Look at that Pacific Ave. street sign and its canted angle. It’s glorious!
I snapped this shot on January 7, but I held off writing this article, lest the City of Long Beach notice the irregularity and regularize it before I published. But here we are, over two weeks later, and my favorite sign in Long Beach is still my favorite sign in Long Beach, untouched because it has escaped the notice of city officials, or because they simply do not care.
I would like to believe the sign was intentionally set askew, but that is too much to hope for. In fact, it was probably a “mistake,” and I fear that some City bureaucrat will get wind of this article and “correct” the sign. But read on, Mr. Bureaucrat, before wasting our resources on such a wrongheaded move. Because I say unto thee: Long Beach could use more uniqueness, not less.
Imagine, if you will, that every sign in Long Beach were like this, orthogonal angles be damned. Imagine a city where every overhanging street sign is set at a different angle from every other, block after block, intersection after intersection, neighborhood after neighborhood, no less readable than their road-parallel brethren in every other city in Southern California. Imagine the impression that would make on visitors. Think they’d notice? Think they’d remember? Think there might be a bit of buzz?
Perhaps my enthusiasm for this unusual bit of public works is a case of excessive enjoyment from the simple pleasures (if such a state is possible). But I am also taking a big-picture view here. We all want Long Beach to be unique and—let’s not be so snobbish that we can’t say it—FUN! We want Long Beach to stand above the crowd, to be a place like no other. We want to emphasize that which makes Long Beach different, not flatten ourselves into the SoCal background. Not only does taking such an angle make Long Beach a neater place to live, it’s also good for business.
It may not be in the best interests of cash-strapped Long Beach to send work crews out to every intersection to make all overhanging street signs as glorious as the one at Ocean and Pacific, but over time those other signs are going to need servicing and replacement. And wouldn’t it be nice if, sign by sign, Public Works made Long Beach incrementally more fun, more unique, more a city unlike any other?
Long Beach’s history of uniqueness has paradoxically incorporated a history of scrapping the unique. So how about a civic New Year’s resolution? In 2013, the City should pledge to preserve the unique we have—wherever we encounter it, by design or by chance—and to accrete the unique as we go. Because, really, why not?