L.B., as in lively bash

ON the wide sidewalk in front of a bookstore called Open, Danial Nord stood grinning merrily at his creation: a set of six small, potted boxwood shrubs, from each of which emanates the loud, clear voice of one member of the United States’ first family, the Bushes. “I’m the decider,” says George W. “Our family term of endearment is Bushie! Bushie! Bushie!” say the twins. “We must pray ... for our prophet,” says Jeb.

The plants made up one of more than 40 art pieces in the third SoundWalk, a once-a-year event on a recent Saturday in Long Beach’s emerging East Village Arts District. A steady flow of patrons up and down Linden Avenue stopped and listened, many of them cracking big smiles at the meditation on the recognizability of a whole family of famous voices.

“I came down here for last year’s SoundWalk, and I’ve always found this community to be so open and inclusive. I thought, ‘I want to do one of these,’ ” Nord says.

Though SoundWalk may be one of Long Beach’s most unusual art nights, it’s hardly the only one, as monthly events and more highlight the eclectic and even eccentric feel of the galleries, restaurants and boutiques that have moved into the area. And it’s only a small slice of the big changes that have come to downtown Long Beach: Four or five blocks to the west, as the hour gets late on Pine Avenue, thousands of revelers, club-goers and cruisers clog the streets -- so many that the city is experimenting with closing it off as a pedestrian zone on some weekend nights. Partyers make a loop from the new waterfront mall called the Pike at Rainbow Harbor, up the hill past the Convention Center, and wedge into the crush of people in restaurants such as the Rock Bottom Brewery, the Latin-dance houses of Alegria, Mariposa and Cafe Sevilla, and George’s Greek Cafe with its belly dancers.

On the strip, a carnival atmosphere reigns, part Hollywood, part port of call. A world removed from the more sophisticated East Village, young women roam in packs sporting their tightest jeans and most daring skirts. Men wait outside the clubs in everything from Boss suits to Raiders jerseys. A few limos cut through the cacophony of bass booming from slow-moving cars, but overall this is a pretty nonexclusive affair. In Long Beach, you don’t have to be a somebody to get your party on.

“It’s not too full of itself, because it’s used to being a bit of an underdog,” Nord says of the downtown in general. A resident of nearby San Pedro, he likes the vitality. “It’s really its own place.”

It’s also a place still under construction. The air smells of new lumber, and condo-and-retail developments are in the works in every direction. The Promenade -- until recently a central thoroughfare between Pine and the East Village, featuring a well-used outdoor amphitheater -- is fenced off for a total remake. The whole downtown tableau is a strange mix of the repolished and the spanking new, and the place fairly jumps with expectation: Long Beach is happening.

“We’ve been open three years, and there’s something about Long Beach, it just kinda gets into your skin,” says Se Reed, who along with business partner Shea Gauer co-owns Open and has been active in the revitalization effort. “Everyone says, ‘Long Beach will click, sometime.’ It’s like Long Beach lives on the edge of this precipice of being really awesome.”

The downtown community seems deeply committed to pushing over that edge. Pine Avenue is a full-on party. The Pike is no-apologies chain retail. The East Village has a unique hybrid approach, in which almost every retailer also doubles as an art gallery. You sip your java at the Passport Coffeehouse, you see the photos of Jon Delouz. You visit Uncle Al’s Seafood on Saturdays, you get an open-mike night. At Proper, vintage Nike sneakers are presented as art.

And this doesn’t even acknowledge the institutions along the waterfront, like the 7-year-old Aquarium of the Pacific -- which anchored the Pike project and all the shops and restaurants in that nearly 18-acre effort -- Rainbow Harbor itself, Shoreline Village with its booming restaurants including Parker’s Lighthouse and the Yard House, the Queen Mary, the downtown Shoreline Marina and Shoreline Park, Long Beach Arena and the Convention Center, and the hotel and condo culture growing in the relatively small area.

“Everybody wants it so badly!” Reed says. “The developers want it, the city officials want it, the business owners want it and the residents want it. The two words I use most often to describe it are ‘potential’ and ‘hope.’ But those are pretty weighted words.”

Time to reinvent

Even 15 years ago, Long Beach didn’t need any bling. It was a solidly middle-class community propping up the southern end of L.A. County with lots of industrial and military jobs, affordable homes and an ocean view. But the end of the Cold War and military downscaling hit hard: 50,000 aerospace and defense jobs pulled out, then the Navy left too. The place was a tinderbox, and all it took was the Rodney King verdict to touch it off. The unrest that decimated South-Central L.A. spread to the harbor neighborhoods, and by the mid-’90s, the “LBC” (its rap slang name) was better known as a video backdrop for Snoop Dogg and his Eastside Crips than any funky-cool galleries.

