Acres of Books was a large independent bookstore in downtown Long Beach, California from 1934 to 2008.
Acres of Books was a large independent bookstore in downtown Long Beach, California from 1934 to 2008.
The business was founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1927 by Bertrand Smith. In 1934 Smith moved to California and established the store in Long Beach; he moved to the current address at 240 Long Beach Boulevard in 1960. Acres of Books was the largest and oldest family-owned second-hand bookstore in California, claiming to have in stock over one million books.
In 1959 Smith gave to the people of Long Beach a collection of rare books, some dating back to the 15th century. Included in the collection is a two volume facsimile of the Gutenberg Bible, all of which is housed as part of the Loraine and Earl Burns Miller Special Collections Room at the main branch of the Long Beach public library.
In 1990 Acres of Books was designated a cultural heritage landmark by the City of Long Beach.
In its long history, Acres of Books' customers included Jack Vance, Upton Sinclair, Stan Freberg, Gary Owens, James Hilton, Greg Bear, Tim Powers, Thurston Moore, Mike Watt, Paul Schrader, Fran Lebowitz, Robert Easton, Eli Wallach, Diane Keaton, Larry McMurtry, and, most notably, Ray Bradbury, who immortalized the store in his essay "I Sing the Bookstore Eclectic". Robert Bloch name-checked the store in his 1978 novel Strange Eons.
Acres of Books closed on October 18, 2008. [1] The owners sold the 12,000-square-foot (1,100 m2) property to the Long Beach Redevelopment Agency for $2.8 million. [2] Subsequently, the Redevelopment Agency was dissolved by order of Governor Jerry Brown.
There was at one time a proposal to develop the site as an art exchange, but nothing came of that. As of late 2023, the premises were neatly maintained but displayed no commercial signage.
Signal Hill is a city 2.2 sq mi (5.7 km2) in area in Los Angeles County, California. Located high on a hill, the city is an enclave completely surrounded by the city of Long Beach. Signal Hill was incorporated on April 22, 1924, roughly three years after oil was discovered there. As of the 2020 census, the population was 11,848, up from 11,016 at the 2010 census.
The Strand Bookstore is an independent bookstore located at 828 Broadway, at the corner of East 12th Street in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, two blocks south of Union Square. In addition to the main location, there is another store on the Upper West Side on Columbus Ave between West 81st and 82nd Streets, as well as kiosks in Central Park and Times Square, and a curated shelf at Moynihan Train Hall. The company's slogan is "18 Miles Of Books," as featured on its stickers, T-shirts, and other merchandise. In 2016, The New York Times called The Strand "the undisputed king of the city’s independent bookstores."
Vroman's Bookstore is reportedly the oldest and largest independent bookstore by multiple news media reporters in Southern California.
The Los Cerritos Center is a super regional shopping mall located in Cerritos, California. Since September 1971, the Los Cerritos Center has been an integral part of the city of Cerritos' tax revenue. The mall is the city's largest revenue source, producing $581 per square foot in sales in 2010. The tax revenue generated from the Los Cerritos Center for its host city totals to approximately $3 million a year. The facility is owned by Macerich & GIC Private Limited.
The Eastern Columbia Building, also known as the Eastern Columbia Lofts, is a thirteen-story Art Deco building designed by Claud Beelman located at 849 S. Broadway in the Broadway Theater District of Downtown Los Angeles. It opened on September 12, 1930, after just nine months of construction. It was built at a cost of $1.25 million as the new headquarters and 39th store for the Eastern-Columbia Department Store, whose component Eastern and Columbia stores were founded by Adolph Sieroty and family. At the time of construction, the City of Los Angeles enforced a height limit of 150 feet (46 m), however the decorative clock tower was granted an exemption, allowing the clock a total height of 264 feet (80 m). J. V. McNeil Company was the general contractor.
Bristol Farms is an upscale grocery store chain in California, United States. Founded in Los Angeles County, Bristol Farms operates 19 stores: 13 as Bristol Farms locations and 6 branded as Lazy Acres Markets throughout Southern California. The company is currently owned by Good Food Holdings.
