It hasn’t been a long, hot summer in San Pedro; in fact, this may have been the coolest summer on record.
Caltrans, however, more than made up for it by making life hell for the thousands of commuters who use Western Avenue. For months on end, almost daily it seemed, at least one lane was closed going either north or south, mostly in the Rancho Palos Verdes corridor. For a major thoroughfare that is always backed up even when both lanes each way are open, it’s been a nightmarish period.
Apparently, the work being done is part of the oxymoronic Western Avenue Traffic Flow Improvement Project, which not only has yet to improve traffic flow but has made it worse. Some enterprising entrepreneur might make some cash selling t-shirts featuring the Western Avenue street sign and the caption “I Survived the Summer of ‘25.”
Just sayin’.
SPEAKING OF TRAFFIC
Unlike the voices in these pages and throughout much of San Pedro, I’m not a fan of West Harbor. For all of its failings as it aged, at least Ports O’ Call had character. West Harbor, like its name, is just plain ugly. Am I the only one who sees those giant metal tents and thinks back to the ‘50s and ‘60s when Quonset huts used to occupy an area just a little south of West Harbor known as Lower Fort MacArthur? (And if you don’t know what a Quonset hut is, you’re not a Real San Pedran.)
And you have to pay to park? Don’t you want people to visit and maybe hang around for a while, like we used to do in Ports O’ Call’s heyday when parking was free? As it was once said, “If you want me to wait, you must validate”—or something like that.
But even if you can convince people it’s worth whatever they’re charged to park, in what universe can you build a 6,200-seat venue with only a two-lane street for access?
The port has been constructing a new off-ramp at Harbor Boulevard because the current setup had become untenable with all of the 18-wheelers bringing containers to and from the China and Yang Ming terminals. When finished, traffic should be much improved for “normal” use. Add 3,000 cars or more for a concert at the amphitheater and guess what you’ll have? It’s called a SigAlert.
The ultimate irony is that the amphitheater will be completed just as the Vincent Thomas Bridge is closed down for, what, two years?
We really are heading for ‘Harborgeddon.’
ANOTHER BOOK
Scott Parker has lived in San Pedro for 30 years, which makes him a newbie to the “born-and-raised” crowd, but two of his main interests give him a lot of street cred: photography and baseball.
He’s combined those two loves to become a member of that burgeoning group of San Pedrans who have become published book authors.
Baseball’s Unlikely: A Constant is a nearly three-pound, 467-page coffee-table book containing 400 stories and 250 color pictures (explaining its $50.94 price tag on Amazon) covering every team in Major League Baseball. Put together just last year (thanks to editor Rusty Austin), most of the book’s contents had been accumulated over the previous 36 years.
Parker, 62, a Torrance High graduate, was a musician before beginning a successful career as a video editor and colorist in television (most recently for Naked and Afraid on Discovery) in 1988.
He’s been a baseball fan since age 9, when he saw his first Angels game, but it was in the early ‘90s that he began collecting clippings and stories and saving screenshots. Vacations took him to stops at every MLB stadium (except the new Yankees venue), where his photography hobby resulted in thousands of pictures. Parker has tied the photos to his own stories about some of baseball’s most well-known moments, from Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig to Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron, and more modern incidents such as the home run off Jose Conseco’s head and Fernando Tatis’ two grand-slam-homer inning.
If you’re a baseball fan with a big coffee table, you’ll want this book.
GALLERY OPEN
The Christian-oriented art gallery/studio Kipos (Greek for “garden”), which I wrote about a few months ago, held its grand opening and is now open to the public Thursdays from 2-6 p.m.
The entrance is at the corner of Broadway and 7th, right across from the synagogue. There are still studios available; contact director Gregory Bruick at geoffrey@trinitysanpedro.org with any questions. spt
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