“The city had to try to reinvent itself around trade, tourism and technology,” says Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster. “And certainly you could make a good case that trade and tourism have really blossomed here. Pine Avenue was one of the first things to be established.”

George and Demetri Loizides helped anchor the Pine renewal with George’s Greek Cafe; not only do their house-specialty lamb chops and saganaki draw diners, but their belly dancers are well visible from the street.

The hour arrives

Now, Pine Avenue is Long Beach’s nighttime haunt. At about 10 p.m., people start flooding in, transforming the area into a chaotic clash of cultures, cuisines and concerts. The first thing you’ll notice is the sound, with music from ethnic to pop pouring out of the bars and restaurants and booming out of the slow-moving cars.

On a recent Saturday night, a jazz brass band played on the western sidewalk while a percussion-based ensemble with two steel drummers faced off to it on the east. But they could barely be heard over what was going on indoors.

Those out for a Vegas-at-the-Sea experience are going to hit up the V20, a big, slick club on the Pike, complete with go-go dancers. But lots of the Pine Avenue regulars frequent Vault 350, a midsize concert venue featuring national acts like Veruca Salt (playing Oct. 31) and a wood-detailed mezzanine bar and VIP room, or Club Cohiba, a DJ-driven dance spot disguised as a cigar bar full of dudes playing pool.

Alegria Cocina Latina is regularly jampacked on a weekend night, serving chef Walter Cotta’s Spanish and Latin American cuisine and sangria, but it’s best known for having brought Latin-themed dance to Pine, and specifically flamenco. Currently, the bands that play Alegria’s small raised stage beyond the cramped bar are more likely to play tango, but the theme grabbed Long Beach hard and inspired a mini-Latin quarter with its neighbors Mariposa and Cafe Sevilla.

Mariposa specializes in Mexican food, and a live salsa band packs the dance floor. The Sevilla across the street features Spanish food and a tapas bar for flamenco, gypsy fusion and tango dinner shows -- to get there, however, you’ll have to cut through the long lines waiting to get upstairs into Club Sevilla, a beautifully appointed room made for dancing with mostly mainstream salsa (Thursday), Top 40 (Friday) and Latin house and Euro house (Saturday).

“We started 16 years ago, as one of the first restaurants in the Gaslamp Quarter in San Diego, and we helped kick off the rebirth there. We opened on Pine Avenue five months ago, and it’s a great area. It’s very multicultural and the energy is very high,” says Miguel Baeza, Cafe Sevilla’s general manager.

“Since I’ve lived in this area, they’ve definitely fixed it up,” says Leon Anderson, waiting patiently to get up the stairs into the club. A Long Beach resident since 1995, he says the nightlife is now worth the crowds and waits. “I’ve been to the salsa nights here, on Thursdays, and it’s excellent. You can put in there it’s a little pricey, though.”

Dancing on the roof

The flamenco and Latin dance craze has continued to spread and has even made its way to the top of the venerable harbor-side Breakers Hotel -- site of the reception for Liz Taylor’s first wedding (to Nicky Hilton) and long the playground of the rich and famous.

Serving primarily as a seniors’ residence after Hilton sold the building, the Breakers was acquired in 1997 by Bernard Rosenson, who reopened the Sky Room and built up an 850-vintage wine list. The steak and seafood place has recently added an open-air rooftop redoubt called the Sky Room Bar, which is themed as a Spanish villa. Most nights it features a guitarist and a flamenco dancer.

But downtown, visitors don’t have much trouble finding dining options.

The Pike at Rainbow Harbor, a mall that opened in 2005 on the waterfront next to the Aquarium of the Pacific, features chain restaurants and then some pleasant surprises like the Auld Dubliner Irish Pub, a spot where you can get authentic stews and bangers with your pint.

Out on the end of Shoreline Village, the Yard House serves seafood in a “classic rock” atmosphere right on the breakwater of Rainbow Harbor, a small interior harbor that services tour boats and medium-sized pleasure craft -- some of which can be rented for overnight stays.

Up in the avenues, Modica’s Deli, in the stylish deco Cooper Arms building at the corner of Ocean and Linden, serves its specialty hot pastrami sandwich. If you want an endorsement of it, ask the cops eating there. For a nouveau French take, and bit more of a sit-down experience, go next door to La Muse Cafe and get a table in the Cooper Arms’ grassy courtyard. For a bit more swank, the 555 East American Steakhouse across the street is a classic brasserie, with piano music, sharp-dressed waiters and a $41.95 prime porterhouse.

Playing on Pine

The night life, however, is up on Pine. The street has quickly come to dominate the city’s nocturnal side, and is expressing every extreme: The Madison gives the Sky Room a run for its reputation as the most elegant spot in town; a refurbished bank building at Pine and 1st, its 30-foot-high mahogany-paneled walls and marble columns set off a glass bar so huge it requires a library-like rolling ladder to reach all the bottles.

