ANNIVERSARY OF THE RIOTS : A Year After Riots: Recovery Is Slow, Anger Lingers : Rebuild: Government aid to damaged businesses has been devoured quickly. Although some residents are skittish, fear has forged alliances.

There is little physical evidence of the riots that rocked Long Beach one year ago.

The charred skeletons of buildings were quickly demolished, broken glass was replaced and the streets were swept clean of reminders.

But talk to the pawnshop owner who now barters with customers through a heavy wrought-iron gate, the homeless couple wheeling a grocery cart laden with bottles and cans, or the North Long Beach residents who keep a watchful eye out their windows. It becomes clear that nothing has changed for some, and for others, nothing will ever be the same.

One year later, Long Beach is still recovering from the 1992 riots.

For some, it has been a slow process that has drained their savings accounts and left them apprehensive about the future. For others, it has provided an opportunity to bring ethnic groups together to improve the city.

“I think the city has only partially recovered,” said Councilwoman Doris Topsy-Elvord, who represents the city’s central area that was heavily damaged during the unrest. “You don’t see the rubble anymore, but a lot of businesses were unable to rebuild for the simple reason that they didn’t have the money to rebuild. And (psychologically,) I think it is going to take more than a year to recover.”

Karen J. Adelseck, president of the Houghton Park Neighborhood Assn. in North Long Beach, told herself for months that the riots had not affected her. But now, she said, she and her neighbors are more wary.

“When there are loud noises, when there are groups of people congregating in the park, when there is a rush of cars going by quickly, neighbors are going to their doors and windows and checking it out,” said Adelseck, 51, a cafeteria supervisor at Hamilton Middle School. “It’s left us more apprehensive.”

One year ago today, rioting broke out in neighboring Los Angeles, with only a handful of incidents in Long Beach. The following night, however, the unrest spilled into Long Beach, where more than 400 fires were set, at least 361 people were injured, one was killed and hundreds of businesses were damaged. Authorities ar rested more than 1,200 people, mostly for looting.

Since then, the district attorney’s office has prosecuted about 225 felony cases, primarily for burglary, and the city prosecutor has settled hundreds of misdemeanor looting charges with plea bargains.

The damage from the looting and arson was estimated at $32 million to $40 million, and the hardest hit were the nearly 400 business owners forced to replace broken windows, and in some cases, rebuild structures.

Of 164 buildings damaged, 26 were demolished, 12 were replaced and another 21 sought remodeling permits, said David Evans of the city’s building and planning department. It’s unclear how many reopened, however, because minor repairs do not need building permits.

Joe Chiu is still waiting to rebuild Hanson’s Market, a fixture for 26 years on Atlantic Avenue. The store burned to the ground in a few hours.

“Now, one year later, it is still not rebuilt, and it seems like there are so many things to do, talk to the (Small Business Administration,) to the insurance company, the city,” said Chiu. “If it is not one thing, it’s another. Every day means lost income. You get impatient, you just give up sometimes, but the local people have been very helpful.”

Carmen Duarte, on the other hand, reopened her shop two months after looters carted out $70,000 worth of stereos and other electronic equipment. But rather than reopen as a music store, Duarte transformed it into a beauty salon where customers can get a cut and a perm or buy a stuffed teddy bear, children’s clothing or even a framed poster of a laughing Marilyn Monroe.

For business owner Mila Glukhovsky, the months since vandals ransacked her store have not passed easily.

On April 29, 1992, the aisles were lined with antiques and collectibles from her native Russia. Gold and silver jewelry filled a safe in the back, next to a rack of mink and other fur coats. On April 30, one day after the not guilty verdicts against four officers in the beating of motorist Rodney G. King, the streets erupted in rage, and most of her stock was gone.

It took Glukhovsky four months to reopen her little shop on Pacific Avenue, and it is a different place now. The hand-painted music boxes and fine china have been replaced by cheap stereo headphones, playing cards, ashtrays, painted plastic boxes. And in the past year, which Glukhovsky calls the “worst nightmare of my life,” she has become frustrated, scared and tired. Like the homeless couple that regularly stop by her shop to sell her treasures from the street, Glukhovsky said she feels abandoned.

