Around the Neighborhood

I've been walking around the neighborhood recently and taking pictures of the very cool paintings and murals that still exist. I have been wanting to post something here about them for years (and I may have already done that), but this is a new, non-exhaustive list.

Each of these was taken since we returned from Texas, or within the last five weeks. I also made it an outing and had Cassius with me each time. 

The Ali/Liston pose isn't here, nor is the side of Hayden's or that accompanying alley, but mostly because I have other plans for those spots, and also I'm pretty much the only person who would even recognize it's missing from the following, non-exhaustive list.

In the captions you will see a number in parentheses: this is the location number on the map that is at the end of this collection of pictures. I tried to be as accurate with the map as I could be. Each spot on the map is a location we walk to more or less regularly.

To start:

What the hell am I looking at?

(1) Off Pine Ave, between Broadway and 3rd

The far part, the spot on the parking structure is a kid in a rowboat, but the spot up close, on a totally separate building, looks like it could be blue jeans of some half cowboy and a partial robotic torso...there was other stuff on that side that I thought I captured with my phone but, obviously, didn't. It didn't help in the moment, and it can't help explain things here.

This was earlier today as we walked up Pine Avenue after leaving the aquarium. This is across from an apartment complex that was built opposite these parking structures, just to the right of the frame, and someone was walking up as I tried to finish taking the picture. Usually I'm less self-conscious about my photo-taking, but I was talking to the Boy as well, and I found myself feeling rushed. Weird.

Been eyeing this for a while...

This face has looked at me so many times over the last few years that I've taken it for granted. One of my favorite intersections in all of Long Beach, no...California, no...maybe the world? On the short-short list at least, and that's saying something...anyway, this face peers out from the alley on the north side of Broadway as you approach Linden, right on the walk home from the train, or any number of restaurants, bookstores, or aquariums we've traveled to over the course of our half dozen years here.

Over the years people have taken to filling in the side of what I believe is the Hotel Royal as it heads up the alley. I have been meaning to get better pictures of the details, but that seems to need to be a planned day:

(2) Off Broadway, the alley between Linden and Elm

A park with no swings or shade...

(3) Gumbiner Park, across from the MoLAA; 6th, 7th, and Alamitos

There's the Boy running at me while I snap a partial shot of the mural on the side of the Long Beach Armory. It looks like it tells a story, and at first you may think it's Long Beach's story, but it's weird. Like, the runner in the frame, I only realized now looking at it here in my blog-editor, that the monkey bars are hiding the weird heart contraption that's painted there. It resembles 1980s sci-fi meets the Grinch's heart-monitor, and I'm not sure what it means.

This is the newest and closest park to our house, Gumbiner Park, named for the wealthy and philanthropic Robert Gumbiner. Old Bob was into art as well as safe places for families to recreate, and founded the Museum of Latin-American Art (across the street from this park) and the Center for Polynesian Ethnic Art, an odd shaped lot in between the MoLAA and the park.

The park is nice for its proximity, but it is rather sun-blasted, there are no swings, the grass is mostly dead, and a bunch of the rowdier homeless dudes congregate at the benches across the way. It does have a skate park, which is a cool addition, I have to say. Cass loves watching those dudes test the limits of balance and gravity.

Rather striking portrait of Jim Morrison

(4) 4th St, between Elm and Linden

I saw this the other day and was too impressed, so I took the picture. I can't say if I remember it over the years, like many of these other murals, but it's pretty damn nice.

Here you can see the entirety of the building up the alley, and plenty more mural is there, but I was in a hurry and skipped a more detailed photo collection.

Trompe l'oeil for giants... 

(5) 1st St; alley between Atlantic and Linden

This one is pretty neat, kinda trompe l'oeil, but of we were all giants maybe?

Historic building gets a tattoo...

(6) Psychic Temple, Broadway, between the Promenade and LB Blvd

The historic Psychic Temple is the subject of a book I've been plotting out for a few years now (alarmingly far down the pipeline). It's history is sordid and interesting, and even after you learn that "psychic" in the name only really refers to "the psychological arts" and not to what we think of as psychic.

Corrie actually looked into purchasing this derelict building a while back, but that didn't pan out. A different group bought it, started working on it, and eventually...well, it's not open for anything really, but it does have displays in what remind me of Macy's windows. Plus this alley tattoo is pretty sweet.

Thanks Gustav Klimt

(7) 7th St on-ramp to I-710

This is the earliest picture I had on my phone, and I took this after Corrie and Cass got back from Orlando, which seems closer than the Texas Thanksgiving trip I mentioned in the opening of this post.

Anyway, this is too beautiful to not include in a mural post, and it may have been the real inspiration behind the push that got me to actually start this mural discussion again/this time.

The Map

The map I overlaid the numbers on makes puts into perspective the walks and hangouts that we do with our son. The (7) above is the furthest from our apartment, which is midway between the (4) and the (2), but lined up more with the (5). Just below the (7) is a rectangle of green up against the river. The small right-hand half of the green rectangle is a park we take Cass to quite often, and the Aquarium of the Pacific right at the bottom to the left of center, right next to the part of the green peninsula that's cut off.

I have more murals to get to that are within this map above, but there are many that are still out there, and outside this nifty neighborhood.