(Jan. 27, 2008) -- LB historian Ken Larkey, an icon in documenting LB's past and relating it to LB's present, has emailed LBReport.com in response to a guest opinion piece on LBReport.com by Pine Ave. businessman John Morris (Opinion: Morris: Fixing L.A. River So Trash Isn't Dumped On Our Beaches Is Part of Needed Port Payback).

Mr. Larkey, President and Curator of the Long Beach Heritage Museum, notes that in his 1990 book on Long Beach history he wrote:

"With the encroachment of the harbor ever expanding south and east out in front of the city, the ocean and its wonderful waves and breakers ceased to exist and today if you wanted to swim at Long Beach you would no longer swim in the ocean but in a dirty harbor."

Mr. Larkey ends his email by stating, "The port should either reconfigure the mouth of the L.A. river, and if not they should PAY for the cleanup of the city beaches."

Below is Mr. Larkey's email in full to LBReport.com. His words speak for themselves.

[begin Larkey text]

Right On John. You are saying the same thing that I have said since 1990.

In my book Long Beach: A Pictorial of the beach....the way it was, I wrote on page six, "A Brief on the Demise of The Beach":

Throughout the history of the city, the beach had been an outstanding recreation Mecca and had attracted increasingly large crowds as the population of the city and nearby areas grew and as the fame of Long Beach climate, strand and surf spread world wide. The beach was the finest on the west coast and had no equal; it was known around the world as the "Queen of the Beaches".

The popularity of the beach ended when the city planning department hired newly arrived johnny-come-lately's from the east who had no idea of what made Long Beach so popular. A decision was made that they could improve on the city's popularity by changing it from a seaside resort to a Los Angeles or New York type of big city by doing away with the beach and its attractions. These planners began by destroying everything that attracted tourists to this popular seaside resort.

They started with the filling in of the popular Rainbow Lagoon, rendering it useless as an attraction to still water swimmers and boaters. Then they demolished the municipal bandstand on the beach.; no more free concerts for entertaining the tourist.

The famous Rainbow Pier was demolished next, no more driving your car around the promenade with its rainbow of colored lights.

With the encroachment of the harbor ever expanding south and east out in front of the city, the ocean and its wonderful waves and breakers ceased to exist and today if you wanted to swim at Long Beach you would no longer swim in the ocean but in a dirty harbor.

The port should either reconfigure the mouth of the L.A. river, and if not they should PAY for the cleanup of the city beaches.

Ken Larkey
Long Beach

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