Just down the street, and at another end of the spectrum, is Smooth’s, a sports bar open to the street with a large crowd passionately engaged in the games on the many TV screens.

Out in front of the Rock Bottom Brewery, a brew pub and restaurant at Pine and Ocean, Long Beach residents Matt Yohman and Christopher Maes wait for their dates. As cars stack up next to them at the entrance to Pine, they say their favorite place to eat on this strip is King’s Fish House (owned by the same company that runs 555 East).

“This area’s going to be like the Gaslamp in San Diego pretty soon,” Maes says.

“They’ve got to stop some of the cruising,” Yohman says. “But if you looked at how it was six or seven years ago, it’s really improved. It’s becoming a nice place to go out.”

Bring the kids

Families, of course, have been hip to Long Beach for years. Since the late ‘90s, when the waterfront renovation took hold, this has been one of the most kid-friendly destinations in the county. The aquarium is the crown jewel, with touch pools full of gentle rays and skates, a lorikeet forest and cave-like themed halls. But its popularity is rivaled by that of the Queen Mary, once one of the world’s largest ocean liners and now a 365-room hotel full of bars, restaurants and a busy calendar of events.

Since the completion of Rainbow Harbor and the Pike, there is even more. An outpost of the GameWorks chain offers a 40,000-square-foot arcade, and on Sundays you’re bound to see a squad of jersey-wearing dads only too happy to watch the game in one of its two sports bars, or birthday parties roaring in the attached bowling alley. If that’s not enough, outside is a giant Ferris wheel. The Harbor Breeze tour ships on Dock No. 2 offer up-close views of the Queen Mary, the dome that once held Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose, the container ports, the oil islands and some lazy, buoy-loving sea lions. After that, take a stroll through Shoreline Village, the harborside shopping area.

Adults are still surprised, however, to discover the transformation a few blocks off the harbor. Business owners and artists like Kamran Assadi, co-owner of Utopia restaurant at Linden and 1st, are hoping all this traffic spills over into the East Village. Many are also hoping the explosion of condos will bring residents and not just jack up rents for the area’s artists.

“In 1999, when we opened the shop, it was just quiet, a lot of crimes. Actually, people made fun of us when my partner and I decided on the location. They just thought we were crazy,” Assadi says.

Probably not anymore. Utopia’s eclectic menu and piano wine bar have proved durable, and just down the block, a posh new nightclub called the Basement recently opened downstairs in the Broadlind Building. Decked out with stone tile, plush furniture and dramatic blue lights, with private tables in curtained alcoves, the W Hotel-styled vibe is pretty hip for the funky area, but it seems to be working; a remix of Missy Elliott’s “Work It” has the dance floor flooded with sexy twenty- and thirtysomethings shakin’ it, drinks in hand. Down 1st Street to the west is another new-ish spot, the House of Hayden, a Goth-themed rocker bar.

Cultural tourism

The main draw in the village, however, is the art scene, and Assadi has helped organize some of the art walks (currently, there is an event on the last Saturday of every month) and is a member of an artists’ group called Flood, which puts on the annual SoundWalk. An artist called Sumako, who makes ambient music with a fretless guitar and projects visual representations of the sound with laser light, steps out in front of the Ginia Studio and Gallery and says there are still some challenges with developers who are looking for a quick score.

“The people that want to revitalize this area with art are doing the best they can. I’ve played in galleries all around here, and there are a lot more of them now,” he says.

“But we need some cooperation with landlords.”

The city has loaded in behind that effort, partially funding the SoundWalk and other arts initiatives, and helping to construct the Art Exchange, a large new multidisciplinary arts facility to begin construction soon at Broadway and Long Beach Boulevard, a few blocks away.

“The city sees that art has a potential to bring cultural tourism into this area,” Assadi says. “It elevates the image of the city and brings quality clientele, and it just puts Long Beach on the map as a destination. It’s important to have bars and restaurants, but we need more than that.”

weekend@latimes.com

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Long Beach haunts and jaunts

A selection of downtown Long Beach’s charms:

Pine Avenue

1. George’s Greek Cafe

318 Pine Ave., (562) 437-1184

Always fun, this Long Beach institution rings with cries of “opa!” and the jingling of beautiful belly dancers.

2. Club Cohiba

110 E. Broadway, (562) 491-5220

Men flood this dress-code cigar bar, and top DJs keep the ladies on the dance floor.

3. Smooth’s Sports Grille

144 Pine Ave., (562) 437-7700

For those who want well-prepared food but don’t want to miss the big games.

4. Auld Dubliner Irish Pub

71 S. Pine Ave., (562) 437-8300

This authentic pub draws a good pint and serves real bangers and shepherd’s pie. A happy-hour fave.

5. Cafe Sevilla

140 Pine Ave., (562) 495-1111

Big, boisterous Spanish-themed restaurant with a European menu and Latin-themed floor shows and dancing in the clubroom upstairs.

