-leaf.

So it is that the Historical Society of Long Beach has made its home in a storefront built in 1950 and originally occupied by Harris Furs, whose name is still inscribed in the Terrazzo-tiled entry, beneath the grand geometric sign that still juts into the low horizon.

“We’re a good fit with the revitalizing transformation on Atlantic,” says Bartolotto, “and the history represented on this street is a good fit with the city’s population. There are many people who can still remember the 1950s. But the people who remember the ’20s are few.”

Actually, Long Beach has been reinventing itself so incessantly over the years that everybody’s memory is apt to be a little shaky.

“That makes the need for what we do even greater,” asserts Bartolotto. “Redevelopment has been going on in Long Beach since the 1950s, and people who lived here 30 years ago often don’t recognize the city. They come to us to reinforce their memories or to clarify what they may have remembered wrong. It’s important for Long Beach to understand itself, and we help with that.”

The city’s uneasy relationship with its history is reflected in the Historical Society’s long search for a permanent home. During the last 45 years, the group’s permanent collection has moved from Rancho Los Alamitos, Rancho Los Cerritos, the city’s senior center, a Pine Avenue storefront, the Breakers Hotel and a tiny office on an upper floor of the old Security Pacific Building.

But the Historical Society has a 20-year lease with a 20-year renewal in its new home. Eighth District council member Rae Gabelich and city manager Pat West helped facilitate a partnership among the Historical Society, the city and Camden Development.

Fittingly, the Historical Society’s first exhibit focuses on the area around Bixby Knolls, featuring images and artifacts from the days when North Long Beach was the city’s hinterlands. Large and beautifully mounted photos include the seasonal flooding that used to plague Orange Avenue, an old gas station on South Street, the vaudeville shows at the Oriental Theatre and the risqué floor shows at Sherry’s Barn (now Aja’s Sports Bar, at Paramount and South). There are also shots of the original Lindbergh School (built in the shape of an airplane) and the then-new Presbyterian Community Church.

The most-mystical item in the exhibit is a grand old photo of Shady Acres, the miniature golf and amusement center that featured bridges and terraces and a lily-padded fountain. Mystical? Painful, too, for anybody who remembers when Shady Acres was destroyed and replaced by a nondescript building.

“It sounds funny, but in some cases we do fill the role of the consoler,” says Bartolotto. “We remind people that their memories are real. We collect things that would otherwise be thrown away, things that enhance the human experience. We give meaning to what people remember. In that way, we can build community, even from things that have been destroyed.”

HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF LONG BEACH 4260 ATLANTIC AVE | LONG BEACH 90807 | 562.424.2220; HISTORICALSOCIETYLB.ORG | BEGINNING JAN 2, OPEN TUES-WED & FRI 1-5PM; THURS 1-7PM; SAT 11AM-5PM | FREE

Tags: bixby knolls, historical society of long beach, history, Long Beach, north long beach