El Dorado Nature Center

On the east side of Long Beach, along the San Gabriel River, is the 800-acre El Dorado East Regional Park, first established in 1955. The park has picnic areas, three fishing ponds, a golf course and other attractions. My favorite is the 105-acre El Dorado Nature Center.

A Great Place To Wander

With more than two miles of trails, lakes, varied vegetation, a cool interpretive center and turtles!

This is a great place to wander in a semi-wild but friendly natural environment. Enjoy the sites and smells, the wildflowers, and assorted small animals.

Read the Nature Center Web Site in Khmer

Check out the El Dorado Nature Center web site. You can read it in English, Spanish, Tagalog or Khmer!

The interactive interpretive center is filled with tactile displays. Don’t miss the display about the most dangerous animal in the reserve. Can you guess what it is?

What’s the Most Dangerous Animal in the Reserve?

Answer:

Humans

There are approximately 1.5 billion animals, for every one human on the planet. Even though we are greatly outnumbered we are still the most dangerous.

Images of the Reserve

Peter Rashkin: If you’re attending WordCamp Long Beach from out of town, we hope you’ll have the opportunity to get to know our city’s many charms. Chris and I decided to explore a few of them that you, too, might enjoy.

Christiana Mohr: In June, Peter and I went on a three-hour walking tour of Downtown Long Beach’s historic architecture. This month, we revisited some of our favorite buildings, saw some new sites and ate lunch at an awesome venue. Enjoy!

July Exploration Slideshow

Downtown Architecture Tour

Psychic Temple of the Holy Kiss

Peter: This month, we went for a long walk through downtown and along the coast. We met at the intersection of Long Beach and Broadway in downtown LB, in front of the Psychic Temple of the Holy Kiss. Built in 1905, this Romanesque Revival structure is the city’s second-oldest commercial building. We were here last month on a walking tour of downtown architecture.

Chris: The Psychic Temple of the Holy Kiss sits across from our old Meetup location. It was used by Baptist minister Rev. Price about a century ago as a meditation center. Rev. Price’s habit of selling bogus stock bloomed into a financial scandal that got him kicked out of his own charity.

After he left, the building was bought by a parishioner, who turned it into a hotel. It was also used as a WWII honky tonk. It’s now owned by a tech company and is being carefully restored.

All the Styles, All Together

Chris: Like many of the buildings downtown, the Psychic Temple combines different architectural styles. Here are more gorgeous buildings you can visit:

Middough’s Men’s Shop

Peter: We wandered a bit in LB’s original commercial district. I particularly like Middoughs’ Men’s Shop.

Chris: The Middough building sits next to the Edison Theatre. It used to have a Boy’s and Men’s Shop, small claims court, and a gym. Now, it’s condominiums.

Chris: Middough’s is a traditional three-part Beaux Arts skyscraper with typical Greek Revival motifs – flattened reductions of Neoclassical columns and realistic depictions of animals, plants, and people. But it also showcases some traditional Art Deco details like egg-and-dart, dentile teeth and stylized honeysuckles (often mistaken for shells). A mismatched Art Deco lobby was inserted on the ground floor in the 1930s.

The Federal Bank

Chris: Another Greek Revival building to check out is The Federal Bank. It’s now a restaurant. You’re welcome to admire the building’s filigree and its magnificent ceiling. The hostesses are used to site-seers.

Shannon’s on Pine

Chris: My favorite downtown building is definitely Shannon’s. Shannon’s is Long Beach’s finest example of Art Deco. The colors and abstract motifs helped inspire this year’s WordCamp Long Beach theme. And the facade, wood interior, metal banisters, and tile are all original.

The Willmore

Chris: We finished last month’s architecture tour at The Willmore, an early twentieth century luxury condo high-rise with original art and furnishings boasting a panoramic view of the city from its rooftop garden.

The building was named after William Erwin Willmore, Long Beach’s first real estate developer. It was originally designed to be a three-part building like many of the other downtown skyscrapers built in the Beaux Arts style. The builders stopped after they’d built just two wings, but it’s still stunning.

Stroll Down the Promenade

Peter: Next we wandered down the Promenade to the Long Beach Performing Arts Center and among the fountains. Got some pix of the whale mural at the Pacific Ballroom.

Bluff Park

Peter: Then over to Bluff Park. The park runs more than a mile along the bluff, overlooking the beach and the Harbor. From the Long Beach Museum of Art at one end, it leads almost to Belmont Pier.

Peter: We find a parking spot and walk to the edge of the bluff to admire the view: the heavy port equipment far off… the Queen Mary and a visiting liner… the most beautiful “oil island”. You need to see it at night with its many-colored lights and illuminated waterfall. The city wouldn’t let them drill unless they made their oil platforms “pretty”.

“The THUMS Islands were built in 1965 to tap into the East Wilmington Oil Field. The landscaping and sound walls were designed to camouflage the operation and reduce noise, and they are the only decorated oil islands in the United States.”

Wikipedia

Long Beach Museum of Art

Peter: We walked west a short stretch to the Long Beach Museum of Art.

Peter: The LBMA was opened in 1950 in the historic 1911 Elizabeth Milbank Anderson House. Since then it has expanded. In addition to the interesting permanent collection, the museum mounts a variety of exhibits, often cutting-edge and modern.

On this visit I was particularly struck by Plastic Seal, from the series Big Trash Animals by Spanish artist Bordalo II.

“The idea is to depict nature itself… out of materials that are responsible for its destruction.”

Bordalo II

Lunch at SteelCraft

Peter: We ended our exploration with lunch at SteelCraft, a new Long Beach hot spot built out of shipping containers.

Chris: Besides being adorably designed, SteelCraft offers many gluten-free, vegetarian, vegan and custom hand-made options across a variety of flavor profiles. We shared vegetarian broccoli pizza and vegetarian gyoza – and I got locally-made ice cream. The cones are free! It was delicious.

Join Us Next Time!

Peter: Our next exploration, on Saturday, July 27, will be at the El Dorado Nature Center, one of Long Beach’s hidden gems. Come with us!

Chris: See you soon!