This is the first in an occasional series of articles by Our Man From 90808 commenting on local issues and things he likes, doesn’t like or that confuse him. His background is so brief, that in the time necessary to read this blurb on your mobile device, you already missed it, like that CHP freeway cruiser you just passed when you should have been paying attention to your driving. See you in court.
Note to Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey: We have a bridge we’d like to sell you. Our understanding is you’ve been having problems with crushing bridge traffic lately. When a 91-year-old woman dies of a heart attack while waiting for EMS slowed by heavy bridge-related traffic, not to mention busses full of school kids being late to school every day for their first week, detention and suspension no doubt followed and we’re not talking about suspension bridges. Well, yeah, we are really.
Compare your impacted George Washington Bridge to our Gerald Desmond Bridge. George Washington, father of our country, our first president. Heck, he had a whole state and one whole district with lots of imposing governmental buildings named after him, not to mention a savings and loan that I believe is one of the few not swallowed up by Chase or Citibank, executives of which no doubt commute regularly to Manhattan on the George Washington. Out here, the Gerald Desmond ends at Terminal Island, which doesn’t have many bank branches, but does hold several bank robbers in a big house on its own banks, banks that accept deposits and allow only a few withdrawals.
We admit destination has been the problem with the Gerald Desmond. Sure, Terminal Island has had its moments. Once upon a time there was a tourist-attracting fishing village called Pierpoint Landing, but in 1972, the big ships began arriving, which squeezed out the small fishing craft and their homeport. Then there’s the matter of the Vincent Thomas Bridge, known by some as the St. Vincent Thomas Bridge, which actually confuses this Vincent with the owner of a chain of high profile thrift shops.
{loadposition latestlife}
Vincent Thomas used to be a cash cow, fifty cents bought you a round trip ticket, but only those who lived on Terminal Island used it regularly. Long Beach denizens knew to use the attractive Alameda Street to San Pedro route with success, but most know going to historic San Pedro–we really love San Pedro, we really do–was just another way to go to L.A., because it‘s really not a town; it’s more like an extension from the L.A. Basin to our sea, which must put their populace in the same kind of mood George Washington and other colonists were in while was pondering the fact that America was just an extension of England in the New World.
Frankly, our Gerald Desmond’s local luster has dimmed considerably. Desmond was an up and coming Long Beach city attorney in 1964 when he died at a very young 48. Desmond had also been a member of the city council and his sudden passing coincided with the about-to-begin construction of the bridge, solving the politically vexing problem of naming the thing.
At about the same time, our state’s future first president was a temporarily beaten man, being kicked around liberally by the press. After the fact, we even tried naming a dead end extension of another freeway after Nixon, but the name reverted to the Marina Freeway. In retrospect, maybe naming the Terminal Island Freeway after Nixon could have been doable and would’ve produced enough green and white signage for generations of sign collectors to steal and sell.
When the George Washington Bridge was named, our first general and first president had been dead for some time. In these parts, you don’t name an important structure after a living person, unless it’s a courthouse or something named after our beloved St. Vincent Thomas.
Learn from Nixon. Don’t be seduced into running for president on the possibility they might name a bridge or a freeway after you. We can offer you the Terminal Island Freeway as a sweetener to the bridge deal. Imagine, California actually closing up a freeway. As you’re still coping with colonial roads laid out during Washington’s time, you can use it more than we can and you can name it anything you like.
So Governor Christie, we do have a well-used bridge we’d like to sell you, cheap, and we’ll throw in one genuine freeway, in fact, that’s a mandatory part of the deal. But you have to be willing to pick it up.
Our Man From 90808: A Bridge Too Close
This is the first in an occasional series of articles by Our Man From 90808 commenting on local issues and things he likes, doesn’t like or that confuse him. His background is so brief, that in the time necessary to read this blurb on your mobile device, you already missed it, like that CHP freeway cruiser you just passed when you should have been paying attention to your driving. See you in court.
Note to Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey: We have a bridge we’d like to sell you. Our understanding is you’ve been having problems with crushing bridge traffic lately. When a 91-year-old woman dies of a heart attack while waiting for EMS slowed by heavy bridge-related traffic, not to mention busses full of school kids being late to school every day for their first week, detention and suspension no doubt followed and we’re not talking about suspension bridges. Well, yeah, we are really.
Compare your impacted George Washington Bridge to our Gerald Desmond Bridge. George Washington, father of our country, our first president. Heck, he had a whole state and one whole district with lots of imposing governmental buildings named after him, not to mention a savings and loan that I believe is one of the few not swallowed up by Chase or Citibank, executives of which no doubt commute regularly to Manhattan on the George Washington. Out here, the Gerald Desmond ends at Terminal Island, which doesn’t have many bank branches, but does hold several bank robbers in a big house on its own banks, banks that accept deposits and allow only a few withdrawals.
We admit destination has been the problem with the Gerald Desmond. Sure, Terminal Island has had its moments. Once upon a time there was a tourist-attracting fishing village called Pierpoint Landing, but in 1972, the big ships began arriving, which squeezed out the small fishing craft and their homeport. Then there’s the matter of the Vincent Thomas Bridge, known by some as the St. Vincent Thomas Bridge, which actually confuses this Vincent with the owner of a chain of high profile thrift shops.
{loadposition latestlife}
Vincent Thomas used to be a cash cow, fifty cents bought you a round trip ticket, but only those who lived on Terminal Island used it regularly. Long Beach denizens knew to use the attractive Alameda Street to San Pedro route with success, but most know going to historic San Pedro–we really love San Pedro, we really do–was just another way to go to L.A., because it‘s really not a town; it’s more like an extension from the L.A. Basin to our sea, which must put their populace in the same kind of mood George Washington and other colonists were in while was pondering the fact that America was just an extension of England in the New World.
Frankly, our Gerald Desmond’s local luster has dimmed considerably. Desmond was an up and coming Long Beach city attorney in 1964 when he died at a very young 48. Desmond had also been a member of the city council and his sudden passing coincided with the about-to-begin construction of the bridge, solving the politically vexing problem of naming the thing.
At about the same time, our state’s future first president was a temporarily beaten man, being kicked around liberally by the press. After the fact, we even tried naming a dead end extension of another freeway after Nixon, but the name reverted to the Marina Freeway. In retrospect, maybe naming the Terminal Island Freeway after Nixon could have been doable and would’ve produced enough green and white signage for generations of sign collectors to steal and sell.
When the George Washington Bridge was named, our first general and first president had been dead for some time. In these parts, you don’t name an important structure after a living person, unless it’s a courthouse or something named after our beloved St. Vincent Thomas.
Learn from Nixon. Don’t be seduced into running for president on the possibility they might name a bridge or a freeway after you. We can offer you the Terminal Island Freeway as a sweetener to the bridge deal. Imagine, California actually closing up a freeway. As you’re still coping with colonial roads laid out during Washington’s time, you can use it more than we can and you can name it anything you like.
So Governor Christie, we do have a well-used bridge we’d like to sell you, cheap, and we’ll throw in one genuine freeway, in fact, that’s a mandatory part of the deal. But you have to be willing to pick it up.
Feel free to email Our Man From 90802 at [email protected]