6. Alegria Cocina Latina

115 Pine Ave., (562) 436-3388

Its flamenco show and killer sangria started the Latin-dance craze that has now swept the city.

7. Mariposa on Pine

110 Pine Ave., (562) 951-9711

This Mexican restaurant is packed with dancers moving to live salsa bands every weekend night.

8. L’Opera

101 Pine Ave., (562) 491-0066

Elegant white-linen dining with deserved reputation as a top Italian restaurant in Long Beach.

9. The Madison

102 Pine Ave., (562) 628-8866

Breathtaking mahogany walls and marble columns suit the classic American cuisine here.

10. Rock Bottom Brewery

1 Pine Ave., (562) 308-2255

Big, loud brew pub is a favorite destination for Pine Avenue revelers.

East Village Arts District

11. Ginia Studio and Gallery

443 E. Broadway, (562) 243-6502

Small gallery features painting and musical performances by artists such as Sumako and local legend Harmonica Bob.

12. Koo’s Art Center

530 E. Broadway, (562) 491-7584

Nonprofit art facility with nice exhibition area and a space for concerts and theater (the latter is under renovation).

13. The Basement

149 Linden Ave., B-100, (562) 901-9090

Hipster dance club with curtained alcoves, low blue lighting and a good mix of hip-hop and progressive house music.

14. Open

144 Linden Ave., (562) 499-6736

Friendly used-book store, gallery and reading-performance space; a favorite of the arts district.

15. Utopia

445 E. 1st St., (562) 432-6888

A district pioneer, with an eclectic menu and small piano-wine bar, this place has a steady flow of regulars.

16. House of Hayden

421 E. 1st St., (562) 435-5699

A Goth-themed bar decked out in wrought iron and stainless steel, with a rock ‘n’ roll persona.

17. Modica’s Deli

455 E. Ocean Blvd., (562) 435-7011

A classic deli in the deco Cooper Arms building; the specialty hot pastrami sandwich is legendary.

La Muse East Village Cafe 455 E. Ocean Blvd., No. 12, (562) 432-1965

Garden patio French cafe by the same folks that run the popular La Creperie in Belmont Shore.

18. 555 East American Steakhouse

555 E. Ocean Blvd., (562) 437-0626

Top-end steak and seafood brasserie with piano-bar energy.

19. Second City Council

435 Alamitos Ave., (562) 901-0997

This popular art gallery with steady schedule of consistent shows is one of the anchors of the new East Village scene.

Other Long Beach Draws

20. The Sky Room

40 S. Locust Ave., (562) 983-2703

This onetime haunt of Liz Taylor and the Hollywood set is on the top floor of the Breakers Hotel, which now includes a rooftop Sky Room Bar.

21. Gameworks

10 Aquarium Way, (562) 308-7529

Arcade games (40,000 square feet of them), two sports bars, a bowling alley and food from the Jax Grill.

22. V20

81 Aquarium Way, (866) 402-5828

Long Beach’s only Vegas-styled dance club with hot go-go dancers, hot clientele and a wait at the door.

23. Aquarium of the Pacific

100 Aquarium Way, (562) 590-3100

The only major aquarium in the world dedicated entirely to Pacific Ocean life; one of the best family outings in L.A.

Harbor Breeze Cruises

100 Aquarium Way, Dock No. 2, (562) 432-4900

Chug out of Rainbow Harbor and get a fascinating harbor history lesson from the world’s longest breakwater to the Queen Mary to the still-pumping oil islands.

24. Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center

300 E. Ocean Blvd., (562) 436-3636

The complex draws a steady stream of conventioneers and includes venues such as the Long Beach Arena and the Performing Arts Center.

25. The Yard House

401 Shoreline Village Drive, (562) 628-0455

Loud, fun restaurant features “classic rock” dining right on the water in Shoreline Village.

26. Shoreline Village

All of Shoreline Village Drive, on Rainbow Harbor, www.shorelinevillage.com.

A seaside attraction of boutiques, restaurants and amusements strung out along Rainbow Harbor. Connected to grassy, open Shoreline Park on the other side of the harbor by a walkway that passes by boats and the Aquarium of the Pacific.

27. Parker’s Lighthouse

435 Shoreline Village Drive, (562) 432-6500

A top seafood restaurant in Shoreline Village, with big ocean views directly across from the lighthouse.

28. Shoreline Marina

450 E. Shoreline Drive, (562) 570-4950

Thousands of private boats bob in one of California’s largest marinas.

29. Queen Mary

1126 Queens Highway, (562) 435-3511

Launched in 1934, the giant ocean liner is bigger than the Titanic was and still functions as a 365-room hotel, with event spaces, ballrooms and an array of restaurants and bars.

-- Dean Kuipers