For Harbor City Hostel, It’s Time for Traveling On to Angels Gate

When Ina Berger got lost driving on Hollywood Boulevard one night last week, she pulled over and called the Los Angeles International Hostel in Harbor City for help.

“I didn’t know how to get out of there,” said Berger, a 19-year-old student from Wuppertal, West Germany. “It is hard to find your way around Los Angeles.”

Berger was one of dozens of travelers from around the world who spent a night at the hostel last week--its final week of operation in Harbor City. The hostel, one of six in the Los Angeles area and the third-busiest in the United States, closed Friday to make way for a planned 300-unit housing development for officers at the Long Beach Naval Station.

This weekend, dozens of volunteers are stripping the eight-building complex on Palos Verdes Drive North and are hauling beds, mattresses, refrigerators and anything else that can be saved to Angels Gate Park in San Pedro, five miles south.

Moving to Angels Gate

The city of Los Angeles, which had originally given the hostel the Harbor City site at no charge, is allowing it to use five former Army barracks near the Korean Friendship Bell at Angels Gate as a temporary home--also rent-free. The hostel is refurbishing the barracks, and two are expected to open by Jan. 12.

“It has been a good program that provides needed services for travelers in our area,” said Mario Juravich, a deputy to harbor-area Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, who has supported moving the hostel to Angels Gate. “We have never received any complaints about the operation.”

The Harbor City hostel is located at Suang-na Village Park, which had belonged to the Navy but was deeded to the city in the 1970s with the provision that it could be reclaimed for “national defense” purposes.

At that time, operations at the Long Beach station had been cut back, but since 1980, the local naval fleet has grown from seven to 32 ships, bringing with it a great demand for military housing--and the Suang-na Village site.

“We have a shortfall on housing in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area of approximately 1,300 units,” said Capt. Walter Heinecke of Long Beach Naval Station. “Some live as far away as San Diego and Riverside and have to commute.”

Funds From Navy

The Navy has reclaimed about 44 acres of the 49-acre park for the housing development. The remaining land has been developed by the city of Los Angeles and is now the site of a regional office of the Department of Recreation and Parks.

John Estrada, executive director of the Los Angeles Council of American Youth Hostels, said the Navy has given the council about $275,000 to cover the cost of finding a new home. He said the council will begin a $750,000 fund-raising drive next year to pay for a permanent home, which it hopes to construct at the old Army pistol range at Angels Gate Park, on Paseo del Mar just west of Gaffey Street. That project probably will not be completed until 1989, he said.

In the meantime, the council is doing everything it can to assure a smooth transition, he said.

“We did a massive letter-writing campaign to hostels throughout the United States last summer telling them about the change,” said Estrada. “Recently, we sent out letters to the 12 or so hostels that feed us directly so they can direct people to one of the other hostels during the transition.”

The council operates hostels at Big Bear Lake, in Fullerton, in Huntington Beach and at a YMCA in Hollywood. During the summer, it also opens a facility at a YMCA in Westchester.

Estrada said the 70-bed Harbor City facility has been the most popular in the Los Angeles area, serving more than 100,000 travelers since it opened in 1978. This year more than 15,000 visitors from 63 countries stayed at the hostel, he said, making it third busiest in the country behind Boston and San Francisco.

The hostel is part of an international nonprofit network that includes 5,000 hostels in 62 countries, including 275 in the United States. The hostels offer inexpensive, dormitory-style lodging for people of any age. It costs about $20 a year to join the American Youth Hostels, which guarantees guests a lower accommodation fee. At Harbor City, members pay $6.25 a night, while non-members pay $8.25.

Scenic and Popular

Estrada said the Harbor City hostel was particularly popular with travelers because of its scenic setting on the eastern slope of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. The hostel was also near a bus stop and had easy access to the rest of Los Angeles by means of the nearby Harbor Freeway.

The Angels Gate locations, he said, while offering panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean, will be less convenient for travelers because Angels Gate is at the southern tip of San Pedro and bus service is not as direct.

But guests at the hostel last week said the five extra miles to Angels Gate won’t keep them from coming back.

“It is the closest hostel to Los Angeles International Airport, and the staff here is particularly good and helpful,” said Simon Bates, a 23-year-old student from Melbourne, Australia. Bates and his traveling companion, John McUrdo, a 21-year-old auto mechanic in Melbourne, spent four nights at the hostel last month when they first arrived in the United States and spent three nights there last week.

‘A Friendly Hostel’

“It is a friendly hostel, and one of the reasons we stay at hostels is to meet people,” McUrdo said. “You can sit and talk and the atmosphere is always relaxed and friendly. We have traveled with guys we’ve met at hostels, and that is great because they share the cost of the petrol.”

Berger, of West Germany, agreed.

“I had been here just one day, and I had already met four other German people,” she said.