Amy Bodek is the Director of Development Services for the City of Long Beach. I met the former Bostonian at the It’s a Grind coffeehouse (on the always bustling corner of Pine and 3rd, right around the corner from the Psychic Temple) to talk about her impressions of and relationship with Downtown Long Beach as well as the building formerly known as the American Hotel.

PT: What was the Broadway corridor like when you first encountered it?
AB: When I first moved to Long Beach in 1992, Downtown was empty. Just empty. It was a series of unconnected parking lots and vacant buildings. The Insurance Exchange was a crumbling derelict building that was condemned by the City because it was so unsafe. But there were glimmers of hope: L’Opera and King’s Fish House had opened and the cutting edge AMC Theater/Pine Square apartment complex was just opening.

PT: Can you tell me about the state of the building and what businesses were in it when Long Beach received the keys?
AB: The City bought the building at a tax auction in 1998, literally at the front door of the L.A. Sheriff’s Department. I went to the auction with a series of checks in varying amounts in my hand on behalf of the City and bid on it. We got the building for less than $200,000. It was quite a steal, even then.

The American Hotel was occupied at the time; there were about 23 long-term residents living in single rooms with shared baths. The rooms could be rented by the week or the month but most of the residents were long-term. The ground floor had a nail salon and the Broadway Shoe Repair as businesses. In the adjacent buildings there were a locksmith and the Wa-Wa Chinese restaurant which is now located on First Street in the East Village.

The building was pretty worn, but the interiors of the residential units were neat and clean and had a bunch of surplus hotel furniture that was in really good shape. The retail spaces were pretty sad, though. The basement had to be cleaned up before we could go in.

PT: What were some projects for the building that got close but never happened?
AB: It was a turnstile of development proposals: a youth hostel, a residential loft project that would have rehabilitated the building, another residential project that would have partially demolished the building, an office project that would have saved the historic facade but built a new small creative office space building behind it.

For various reasons, none of them proceeded. The timing wasn’t right, developers couldn’t get financing, their plans weren’t quite “there,” etc. It sort of makes me think that this is one of those cases where things happen for a reason.

PT: What did you envision when you purchased the Psychic Temple and the neighboring structures for the City?
AB: Believe it or not, the opening of the AMC Theater/Pine Square was the harbinger of future development. It drew people from all over Long Beach to come Downtown, visit restaurants and bars, and do some shopping. Retail spaces started to fill up and there was a sense of optimism. New ownership took over the Insurance Exchange for loft conversion, which was a huge step toward revitalization.

We hoped to do the same thing with the American Hotel (as it was called at the time) and the adjacent Mark James Hotel. It was really important for the city to control those buildings so we could help revitalize that part of Downtown through development assistance.

PT: Can you talk about why Long Beach granted the RFP to RJVD?
AB: The last development attempt by the City envisioned an office building with the facade being the only part of the building being saved. The City hired LPA Architects, who are really renowned and specialize in LEED buildings. We envisioned a community space on the ground floor that would spur conversations in public planning and development, a la the SPUR center in San Francisco. But really, those sorts of projects can’t be started by the government sector without dedicated support from the private sector or non-profit sector, and we couldn’t find any partners.

It was almost with a sigh of “yet again” that the City RFP’d the building in 2009–this time to specifically to retain the building as a whole. We didn’t think we’d get anyone interested, but Jan was already working on various other projects in Downtown and had his eye on the building. When he toured it, he saw the building’s potential. By that time, the Promenade and Promenade Square Park was also well under construction, and we had the three new condo and apartment buildings built (Lyon, Pacifica, 133 Promenade). The energy was so very different and Jan’s vision really just fit for what we were trying to achieve.


PT: How do you think the current project might affect the corridor?
AB: Professionally, I think the Psychic Temple will help us extend the Promenade improvements further, and to get closer to completely linking the Promenade/Pine area with the East Village. For some reason, there’s a psychological barrier that exists, and anything we can do to close that barrier and link these two areas will be a tremendous effort in “city building.”

And it will be so cool to see this 1905 building standing shoulder-to-jowl with a modern condo next to it as well as other great historic buildings across the street. Personally, it will be the culmination of a 14-year dream of mine to see the building reactivated and contributing to the overall revitalization of Downtown.

I can assure you that when I was holding those checks from the City at the Sheriff’s auction in 1998, I certainly didn’t think it would take 14 years to put the building back into active, productive use. But I feel that the time is right and that the karma derived from the building’s brief history as the Psychic Temple is contributing to its renaissance.

