This blog is a journal of Long Beach, California, through the lens of Jeff Gritchen. It will be updated frequently with the pictures, photo tips and musings from the various assignments he covers as a staff photographer for the Press-Telegram.
Gritchen has been documenting the diverse city of Long Beach since 1998. He covers everything from the Cambodian community to prep sports to gang ridden neighborhoods to the annual running of the Long Beach Grand Prix. He covered destruction Hurricane Katrina brought to Long Beach, Mississippi and traveled to Southeast Asia to document a rural Cambodian girl's as she traveled to the U.S. for life-altering heart surgery. He has won numerous state and national awards, including an international NPPA Best of Photojournalism award in 2003. He can be contacted at
jeff.gritchen@presstelegram.com
I was born and raised in Long Beach from 1947 until I moved in 1991 to Irvine. I have so many memories of Pine Ave - all the great stores I would go to with my parents. The shoreline was so much different. I wrote to you before since my parents lived in Long Beach in the 1920's, but I couldn't find any specific pictures of the shoreline when my mom and her brother grew up on the beaches, the pike, the Virgina Hotel. I'm fortunate that I remember all of this and wish it still looked like that. All the buildings there now have taken away from some of the great areas it once was. I think when they took down rainbow bridge, the red cars and more, then all of a sudden some things are back - how sad is all of that. I now live in Scottsdale, AZ. I don't get back often to Long Beach, but when I do, I go to all the places I loved growing up and wonder where it all went. Some of it is still the same - Belmont Shore, Wilson High School, some of Ocean Blvd. I don't think it's the best now the way the downtown area is - it was so much better in the 50's and 60's and everyone would go downtown and it was busy and thriving. I read the Press Telegram every day even though I don't live there anymore. I just want to see everything that is still going on in the city I was born.