The Cerritos Towne Center is a retail park located in the center of Cerritos, California that combines retailing, office, and entertainment in one master project. The Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts is located within the southwestern part of the project. Cerritos High School, Cerritos City Hall, the Cerritos Sheriff Station, and the Cerritos Millennium Library are all located across the street from the Towne Center development and are sometimes collectively referred to as "Downtown Cerritos."
Walteria is a neighborhood in south Torrance in southern California, United States. It is bounded by Hawthorne Boulevard on the east, Pacific Coast Highway on the south, Lomita Boulevard to the north, and Calle Mayor to the west. The local zip code is 90505.
Los Cerritos is a neighborhood with approximately 700 homes and 2,000 residents located within the Bixby Knolls neighborhood of Long Beach, California. Established in 1906, the Los Cerritos neighborhood has been used by the film industry of Hollywood with its historic, estate-sized homes. It was one of three finalists in the 2007 Neighborhood of the Year national competition.
The Long Beach Main Post Office is a post office located on Long Beach Boulevard in downtown Long Beach, California.
The Insurance Exchange Building, formerly known as the Middough Building and the Middough Brothers Building, is a registered historic building located on Broadway in downtown Long Beach, California, USA. The eight-story Beaux Arts building was one of the largest office buildings in downtown Long Beach when it opened in 1925. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
The Carousel Mall, also known as Central City Mall, was a mixed-use two-story shopping mall located in San Bernardino, California, along the city's former main downtown street.
The Long Beach Oil Field is a large oil field underneath the cities of Long Beach and Signal Hill, California, in the United States. Discovered in 1921, the field was enormously productive in the 1920s, with hundreds of oil derricks covering Signal Hill and adjacent parts of Long Beach; largely due to the huge output of this field, the Los Angeles Basin produced one-fifth of the nation's oil supply during the early 1920s. In 1923 alone the field produced over 68 million barrels of oil, and in barrels produced by surface area, the field was the world's richest. During the early stages of the field's development, unlike most oil fields, land was leased by the square inch instead of by the acre. The field is eighth-largest by cumulative production in California, and although now largely depleted, still officially retains around 5 million barrels of recoverable oil and has produced 963 million out of 3,600 million barrels of original oil in place. 294 wells remained in operation as of the beginning of 2008, and in 2008 the field reported production of over 1.5 million barrels of oil. The field is currently run entirely by small independent oil companies, with the largest operator in 2009 being Signal Hill Petroleum, Inc.
The Masonic Temple at 230 Pine Ave. in downtown Long Beach, California was built in 1903. It is listed on the List of City of Long Beach historic landmarks.
Belmont Veterans Memorial Pier is a pier in Belmont Heights, Long Beach, California.
La Mirada Mall was a 72-acre (29 ha) regional shopping mall at the southeast corner of La Mirada Boulevard and Rosecrans Avenue in La Mirada, California, in southeast Los Angeles County, in a region known as the Gateway Cities. It is now the site of the La Mirada Theater Center, a strip mall.
Marina Pacifica is a marina-adjacent shopping mall featuring movie theaters, shopping, dining & copious parking. It is in southeastern Long Beach, California between Second Street and the Los Cerritos Channel. The shopping center has variously been named Marina Pacifica Mall and Marina Pacifica Shopping Center.
The Famous Department Store was a department store in Los Angeles, California.
Marcus Books, was founded in 1960, and is the oldest bookstore that specializes in African-American literature, history, and culture in the United States. For many years, it has been located in the Western Addition neighborhood of San Francisco, with a second location in Oakland, California. The store has remained independent and family-owned since its founding, and it is considered a community space for African-American and literary culture in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Long Beach Towne Center is a large power center in northeastern Long Beach, California at Carson St. and the I-605, with 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m2) of retail space on a 100-acre (40 ha) site. It is the largest shopping center in Long Beach.