More often than not, whenever I visit the Psychic Temple (later called the American Hotel) I also stop by DoLy’s Delectables because they have a great iced coffee for less than two bucks. Nice! But they also have excellent breakfasts and yummy sandwiches, not to mention amazing baked goods, pastries, and macarons. The proprietors Julie Do and Son Ly have an equally sweet and savory story about meeting and starting their business that you can read online, but I thought I’d ask Julie a few questions as an introduction beforehand.

PT: How was the transition going from mega restaurants like Olive Garden and Denny’s to co-owning your own restaurant?
JD:When we first opened, there was a huge transition going from a big corporation to our own business. The positive outlook is that you are your own boss. The downside is the huge responsibility. There was a lot to learn, and yet there’s more to come.

PT: I envision it being nice to be associated with sweets–seeing happy customers celebrating special occasions, surprising friends and family, or just giving themselves a treat. Is it like that at all?
JD:It’s a huge feeling of success when people share their enjoyment of our food–especially when they take time to come back and tell us how everyone loved it and wondered where we’re located.

PT: So many people are addicted to your macarons. Do you have a favorite flavor?
JD:My favorite macaron is PB&J, but sometimes I crave salted caramel or almond as well.

PT: Why did you settle where you did?
JD: Why Downtown Long Beach? We saw a huge potential in the surrounding area because of all the renovations, restorations, and of course the building itself. The target market (tourists) of our products (French-influenced) was another reason.

PT: It must be tough opening doors at 6 A.M. but closing shop at 3:00 in the afternoon is great! What’s in the neighborhood that you like to check out or recommend?
JD: DoLy’s Delectables! What’s great about our neighbors is that we like to give each other business. Congregation has great food, beer, and people. Leo’s Mexican Grill just opened a few months ago and they have awesome taco deals on Tuesdays and Fridays. We also love thin crust pizzas from Stefano‘s at the Village. These are just a few places that share business with us, as well as us to them, and they’re all great people

PT: Do you recall your first impression of the old American Hotel right across the street?
JD: My first impression was, “Wow, that building’s pretty beat up.” But after being told that it’s historical, I saw a lot of potential. The building we’re in is also historical. It was built in 1929, and a lot of great things were done inside. I can’t wait for the revived American Hotel building.

DoLy’s Delectables is open Monday – Friday from 6 A.M. – 3 P.M. and Saturday from 8 A.M. – 3 P.M.
245 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90802, (562) 435-9400, dolysdelectables.com

The Long Beach Fencing Club’s winning concept for the Design a Fence contest is streetwise, inexpensive, and flexible. The use of wheat paste is also brilliant because it flips a medium that is best known for illegal advertising, revolutionary politics, and street art. What has become synonymous for rebellious expression on someone else’s wall is shockingly used to promote the building behind it.

But I’m just projecting. Here’s what the club has to say on the heels of Friday’s judge-pleasing presentation:

PT: How did the idea of wheat paste come up? Was it arrived at quickly or was there an evolution of ideas?

LBFC: We landed on the idea of wheat paste after brainstorming cost-effective ways to cover large surfaces and walls. Spray paint and rollers also came to mind, but the wheat paste solution seemed to work well with our modular time line concept. It’s easy to envision one time line “post” on one wheat pasted poster. It was sort of an evolution of ideas, but we arrived at it very quickly.

PT: Can you talk a little about the medium and why it’s so appropriate?

LBFC: We figured that when it comes to covering large surfaces quickly, what works for street artists will probably work just as well for us. Using posters and wheat paste is an easy way for an artist to make a big impact without taking all day about it, and it should be more cost effective (not to mention safer) than spray paint. Because it’s cheap and easy to get content up via wheat paste, we think that also graffiti-proofs the fence to an extent. Time will tell!

PT: What are some of the things that you will be pasting up?

LBFC: Well, the sky’s the limit when it comes to the possibilities. It will definitely incorporate some of the following elements: Long Beach history, Psychic Temple history, iT related content, comments and feedback from the community, Long Beach-inspired art and photography from local artists and creatives, features on our brand partners, and so on.

PT: Are you ready to get your hands dirty?

LBFC: It’s very generous of you to assume we came in here with clean hands. How do you know our hands aren’t already dirty? Are we ready to get this awesome fence project rolling? I think the answer is a resounding yes.

Before renovation began, the Psychic Temple looked rather bleak from the outside. However, the interior was once quite colorful. Even after the initial demolition, many of the remaining surfaces revealed a springlike palette.

Because the Psychic Temple’s first floor has been made over so many times over its 100+ years, it has lost its historical value. Nonetheless, we want to share how it looked before the renovation begins. Above: Low-budget American Hotel signage and entrance.

