Main Street in Seal Beach has been a favorite subject for photographers throughout its 95 years of history. Every Monday between now and the end of the Seal Beach Founders Celebration, we’ll be posting a different image of Main Street.
This is Main Street 48 years ago, not last year’s Seal Beach Car Show.
On the right, Marina Cleaners occupies the current location of Seal Beach Music. On the side of the building where Endless Summer operates today, a painted advertisement tells us, “Bathers Welcome,” apparently to come inside and enjoy “cold drinks” and “malts” and “sundaes” made from delicious “Mountain View ice cream.” Next door is Seal Beach Music, followed by the Edgewater Pre-School.
Further down, you can visit a rock shop, Vinzant’s Variety, and John’s Food King. In the distance, we see Brock’s Drugs (better known to many of us later as the Corner Drug) and further down, the Bay Theater.
On the left, it’s a little harder to make out the details. The Irisher Cafe now occupies the Bob And Chet’s Cafe and Cocktail Lounge location at 121 Main Street, Further down a Rexall drugs store occupies a familiar spot, but it’s probably a few years before it becomes Bob’s Rexall. The Walt’s Wharf building hosts the long gone Marina Market, and a cafe sign hangs in front of what was once the Green Pepper Mexican restaurant (and then BJ’s Pizza and now Woody’s Diner).
Be sure to check back each week for more historical photos and stories of Seal Beach.
– Michael Dobkins
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The Seal Beach pier has been a favorite subject for photographers throughout its 95 years of history. Every Friday between now and the end of the Seal Beach Founders Celebration, we’ll be posting an image of the pier.
A common practice of postcard companies in the early twentieth century was to take black and white photographs and have them colorized. I thought it might be interesting show an original 1916 postcard image of the pier next to the colorized version.
That’s all for this week. Have a great weekend, and be sure to check back each week for more historical photos and stories of Seal Beach. – Michael Dobkins
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Seal Beach resident Joyce Kucera just recently rediscovered her home movie footage of some of the actual demolition of the plant filmed back in 1967 and has generously agreed to share it with us.
Be sure to check back each week for more historical photos and stories of Seal Beach.
Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?
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This photo is listed as being from the twenties, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was actually taken in the early thirties. Except for a few cars driving through past on highway along the top of the photo, Seal Beach is empty of any signs of life. The pier, Main Street, the roller coaster and Joy Zone all seem deserted. Maybe this was a chilly winter morning during the off-season, but this image seems to capture Seal Beach in a moment when it was well past its heyday as an amusement park attraction.
Be sure to check back each week for more historical photos and stories of Seal Beach
– Michael Dobkins
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It’s Monday night, and I’m working on Tuesday’s post while listening to Steve Goodman music on the twenty-sixth anniversary of his death.
You may have heard one of his songs sung by other musical artists. His most famous song, “City of New Orleans,” was a hit for Arlo Guthrie in 1972 and has been covered by Johnny Cash, Chet Atkins, Judy Collins, and Willie Nelson. Jimmy Buffett recorded many songs by Goodman, including “California Promises” and a favorite of mine, “Banana Republics.” Or if you’re a baseball fan, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard at least one of the three songs written by Chicago-born Goodman for his beloved Chicago Cubs, “A Dying Cubs Fan’s Last Request,” “When the Cubs Go Marching In,” or “Go, Cubs, Go.” He was a versatile songwriter of enormous talent and skill.
As good as Goodman’s songs are when covered by other singers, I still prefer Steve Goodman songs sung by Steve Goodman. He brings an affable intensity to his performing that is hard to resist, especially during live recordings. That’s where his charm and enthusiasm is irresistible. To give you a flavor of his performing style, I’ve found at clip from one of his Austin City Limits shows from the late seventies.
Since this is history blog, I think this song is particularly apt.
So why am I writing about Steve Goodman in a blog about Seal Beach?
Although he lived in the Chicago area most of his life, Goodman was a resident of Seal Beach during the early eighties. When I worked at The Bookstore on Main Street from 1981 to 1983, his wife, Nancy, was a regular customer, buying a copy of the Sunday Chicago Sun-News each week. His three daughters, Jessie, Sarah, and Rosanna, were all students at J.H. McGaugh School where Goodman gave a handful of classroom concerts to their lucky classmates. Red Pajamas Records, the Goodman’s private record label, was based in Seal Beach, and each day the Goodman family would cart mail order shipments to the Main Street post office.
