Museum may make 2004 historic year for L.B.
By Tom Hennessy
Staff columnist
By the end of the year, Long Beach apparently will have a new museum dedicated to the city's history.
To be built between Ocean Boulevard and Seaside Way near the Convention Center, the building, about 5,000 square feet, will be topped with the historic roof from the Looff building, the last remaining structure of the city's old Pike amusement park.
Part of the building will have a second story.
"The design work already has been approved,' says 2nd District Councilman Dan Baker, who negotiated the construction of the museum with Camden Properties. "I expect construction to start within the next couple of months and be completed by the end of the year.'
No public money will be used to finance the museum.
Explains Baker, "It was written into the agreement with Camden Properties that they would build a structure and relocate the historical part of the (Looff) building and put it on a new structure.'
Camden, based in Houston, Texas, is building housing units in the area where the museum will be.
While the relics of the city's past are spread among several organizations, including the Historical Society of Long Beach, Long Beach Heritage, and a separate group, Long Beach Heritage Museum, the society will be the prime beneficiary of the museum.
"We're going to use it as a new space for the Long Beach Historical Society so they have a very low lease payment,' Baker says. "Happily, that will be nothing at all or maybe a dollar a year. It will give them a permanent place to display their historical artifacts.'
This comes as good news to the society, which is being obliged to move from its present quarters in the Breakers, 210 E. Ocean Blvd.
"We're looking forward to this opportunity,' says Julie Bartolotto, executive director of the 300-member organization. "We're very pleased with Camden and with Councilman Baker's office for helping us find a new site where people will be able to see Long Beach's past.'
Dissenting view
Not everyone involved in preserving the city's past is happy about the arrangement, however.
Ken Larkey, president of Long Beach Heritage Museum, says the agreement is unfair to his organization, which has operated two city museums in the past. He says the Camden people came to him with his proposal last year.
"They even met in my house. They were especially interested in my Pike (artifacts).'
Larkey also says he attended two meetings in Baker's office to discuss the project. "I haven't heard from anyone since then. The Historical Society doesn't even recognize me.' Whatever status he may have had with the new museums, he claims, has been pre-empted by the society.
"I've put my hand out in friendship to them in my last newsletter by writing about their Navy exhibit. We've given them publicity. But they don't recognize us. They don't say 'thank you' or anything.
Bartolotto, however, says her organization is offering Larkey space in the new building. "As part of the agreement, we've offered to display some artifacts from Ken Larkey's collection. We have to decide which artifacts. That hasn't been discussed yet.'
Relics by the ton
On a day last month, I watched Larkey raise the door of a warehouse in West Long Beach. Revealed inside was a massive collection of Long Beach's past.
Here was a car from the Pike's Cyclone Racer roller-coaster. There was the soda fountain from the Harriman Jones building at Broadway and Cherry.
Here was a mannequin in a long-ago uniform of the Long Beach Municipal Band. There was a case of Magruder's salt water taffy, minus the taffy.
And more. A washing machine made in Long Beach in 1917, a gas pump from a station once located at Seventh and Alamitos, cabinets from the old Iowa Barbershop on First Street.
"The kids used to line up there for those old flat-top haircuts,' says Larkey.
Surveying this mountain of nostalgia, he notes, "This stuff has been here six years, maybe seven years. I can't get any more in here. And I have three garages just like this. They're all just standing here, which is no good. We must get these things back on display so people can enjoy them.'
Without funds for a museum of his own, however, his best shot at displaying his artifacts or some of them appears to be a share of the museum about to be built.
Taking count
The new museum comes at a time when, as noted above, relics of the city's past are in the hands of several organizations, including, for example, the Long Beach Police and Fire departments. (The latter has its own museum.)
"There is property all over the city, including artifacts, photographs, and buildings, that serve as resources and a remembrance of our past,' Mayor Beverly O'Neill noted at Tuesday's City Council meeting.
"The Cultural Heritage Commission has played a key role in determining the architectural assets of Long Beach (but) we also need to know the non-architectural assets that are part of the rich history of our city.'
Toward that end, O'Neill has ordered a "collaborative effort' of appropriate organizations to work with the city "to develop an inventory and accumulate information on the items and whereabouts of these historical assets for our community.' Council member Bonnie Lowenthal calls the action "an important first step to identify and catalog Long Beach's historical structure and items, which may be scattered throughout our city.' Tom Hennessy's viewpoint appears Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. He can be reached at (562) 499-1270 or by e-mail at
Scribe17@aol.com.