On the far left was a shoe repair shop, complete with antiquated machinery. Some demolition and excavation had already taken place by the time these photos were taken during the summer of 2011.

The last business to occupy the right and center locations was a nail and beauty salon. There wasn’t much gear left, but the hand-painted and drawn lettering was classic.

Richard Lewis is the Controller/Project Manager of JRVD, which is handling the redevelopment of the Psychic Temple. I visited Richard shortly after the project, which was put on hold for over a year due to California’s budgetary crisis, began to pick up steam once more.

PT: You’re revisiting the Psychic Temple for the first time in a year or so. Any new thoughts after so long?
RL: The outside of the building is so special with the Romanesque brick work and large wood windows. However, you forget that the interior of the building is so special. Yesterday, I showed the inside to some people who hadn’t seen it before and loved seeing it through their eyes. The light and volumes of the space are really beautiful. It is an exciting project.

PT: Do any details stand out?
RL: The basement is special with its access under the sidewalk and the Coke bottle skylights. I can’t wait to see it built-out. There is also a large original skylight in the center of the building that is very beautiful. When the building is completely restored all of the exterior details will really stand out and it will make a difference in defining that neighborhood. When you think about what’s going on in Downtown Long Beach, such as the emergence of the Promenade and new businesses opening, it is fantastic to think how this building is going to play such an important role in extending the Broadway corridor. One seminal project can make a big difference.

PT: Do you remember the first time you saw the building?
RL: Yes. I have always loved the building from the outside. We toured the interior of the building in 2009 and immediately saw its potential. We made a proposal to the City to redevelop the building it in a way that celebrates the history and makes it contemporary at the same time.

PT: It has good bones, right?
RL: It has beautiful bones. When we started to work on the front, we found cast-iron columns that had been hidden for years. And when we went through historic records and plans we found that there once was an arch where the new entrance to second floor will be.

The retail spaces on the ground floor have been reconfigured so many times over the years that most of the historical elements on the ground floor level have been loss. So instead of trying to recreate it, we will be using a more modern glass treatment. We want the ground floor to shine, so when you drive down Broadway it will create excitement.

The Romanesque brickwork and all the giant windows on the 2nd and 3rd floors will be restored.

PT: How precise is the restoration process. Do you use Q-Tips?
RL: Not Q-Tips, but we definitely pay attention to the details. For the brick work alone, we have an experienced crew cleaning and re-pointing the mortar walls brick-by-brick.

PT: People think Long Beach’s Art Deco buildings are old, but this was built before the earthquake.
RL: Yes, the building was built in 1905. We actually have the original newspaper article announcing the construction of the “Psychic Temple.” The building did suffer damage from the 1930 earthquake. There were originally finials along the top parapet of the building that fell off during the earthquake.

Long Beach has lost a lot of its iconic historic buildings, so we feel a responsibility to bring this building back to life in a responsible way. There’s satisfaction in knowing that once the restoration is complete that this building will last another 100 years!

Jan Robert van Dijs at the Arts Building on 3rd St. (August 2011)

Jan Robert van Dijs is the namesake of JR van Dijs, Inc. Drawing from his experience and expertise in constructing large-scale, high-end projects in New York, Paris, London, Italy, and Asia, he and his crew are committed to changing the way people perceive and experience Long Beach, CA, one old structure–more often two or three–at a time.

van Dijs and his team have restored and updated buildings from beloved historic structures such as the Ebell Club and Art Theatre to more recent landmarks such as the former compound of SST Records (where his offices are now located). I met Jan across the street from there at yet another one of his projects, the Berlin coffeehouse. We talked about his career and his team’s upcoming work on the Psychic Temple.

PT: How did a guy like you, who has worked in many of the world’s great cities, wind up settling down in Long Beach?
JRvD: For a number of years, I was in construction management and worked internationally but lived here. Then about nine years ago, I decided to stop. I really enjoyed it, but the travel was getting to me, my daughter was about to be born, and I knew that things were changing.

PT: Can you share your views on the preservation and restoration of old buildings?
JRvD: Everything is political, social, and economic in this world that we live in. But for me, it’s very personal. This is the city I live in and this is the city I work in, and it just so happens that my personal passions align with my profession.

I like old buildings. I believe in them from a practical standpoint and from a redevelopment standpoint. They give texture to streetscapes and allow for more interesting projects. I think the people who want to tear everything down and build anew are shortsighted and narrow-minded. That might be easier, but it’s not necessarily better. And in the long run, if you’re looking to salvage communities and rebuild your inner city core, restoration is the best way to do it. I believe that passionately.

