Overview

The Yokkaichi Garden stood on the northeast corner of the six-acre Burton W. Chace Civic Center, named for a local politician, Burton W. Chace (1901-1972) who passed away in a car accident a few years earlier. City of Long Beach and Los Angeles County officials planned the Chace Civic Center between the late 1950s and the mid-1970s. The center, as a whole, was dedicated during the American Bicentennial celebration on 07/04/1976. This garden occupied the ground level of an underground parking garage, in the manner of San Francisco's Union Square Plaza or Los Angeles's Pershing Square.

Building History

This public park, stood on top of a public parking garage meant to serve visitors to civic center buildings. City officials finished the underground parking facility in 1962. (See City of Long Beach.gov, "Lincoln Park," accessed 01/02/2020.) The Yokkaichi Garden stood within the larger expanse of Lincoln Park, an area that once surrounded the first two city halls in Downtown Long Beach. As originally platted in 1880, this area of Long Beach had been set aside as a central public park, called originally, "Pacific Park." It was renamed "Lincoln Park" during the early twentieth century's fascination with Abraham Lincoln, coincident with the completion of the Lincoln Memorial in 1909.

A brochure given to visitors at dedication of the Chace Civic Center in 1976 said of the whole civic center and Yokkaichi Garden: "Harking back to the time when the Town Square was the center of a community's activity, the Center has been planned to complement and enhance the downtown area. There are many places to walk, sit, sun, admire works of art, play roque or shuffleboard, or watch others play. Fountains, trees, shrubs and a Japanese garden, dedicated to Long Beach's sister city, Yokkaichi, provide an aethetically pleasing counterpoint to the functional aspects of the buildings." (See "Long Beach Civic Center Citizens' Guide," brochure housed in the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL), Main Library, California History Room.) Built between 1962 and 1964, the Yokkaichi Garden was dedicated on 08/09/1964.

Demolition

The Yokkaichi Garden, as a component of the 1950s-1970s Chace Civic Center was razed to make way for the new Long Beach Civic Center.

PCAD id: 23267