There’s some interesting background emerging today on the proposed sale of City Hall East–the building at the northeast corner of First Street and Long Beach Boulevard, where Long Beach Police Department relocated a few years ago while its longtime downtown home was remodeled.
According to today’s Press-Telegram, Long Beach City Council on Tuesday will consider selling [...]

Not sure why the level of discourse at last night’s city meeting about closing Main Library seemed so high and lively. Maybe it had something to do with the topic, which hinged on our access to knowledge–and with the fact that the discussion took place just a few feet away from hundreds of classic works [...]

A Little Ol’ Place Where the Commotions Get Together

ILLUSTRATION by LUKE MCGARRY
Ruben Kaban thought that when his band the Commotions—who are set to play a breast cancer benefit this Saturday—started early last year, they’d be a natural fit for the mod crowd. And in theory, he was right: His band (in which he plays guitar [...]

Fourth Street’s Art Theatre is ready for its close-up, Mr. Van Dijs

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
By the time you read this, the Art Theatre will be open again—following one of the grandest restorations of a commercial building in recent history—making it once more Long Beach’s only independent movie house, and the city’s last functioning vintage theater.
At [...]

Critics say Redevelopment Agency eats cash, produces blight

PHOTO by RUSS ROCA
In 1988, the Long Beach Redevelopment Agency greenlighted the demolition of the historic Jergins Trust building, a stately old high-rise and California landmark. They plowed it under to make way for a hotel. But today, 20 years later, there’s nothing there—or rather this: a chain-link [...]

Bicycle school teaches you how to drive your bike
“Most adults think they know how to ride a bike because they rode one when they were kids,” says Dominic Dougherty, manager of the Bikestation in downtown Long Beach. “But that would be as if they were taught to drive at Autopia and then were turned out [...]

What you should learn in school, but won’t
Some nights, deciding where to eat or what band to see can be as difficult as settling on an elective course to round out your schedule. Whether you’re new to town or have been here since graduating college (in 1983), here’s our cursory course catalogue of Long Beach [...]

Sunnin stands apart from Second Street’s Lebanese trio

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Sunnin is a restaurant turned outside-in, an alleyway of a place where fake balconies bulge out of the wall and decorative shutters stay permanently sealed. In that faux courtyard, the restaurant feels as though it has an open-air café stuck inside, lights streaming off the [...]

Alpha Cult marks three years with ‘Urban Legends’

It’s hard to believe East Village’s Alpha Cult is only three years old, but the proof is in the toy store cum art gallery’s light-hearted third anniversary show, which spans much of modern pop surrealism. Graffiti art, assemblages, reinvented circus punks, kitschy giclées—the unusual suspects are here, in [...]

A Historical Society exhibition examines postwar architecture

PHOTO by JULIUS SHULMAN
Today, Long Beach is nearly built-out. But 40, 50, 60 years ago, the opposite was true. Vast swaths of the city—particularly Los Altos and the Plaza—were undeveloped after World War II, and even in settled parts of town, vacant lots weren’t unheard of.
That’s the focus of [...]