Psychic Temple entrance (circa 2011)

PT: When did you become aware of the American Hotel?
JRvD: The city bought the building in 2000. At the time, it was operated as a flophouse-type hotel, and I don’t know if they intended to salvage the building.

Shortly after they bought it, they entered negotiations with some hotel groups. The process got far enough that I was asked to go to several planning and redevelopment meetings to serve as a liaison for the historical community to see what was being planned.

PT: Can you describe any of the proposed plans?
JRvD: There was one developer who said, “I can’t save the building. All I’m going to do is save the façade.” The reality was that he wanted to buy the whole lot and was just keeping the façade as a token, but that fell through.

PT: And how did your team become more directly involved with the building’s future?
JRvD: Four and a half years ago, I wrote a letter to the city. I said, “The building is degrading to a point where it will be unsalvageable unless you do something soon.  It’s still a significant historical building, but water’s pouring in and it’s a mess.”

Three years ago, we were issued an exclusive negotiating agreement and got pretty far down the road in our partnership with the city, to make and market creative offices upstairs and a restaurant and bar downstairs. We went to the historical department and got a Certificate of Appropriateness. Everything was moving forward until January 2011 when the wheels fell off due to the state budget crisis. We re-proposed different things to the city, but the reality was that every time we came close to reaching some kind of an agreement, the rules changed again. It was just a big mess.

Psychic Temple first floor (circa 2011)

PT: And when did interTrend enter the picture?
JRvD: Julia (Huang from interTrend) discovered Berlin during an art walk. She realized it would be a nice place to have lunch and brought some of her staff the next day. There were like eight of them. From here, she looked across the street at our office and said, “That is what I’d like our loft to look like.”

I was in my conference room and they were all lined up along the window, looking in. So I went out and said that we had some spaces in back. But they needed more square footage than that. The American Hotel was the only building I was working on that was big enough. I was pretty honest about it from the beginning, and said we had a lot of issues to work out with the city.

PT: Can you describe working with Julia and interTrend?
JRvD: Very few people are capable of seeing that kind of building in that condition, but they saw the building and showed a shocking amount of vision. Philosophically, we share the same vision in terms of our businesses: we want to be on the street because we want to have a connection with our community. You don’t make connections by pulling into a parking garage, going up an elevator, and looking out of a ninth floor window.

“You can hardly see the glass,” says Long Beach-based historian Stan Poe pointing at a section of sidewalk in front of the Psychic Temple. “But those were prisms that would increase the light and illuminate the basement. We don’t know what it was used for…”

At the turn of the century when electricity wasn’t common, daylight was treasured, and could be used and extended in basements via a grid of circular glass lenses in concrete reinforced by cold-twisted steel rods. A Chicago-based company’s description of the process can be read at glassian.org.

Examples of vault lights (many of which are broken and filled) can still be spotted in Downtown Los Angeles, around New York City, and a strip of Victoria, British Columbia. Poe says, “When I was a kid, I was always afraid to walk on them because they’d open!”

After the Psychic Temple had been demoed and before reconstruction began, I took a walk around the building with local author, expert, and member of many preservation committees Stan Poe. He gave me the building’s history (link) and pointed out some architectural details, as well as some hints as to what architect Jan Van Dijs might have in store for the restoration.

“The Broadway façade was slightly out of style when it was built. Long Beach was that way even then! But the front is what is designated as historic, which give Jan room to work.

“We discovered a big parapet. At the top of the building is a big cornice, and above that the parapet, which was a short wall of chimneys coming off the top. They probably fell off or were taken off during the earthquake, but we found a picture of them that Jan’s going to copy.”

“This was an arched opening. We think that when the Temple of the Holy Kiss was opened in 1905, the first floor may have been one great big open area with stairs in back. The stairs on the far end were added in the 1920s.

“Permits were real loosy goosy, and when the earthquake happened a lot of stuff was thrown of city hall as trash. I think the architect’s name was Henry Starbuck. He also built the Masonic temple down the street. “

“These iron pieces are interesting. They’re interesting because they have an Eastlake design from the 1890s. They must have been sitting around the foundry and brought in for the building. Until Jan got in there, we didn’t know they existed. The front was all black reflective tile. They were added at some point.”

“There was another hotel here that was built in the teens. It came smack up next to the wall and they connected. You can see the fill-in.”

“The staircase isn’t grand but it’s nice enough to cut it. Over the stairs is a skylight that was painted out but once lit up the whole thing.”

“The little rooms had just enough space for a single bed. There’s been a lot of speculation about what went on in them, but people would check in to have their souls cleaned overnight.”