Redevelopment Agency board recommends considering adaptive reuse
In a hoped for, but still somewhat surprising move at its Monday morning meeting, the Redevelopment Agency board delayed demolition of the historic, vacant Atlantic Theater building at 5870 Atlantic Ave., a midcentury landmark that showed moving pictures to packed houses immediately after World War II, before falling on [...]

‘Book by Authors’ ventures into North Long Beach

Often ignored by just about everyone in our city—save for those who live within its perimeters—North Long Beach is the subject of the second Book by Authors anthology (the first, spanning all of Long Beach, was released in 2006). Spearheaded by Smolarcorp’s Ryan Smolar and Rachel Potucek, the [...]

It’s way up in North Long Beach—and it’s been closed for years—but our own Atlantic Theater building, at 5870 Atlantic Ave., is another architectural diamond in the rough.
How diamond-y?
As LBReport.com’s Bill Pearl noted Sunday, the 1941 building was designed by the Boller Brothers—nationally-known experts in theater design, who were also responsible for the “Inglewood Theatre [...]

The Press-Telegram’s Greg Mellen finds an interesting profile subject today: he visits St. Athanasius Catholic Elementary School in North Long Beach and talks to Sister Rita Campos, who’s been at the school since 1982.
“Campos said virtually all of the kids at her school are at or near the poverty level. She sees drug deals go [...]

Doing good with Long Beach’s food philanthropists
Long Beach sprouted out of an agrarian dream, a pastoral fantasy of bean fields and beaches that sustained entire generations before the onset of the city’s industrial complex. But as happens with the immutable laws of progress, those plots all eventually disappeared, family farms and cultural traditions wiped out [...]

Eighty-five years after it was annexed, North Long Beach remains our frontierland

Producer Peter Jackson’s new movie opens Friday, the story of some aliens who come in peace, but are held in some blown-out place called District 9—straight out of a Jeff Gillette painting—until we can exploit their awesome capacity for war.
It sounds compelling. The trailer [...]

The Ninth District councilman, who is termed out, held a fundraiser Monday in his bid for a third term. By law, he’s a write-in candidate.
For better or for worse, termed-out Ninth District Councilman Val Lerch is our only elected official whom you can imagine using the word “Bully!” in the Teddy Roosevelt-ian sense–and not only [...]

Remember Roketi Su’e, who was shot and killed by a Long Beach Police officer during a tussle back in May 2008?
As the Press-Telegram’s Kelly Puente reports this morning, a jury Monday ruled in favor of the police officer, following a lawsuit by Su’e’s family.
“Officer Dominick Scaccia, a five-year veteran of the Long Beach Police Department, [...]

Should the city’s Redevelopment Agency get 12 more years to exercise eminent domain in North Long Beach? You can help decide, at tonight’s Long Beach City Council meeting.
But when the Redevelopment Agency board voted yesterday to ask the council for an extension–at its meeting tonight–several audience members were on hand to give board members an [...]

P-T editorializes the Gene Rotondo ATM-parking saga
Belmont Shore restaurateur Gene Rotondo’s problems with the ATM at his newly-renovated and reopened Legends sports bar have been well-documented in the Press-Telegram.
It’s just interesting, sometimes, to take a step back and consider what it’s all about–and to wonder how much we’d care about all this if, say, Rotondo [...]