“In the beginning, everybody wanted to help out,” Glukhovsky recalls, her voice raised in a half-shout. “After maybe 90 days, everyone forgets about you.”

Glukhovsky received aid from the government and the city, but it was gone like that, she said, snapping her fingers.

City officials said they have done everything possible to help business owners like Glukhovsky. The city has received several federal and state grants for jobs, training and loans to aid those hurt by the riots. In addition, city officials report that the Small Business Administration has provided nearly $9 million in loans to about 120 Long Beach businesses.

For the city’s tourism industry, the past year has been tough. Already reeling from the recession and the temporary closure of the city’s biggest tourist attraction, the Queen Mary, Long Beach suffered another blow with last year’s riots.

The hotel occupancy rate dropped about 10%, costing the city about $1 million in bed taxes and $25 million in visitor spending, said D. Christopher Davis, president of the Long Beach Area Convention & Visitors Council. The number of visitors in the past year dropped from 3.1 million to 2.8 million, and at least one large convention said it would skip Long Beach because “we’re too close to L.A.,” Davis said.

Long Beach received no money from the Rebuild L.A. campaign that sought corporate donors to aid South-Central Los Angeles.

Long Beach City Manager James C. Hankla said no comparable organization was created in Long Beach. But he said the city is working closely with businesses offering to donate money to neighborhood and school programs.

“I think we have done a credible job,” Hankla said.

Still, not all the city’s efforts succeeded.

For example, the city put on a “Small Business Recovery Fair” at the Long Beach Convention Center three months after the riots. About 15 people showed up. City officials said the low turnout meant businesses were already getting the help they needed.

But Kim Hudson, who heads a volunteer group created after the riots, said the disastrous turnout was due to the city’s failure to reach the minority-owned businesses that were set ablaze and looted.

“They didn’t market the program to them. Small-business (owners who) don’t speak English don’t get involved with the Chamber,” said Hudson, president of Vision for Long Beach.

Hudson’s group was among the cadre of volunteers the city relied on to help reach those hurt by the unrest. The group was created May 1 of last year, when Hudson called her neighbors together after seeing the devastation in the city.

“By 1 p.m., we had a caravan of cars to pick up plywood, board up where needed, remove broken glass, paint out graffiti and get rid of the physical scars,” Hudson said. “By the end of the first three days, we had 700 people participating.”

Hudson, who lives near 7th Street and Junipero Avenue, said that it took city officials months to alert small-business owners that $2,000 grants and low-interest loans were available from the government. “They helped with immediate emergency recovery, but that’s as far as they went,” Hudson said.

Yet, much good has come out of the riots, Hudson and others said.

Church elders, minority leaders and others came together to clean up, help small-business owners, discuss gang problems and look for solutions to myriad problems plaguing the city.

“If anything positive came out of the riots, it is that neighborhoods are more connected than ever before,” said Hudson.

In some cases, the neighborhoods have come together to protect themselves.

In North Long Beach, for example, residents near DeForest Park began preparing last summer for potential unrest after the federal trial of the officers accused in the King beating. When the verdicts were announced at 7 a.m. April 17, they were ready.

About a dozen residents arrived at the park’s community building--their command post--at 6:30 a.m., pulled out a map of the area and prepared to defend their neighborhood.

Some 45 neighbors were out patrolling the area and another 100 “spotters” were at home, by their windows alert to any unusual activity, said Jerry Shultz, president of the neighborhood group. Before the verdicts, the residents had bought walkie-talkies, set up four-member car patrols and prepared to alert the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which patrols North Long Beach, to any unrest.

Many were armed and prepared to use their weapons, said Shultz, a sheriff’s deputy.

“They were not willing to see a lifetime dream go down the tube because of the verdicts,” Shultz said.