Goodman also wrote a wistful song called, “California Promises” about empty promises. He once introduced it by saying, “This is a song about a couple who meet by the Seal Beach pier in Seal Beach, California, before the wind comes and destroys the pier. She says, ‘I’ll be right back.’”
California Promises by Steve Goodman, 1983
Beneath the moonlit sky Shadows walk beside the water Sad goodbye whispered on the shore Hear those wind chimes play They serenade the shadow lovers Ring and fade away Like California promises
I will never love another Wait for me, ’til I return But she never will He waits for her beside the water Faithful still To California promises
I will never love another Wait for me, ’til I return Though she never will He waits for her beside the water Faithful still To California promises
While the woman never comes back, the pier did get rebuilt. Sadly, Steve Goodman wouldn’t be around to see it.
(There isn’t a video of “California Promise” available for embedding, but you can listen to it directly on YouTube by clicking here.)
Back in Chicago, Steve Goodman was nicknamed “Chicago Shorty” and “The Little Prince,” but later he jokingly gave himself another nickname, “Cool Hand Leuk” in honor of his guitar prowess and the leukemia diagnosis he had been given in 1969. His illness was in remission during the seventies, and it remained a secret until the illness returned while he lived in Seal Beach. Steve Goodman was only thirty-six when he finally succumbed to the disease on September 20, 1984.
You can find more of Steve Goodman’s music atMusic Fans Direct or at iTunes if you’re a downloading sort of person. I recommend the No Big Surprise double CD album for a starter or the Steve Goodman: Live From Austin City Limits… And More! DVD if you want more of the concert shown above.
Next year in Wrigley Field, Steve.
Be sure to check back each week for more historical photos and stories of Seal Beach.– Michael Dobkins
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If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.
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Main Street in Seal Beach has been a favorite subject for photographers throughout its 95 years of history. Every Monday between now and the end of the Seal Beach Founders Celebration, we’ll be posting a different image of Main Street. This week’s Main Street image comes to us from Linda Buell.
(l to r) Gordon Hooper, Bob Robertson (standing behind the tram) Alan Harbour, Doug Buell, Eddie Fritz & Jack Sauters. Driver: Frank Smith.
click on the image for a larger view
This image almost duplicates last week’s Main Street image except for a great view of the much missed pier tram and a better view of the Bayside Land Company Building in the background.
Painted on the side of the white truck behind the tram are the words, “Marines March of Dimes” and “Polio Fund.” This dates the photo to no later than 1958 because that was the year the March of Dimes shifted its mission from curing polio to preventing premature birth, birth defects, and infant mortality after Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine proved effective.
Be sure to check back each week for more historical photos and stories of Seal Beach.
– Michael Dobkins
Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?
If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.
Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.
This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.
North American Aviation Rockwell – September 26, 1969
“… The Saturn V rocket which put us in orbit is an incredibly complicated piece of machinery, every piece of which worked flawlessly … We have always had confidence that this equipment will work properly. All this is possible only through the blood, sweat, and tears of a number of a people …All you see is the three of us, but beneath the surface are thousands and thousands of others, and to all of those, I would like to say, ‘Thank you very much.’” – Apollo 11 Command Module Pilot Michael Collins
The words above were spoken from the command module Columbia on July 23rd, 1969 , the last night of the Apollo 11 space mission before splashdown. Three days earlier, while Michael Collins orbited the moon alone, Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin had become the first men to step on the surface of the Moon, making a reality of President Kennedy’s bold promise on September 12,1962 at Rice University.
(l to r) Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, “Buzz” Aldrin
Shortly after they were released from a post-mission quarantine, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins visited the North American Aviation Rockwell building in Seal Beach to thank in person the engineers and workers who had built the S-II stage of the Saturn V rocket. The following photographs were taken from a collection of 56 slides I purchased on eBay a few years. The seller had acquired the slides in the estate sale of a photographer some years earlier. Unfortunately, the seller didn’t have a record of the photographer’s name, but I’m grateful to him for documenting this historical visit to Seal Beach.
These are not all the slides from that collection, but I’m sharing just enough (and without commentary, for once) to present a full flavor of the event.
Be sure to check back each week for more historical photos and stories of Seal Beach.
