Former Naval Hospital
70 acres at the north end of the park was sold by the City of Long Beach to the Navy for $1 in 1965 to build a new naval hospital, replacing its world-war II era facilities located on pacific coast highway on the facilities later used by the (closed) Brooks college and now as student housing at Cal State Long Beach. It became known for its alcoholism treatment program which launched in 1967 and became known as the hub of the military's dependency program. Perhaps its most famous patient was Betty Ford, who was admitted for drug and alcohol dependence in 1978. Another famous patient was Nazi war criminal Andrija Artukovic. This hospital closed in 1994 along with the closing of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard and Naval Station and disbanding of the Long Beach Naval Fleet. Rather than returning the land to park use, the city proposed a shopping mall. After years of legal battles by neighboring cities, who were concerned with the loss of sales tax revenue as well as competition with their own shopping malls, the center opened in 2000.
Read more about this topic: El Dorado Park, Long Beach, California
Famous quotes containing the words naval and/or hospital:
“Yesterday, December 7, 1941Ma date that will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Radio put technology into storytelling and made it sick. TV killed it. Then you were locked into somebody else’s sighting of that story. You no longer had the benefit of making that picture for yourself, using your imagination. Storytelling brings back that humanness that we have lost with TV. You talk to children and they don’t hear you. They are television addicts. Mamas bring them home from the hospital and drag them up in front of the set and the great stare-out begins.”
—Jackie Torrence (b. 1944)