TITLE
Recommendation to request City Manager to include the Long Beach Cultural Master Plan and its update entitled, "Create Long Beach" into the Long Beach 2030 General Plan to ensure our long-term commitment to arts and culture and sustainable economic development.
DISCUSSION
Long Beach has a rich and diverse history of arts and culture dating back to its inception, contributing significantly to the fabric of our city, its economic development and traditions. In the late 1800s, founding farming families such as Lowe and Bixby, as well as community groups like the Long Beach Library Association, Ebell Club and the Chautauqua Assembly paved the way for a thriving arts and cultural scene. At the turn of the century, the famed Red Cars brought thousands of people to Long Beach and its newly built Bath House, Walk of a Thousand Lights (Pike) and the Pavilion, where the likes of Italian bandleaders Nicola Danatelli and Marco Vesslia enticed throngs of visitors to this overnight seaside attraction. In 1912, the Balboa Feature Film Company established by request of Thomas Edison, set up shop on 8 acres downtown at Alamitos and Sixth Street and featured the talents of Fatty Arbuckle, Theda Bara Jackie Saunders, Ruth Roland, Henry King, Lewis Cody, William Desmond Taylor, and Baby Marie Osborne.
Throughout our history, business leaders understood the direct correlation between a flourishing arts and cultural setting and successful economic development. Oil on Signal Hill and a downtown building boom in 1921 led businessman James Savery to organize the Wayside Colony, "a row of studious and shops along Atlantic Avenue where artists could sell their works." From this colony of artists came the Long Beach Community Players and an organization known as Long Beach Arts, an art association that sponsored major events and projects throughout the city. Indeed, the institutions, organizations and traditions we hold dear today can be traced to the artists and cultural leaders o...
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