– Michael Dobkins
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Here’s a nice long view of Seal Beach looking north in 1938. You can see the homes and buildings of Anaheim Landing six years before the Naval Depot takes over the land and Anaheim Bay. The Pacific Electric red car line runs through Anaheim Landing, up through Seal Beach on Electric Avenue, across Alamitos Bay to Appian Way where it runs parallel to the Long Beach Marine Stadium built for the 1932 Olympic rowing competition. You can see the shorter stack power plant along the San Gabriel river.
Bridgeport and The Hill have yet to be developed. The Long Beach Marina hasn’t been dredged. McGaugh School isn’t even in the planning stages at this point.
Be sure to check back each week for more historical photos and stories of Seal Beach.
– Michael Dobkins
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Apollo Saturn V S-II Rocket on Bay Boulevard – 1960s
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. – President John F. Kennedy, Rice University in Houston, Texas on September 12, 1962
This past Sunday, it was the 48th anniversary of the famous Rice Stadium speech quoted above. Early in that same month, a groundbreaking ceremony was held just off Bay Boulevard for the S-II Saturn assembly and test facilities to be built by the Navy for North American Aviation’s Space and Information Systems Division. This provides commemorative significance to today’s inspiring photo, which comes to us courtesy of Nancey Kredell.
click on the image for a larger view
The next time you drive up Seal Beach Boulevard to the 405 freeway, dreading a long commute for a holiday family visit, a vacation road trip, or the rush hour stop and go conga to work, perhaps you can take some comfort in contemplating the really long commute each Saturn V S-2 rocket took going the opposite direction down Seal Beach Boulevard (still called Bay Boulevard back in the sixties).
What you see in this photo are stage components for a Saturn V rocket being driven down Bay Boulevard (renamed Seal Beach Boulevard in the late sixties) to Anaheim Landing where they will be loaded on a transport (probably the U.S.N.S. Barrow Point). From Anaheim Bay, they embarked on a sixteen day journey that took them through the Panama Canal to a testing facility in Mississippi. Ultimately, they would end up on a launch pad at Cape Kennedy in Florida and would propel an Apollo spacecraft into outer space.
There’s a bit of a mystery about the above photograph. The first stage in the foreground is a Saturn S-II rocket manufactured in the North American Aviation Assembly plant building in the background. The second component is the interstage engine skirt that would protect the S-II’s engines during separation from the first stage rocket after take-off. The third component is much harder to identify. It could be a Saturn S-IVB stage rocket that had been manufactured at the Douglas Aircraft plant in Huntington Beach that was returned to Seal Beach for shipping to the Kennedy Space Center on June 13, 1966. Or it might be a F-1 rocket engine that was shipped with a Saturn S-II on February 2, 1968. Or it could be some other component and date I haven’t been able to discover in my search through NASA documentation.
I’m hoping a more technically adept Apollo expert will provide more information (and/or corrections) to clear up this mystery in the comments.
As an added bonus, here’s a color film footage taken from a Saturn S-II stage while in action. This was filmed on November 9, 1967 during Apollo 4’s unmanned test flight mission. First you’ll see the first stage (S-I) separate from S-II, and then the interstage engine skirt separates from the actual S-II. Finally, from the other end of the S-II, you’ll see the S-IV separate from the S-II.
Be sure to check back each week for more historical photos and stories of Seal Beach.– Michael Dobkins
Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?
If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.
Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.
Main Street in Seal Beach has been a favorite subject for photographers throughout its 95 years of history. Every Monday between now and the end of the Seal Beach Founders Celebration, we’ll be posting a different image of Main Street. This week’s Main Street image comes to us care of a past Seal Beach resident, Bob Robertson. The photo was taken by Bob’s father, Bill Robertson, owner of the Seal Beach Post and Wave newspaper.
click on the image for a larger view
It’s been about forty years since last week’s image, and much has changed. Main Street is much more familiar with businesses that still run today.
On the right, the once familiar liquor arrow points to Seal Beach Liquor on the right at 112 Main Street, and across the street Clancy’s Saloon now fills the spot where Mamie’s and the Seal Beach Pharmacy once did business. Note that the service window from the Seal Beach Pharmacy is now only decorative, probably remodeled during the Mamie’s period or before.
Guy’s Burgers has been built where the red cars used to turn off Ocean Avenue on to Main Street, and the Bayside Land Company building still stands behind it. Both buildings are now long gone.
Be sure to check back each week for more historical photos and stories of Seal Beach.
– Michael Dobkins
Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?
If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.
Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.
This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.
