Day at the Beach Has Sun, Sand and Other Grit of Urban Life

This is not what the Williams family of Philadelphia expected on their first visit to a Southern California beach: Jets screaming overhead. A view of towering smokestacks and giant cranes. A beach crammed with people near smoldering fire pits. The salt air laced with a rotten-egg smell from the sewage-treatment plant.

The Williams family, staying at a nearby airport hotel, unwittingly wandered onto Southern California’s most urban beach. Dockweiler State Beach has power plants and an oil refinery behind it, an airport flight pattern above it, a recreational vehicle park to the side of it and oil tankers offshore in front of it.

“This ain’t Malibu, that’s for sure,” said Bernard Williams, rolling his eyes.

This is the inner-city beach. People from South-Central, Watts, Lynwood and Willowbrook pile into their cars, head down Imperial Highway and drive right into the beach parking lot.

While Dockweiler may disappoint some tourists, many low-income families appreciate the amenities and convenience of the beach. For $5, a family can park in one of Dockweiler’s giant lots, cook lunch and dinner in the fire pits and enjoy the beach from early in the morning until it closes after dark.

“I just want to get my kids out of the city on a hot summer day,” said Tony Duran, keeping an eye on his three children who were playing in the surf. “These jet planes and power plants down here don’t bother us. We’re from Watts, and we’re used to a lot worse than that.”

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Dockweiler extends from El Segundo to Venice, but the southern section--known as “The Pits” because of the concrete fire pits dotting the beach--has the urban ambience. On hot summer days, vendors hawk mangoes and burritos; kids play soccer on the sand and families cook pork strips and tortillas or ribs and hot links. You don’t see custom bikinis, thongs and designer shorts on this beach. At Dockweiler, cut-off jeans and baggy T-shirts are the beachwear of choice.

The lifeguard headquarters here looks like a U. S. Embassy compound in the Middle East. The glass-enclosed aerie, high above the beach, is surrounded by an impregnable 20-foot concrete wall. Even the lifeguard towers are designed more securely than at other beaches; double padlocks are attached to each shutter in an attempt to control the frequent break-ins.

An increasing number of gang members have flocked to the beach during the past few summers, and now police regularly patrol the sand in a black-and-white, four-wheel-drive truck. Beach-goers occasionally hear the crackle of automatic gunfire, and lifeguards have to contend with, in addition to the usual jellyfish stings and cut feet, stab and gunshot wounds. Other urban problems, such as pollution, have plagued the beach in recent years. Dockweiler and other nearby beaches are occasionally closed because of high bacteria counts in the water.

At the recreational vehicle park, a county-run facility on a vast patch of concrete, travelers often are disappointed upon arrival. They read about the seaside setting in RV guidebooks that never mention the jets, the oil refinery or the power plants.

“The first night here was terrible--planes were roaring by every few minutes and the sewage smell was awful,” said Virginia Peninger, who is retired and travels the country with her husband in their RV. “The people next to us couldn’t take it and left after one night. At first I couldn’t sleep and thought my eardrums were going to break. But I guess I got used to it.”

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Many young lifeguards consider Dockweiler a place to get some experience and then get out. Others enjoy the cultural mix, the challenge of working in a gritty, urban environment. All lifeguards here keep in their tower, in addition to their first-aid kits, a document entitled: “Commonly Needed Spanish Phrases.”

This isn’t a beach where lifeguards surf before work and spend the rest of the day schmoozing with groupies. This is a beach filled with marginal swimmers, people who don’t have the benefit of lessons at suburban swim schools, people unfamiliar with riptides and rough surf, who often are one stroke away from drowning.

“It’s not like other beaches where people swim out too far, get tired and you rescue them,” said lifeguard Jim Boulgarides, who has worked at Dockweiler for 12 summers. “Here, people take one step past where they can’t stand and they’re drowning.”

Lifeguards also have to be more alert to boating accidents at Dockweiler. Boats sometimes run aground after piling into an enormous concrete pipe--visible from the shore at low tide--that spews treated sewage into the sea.