"Oh, has everything changed around here in recent years," says the courtly gentleman named James Brown, a keen observer of life on the thoroughfare for the past 32 years. "So sad to see. Very sad. There was a time throughout the '90s and throughout for so much of this century when this street was alive with laughter and joy. And now you see too many drug addicts and too many people up to no good around here.

"A guy got stabbed in the head a few weeks ago on 3rd Street. And I'm told guys meet in the parking lot across the street at night and get into fights and cause problems. It's changed. Oh, has it changed..."

He pauses, and casts a glance upwards at the building he's been in front of at 101 Pine throughout so much time, and shakes his head softly.

"How could they have done this to Terry Antonelli's restaurant?" says Brown, referring to his close friend who is owner of the iconic L'Opera restaurant that was trashed during the recent spate of local lootings. "It's really bad what those criminals did. I haven't gone inside since they did it. Where was their decency? Where were the cops to stop it? I hope they catch the guys that did it, and put them in jail and throw the keys away forever."

[Scroll dowm for further.]

He is 86 now when most human beings fortunate to live that long are retired and reading books and watching TV and reflecting on the joyful memories of all their yesterdays.

But not James Brown, not this soft-spoken man who admits he's been slowed slightly by six strokes in the past few years but refuses to accept whiling away the days in the perpetual seclusion of inactivity.
Photo by Doug Krikorian

He now resides with one of his daughters, Carol Brown, in Fontana, and he offers a logical explanation for his desire to still work.

"What the hell is there for me to do in Fontana?" he says.

But what makes this Little Rock, Ark., native even more special is the lengthy daily odyssey he endures to make it to Long Beach.

"I spend two and a half hours a day on trains," he says. "I get the Metro-Link out of Fontana, and that takes me to Union Station, and then I take a train to the 7th Street Station where I transfer onto the Blue Line to Long Beach. It's a long time, but to me it's worth it. I do it five days a week, Monday through Friday."

As he is talking to me, a fellow comes up and joins in the conversation.

"This is the guy who one day is going to replace me," says Brown. "He often works with me now, and I'm thinking of wrapping it up in November."
Photo by Doug Krikorian

"Jimmy, you're never going retire," says Darius Bost, a security supervisor at the Long Beach Convention Center.

"Yep, I'm going to replace Jimmy one day -- maybe 10 years from now," laughs Bost. "I worked for years on the seventh floor of the Security Building across the street when I was a custom broker for the old World Commerce Service. It was an import, export business. I often would look down at Jimmy working, and always was so envious.

"Every day he met and talked to different people from all over Long Beach and all over the world. Everyone at City Hall would get their shoes shined from Jimmy, and so did everyone connected to businesses around here and around the city. Think of the thousands of people he's met over the years. There are very few trades in which a person can meet so many interesting people."

James Brown nods in agreement.

"No doubt I've had an interesting life," he says. "I know I grew up in the Jim Crow era in Little Rock and there were a lot of restrictions for us black folks that weren't right, but I didn't know the difference at the time and I had a lot of fun when I was a kid.

"I did once march in one of Martin Luther King's protest rallies to integrate the restaurant counter at a F.W. Woolworth store in Little Rock. It was a little scary."

James Brown came out to Los Angeles in 1968, and for many years worked as a steam fitter and plumber at the Veterans Hospital in West Los Angeles before he decided to return to an endeavor he learned as a youngster in Little Rock

"I began shining shoes when I was 12 years old, and did it as a side job throughout my high school years," he says. "Made pretty good money at the time."

He later would do a four-year tour with the Air Force -- he became an airplane mechanic -- and then went to work at the old AMF Bicycle Factory in Little Rock.

"Little Rock was not only the capital of Arkansas, but also once was one of the one of the bicycle-producing capitals of the United States," says Mr. Brown. "But in the late 1960s there was a lot of racial tension in Little Rock, and I knew it was inevitable I was going to get fired when they stuck me with the hardest job on the assembly line even though I weighed only 155 pounds. I knew it was then time for me to go."

James Brown would go on to establish his own legacy in downtown Long Beach with an eclectic group of customers that would include many prominent politicians, businessmen, promoters, bankers, athletes, real estate developers, stock brokers, actors, Grand Prix drivers, cops, liquor distributors, firemen, journalists, bartenders, waiters, chefs, and restaurateurs, not to mention cads, ponces and second story guys.

"I always try to treat everyone the same no matter who they were or what they did for a living -- with kindness and respect," he says.

"And I've never had any problems over the years. But it's sad what I see now around here..."

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