Sidewalk Splendor

Many of the businesses on Park Avenue do a great job of maintaining the sidewalks in front of their establishments. Quite a few of them keep planters on the street to dress things up. Unfortunately, not everyone follows their lead. Nu-Clear Cleaners, in particular, is an affront to all who enter Long Beach through our main north-south artery. They operate a virtual billboard of advertisements that dominates the corner of our largest and busiest intersection, with nary a tree or flower in site.Welcome to town! Let us box store your winter quilt! 

Nu-clear Cleaners need only look across the street to Pier One or the Mobil station for examples of how to do it right. Both of those businesses do an excellent job of maintaining an appealing facade that contributes to Long Beach's image as the thriving community that it is, without detracting in any way from their visibility or accessibility to customers. The Long Beach movie theater, too, is a model Nu-clear would do well to emulate.


I can't claim personal knowledge of the city code that governs maintenance of the streetscape in Long Beach.  But it would be a great thing if we undertook to extend the tree lined curbs such as between Edwards and National Blvds. to the east and west limits of town. And it would be wonderful as well to enforce an ordinance prohibiting storefronts from using their windows as billboards.

Nu-clear Cleaners, it's time to clean up your act.

Comin' Up Roses

One of the things I love best about Long Beach is the landscaping on the center medians along Park Avenue. It was one of the first things I noticed when we first arrived in LB 21 years ago. We came here from Brighton Beach in Brooklyn (once beach people, always beach people - we met on Fire Island), so you get the picture. My regular route home from the city back then was the Gowanus Expressway, perhaps the ugliest, filthiest road in North America (followed closely by the Van Wyck). When we moved to Long Beach, I began traveling the Loop Parkway to my new office in Woodbury, and I remember, like it was yesterday, driving home on the Loop, heading into the sunset and listening to Springstein on the radio, thinking: this is why we moved here.

That's how the landscaping on Park Avenue makes me feel. It just makes me happy that we all think it's important enough to preserve the line item in the city budget in order to beautify our community. It just makes me smile every time I see it. It sure beats hell out of the Gowanus!

Trashing the Beach

Problem:
Trash on the beach is an affront to everything that makes Long Beach Long Beach. So today, when three guests of the Allegria Hotel left their valet-assembled chaise lounges and headed back to their rooms, I called the concierge desk to complain about the newspapers, water bottles and other refuse they left behind on the sand. It took only a minute for two hotel staffers to head down to survey the damage, but instead of cleaning up, they about-faced and left the mess to bob on the incoming tide.

Solution:
Along with beach towels, sun shades and umbrellas, the Allegria should provide trash bags, or even designer receptacles, to make sure that their guests leave our beach in the same condition in which they find it.  And they should train their beach staff in the common courtesies that will enable the hotel to thrive as a welcome and valued member of the community.