Past, Present and Future: Take a Look at Broadway

Before Broadway was Broadway, it had a life primarily as the carrier of the Pacific Electric Railway (PERW), connecting to the north-south lines running up Daisy as well as American (now Long Beach Boulevard), and finally Redondo. For this reason, Broadway was called “Railway” until the early ‘teens. According to eye-witness accounts, the tracks were “considerably higher in the old days than the sides of the street, … which was unpaved and frightfully dusty.” A steam railroad had originally obtained the right of way for this street, but the PERW took over and lowered the tracks as a result of “parleys” with property owners and city officials.

In 1912, Second Street in the downtown was renamed Broadway as well (notice today there is no Second Street downtown – it starts at Alamitos). Additionally, east of Redondo, after the Red Car turned to make its way along the coastline via Ocean and Livingston, Broadway was known as Anser Street.

Originally, Broadway started out downtown, across the Los Angeles River, at Water Street. It was called West Broadway up until Pine, when East Broadway started, coming out toward Belmont Heights, ending at Nieto, just short of what used to be called Recreation Park Lagoon (now Marine Stadium and Colorado Lagoon).

Before its workhorse era as a thoroughfare for the Red Cars, Broadway had been dotted with winter bungalows for Easterners and summer bungalows for Pasadenans. In fact, east of Alamitos it was not even in the city limits of Long Beach until about 1906.

It was so rural out this way in the 1910s that florist, Herbert N. Lowe, had his hot houses at Junipero and Broadway. It was hot in more ways than one. This corner is important to gay history in Long Beach, as Lowe was arrested in his garden house here during a sting operation in 1914. The goings-on of the “606” or “96 Clubs” dotted around Southern California were sensationalized in the press. The buildings where Hot Java now stands replaced the hot houses and Lowe’s cottages. Eventually the green houses were torn down and replaced with the beautiful Lowena Drive apartment complex.

Vestiges of Broadway’s rural status can be seen in the “garages” that still line many of the sidewalks. Broadway formed the rear boundaries of the deep lots with addresses on Second Street. Today, one can still see the garages - now with entrances fronting Broadway - still on the south side of the street. If one looks closely, their proximity to the Second Street houses is still evident.

It wasn’t until the early 1920s that Broadway became what might be now considered a commercial strip. For this reason the street developed in fits and starts, beginning closer to downtown with many commercial and multi-family residential projects. As Long Beach began to grow after several decades of speculation, the building boom began in earnest. Single family bungalows began to be replaced by multi-family housing.

Today, Broadway’s character is derived from its mash-up of Prairie-style flats to Edwardian and Craftsman homes. To accommodate the surge in population after the 1921 oil discovery on Signal Hill, many commercial buildings were erected with storefronts on the street level and apartments above. These were often faced with brick and cast concrete in a Beaux Arts style, which did not fare well in the 1933 earthquake. Redesigned with Art Deco facades, these structures line much of Broadway’s commercial district today.

Have fun shopping and poking around this very historic and hard working street!