willow springs

This walk through two beach neighborhoods connects the Second Street business district with the Belmont Pier providing plenty of shopping and restaurants to choose from.

Distance: 2.45 Miles  |  Difficulty:  ●●●●○

Start the walk at MEMORIAL HOSPITAL and MILLERS CHILDREN HOSPITAL heading south on Atlantic Avenue to turn left on 27th Street into the borderland between Long Beach and Signal Hill.  Across California Avenue is WILLOWS SPRING PARK, a unique open space made up of a century of urban ruins, former industrial uses, water management infrastructure and extraction equipment that have since been enveloped by nature. ❶ FARM LOT 59 provides fresh produce to the community as well as nutrition and farming education for students and locals.  Take the access road northeast to the
 ❷ DETENTION BASIN/ARESIAN SPRING, site of Long Beach’s first water source over a hundred years ago.  The concrete pit fills with water during the rain season, spurring the growth of willow trees and other native wetland plants at the bottom. Traverse the hill to one of the best vantage points of the city, ❸ LONGVIEW POINT.  It is blanketed by a 100’ diameter map of the Los Angeles Basin with orienting views for everything from Catalina Island to the Griffith Park Observatory.  Head down Orange Avenue into ❹ MUNICIPAL CEMETERY and Sunnyside Cemetery, the oldest cemeteries in the city and the final resting place for over 20,000 permanent residents, including newspaper editors, oilmen and William Willmore, Long Beach’s founder. Go west on Willow Street, crossing at California Avenue into ❺ SUNRISE BOULEVARD HISTORIC DISTRICT, an eclectic neighborhood made up of grand Craftsman homes, small vintage bungalows and El Cortez, an early example of the Southern California motor court.  Walk back up Atlantic Avenue to the medical center and the beginning of this walk through early Long Beach. 

Download Willow Springs Card Here.