The City: Decorating the Derricks

A visitor returning to the handsome waterfront of Long Beach, Calif., after two years’ absence is in for a surprise. In 1965, an empty expanse of Pacific Ocean reached away from the city’s beaches, homes, hotels and marinas. Today, a chain of islands, complete with waving palm trees and towering high-rise buildings, is the view from the shore.

No sudden upheaval from the ocean floor, the islands are Long Beach’s happy solution to a problem that has been nagging the city since 1961. That is, how to preserve the innocent charm of the beach front and at the same time exploit what lies immediately below the city and its bay: an estimated billion barrels of crude oil.

Several oil companies were eager to set up their equipment on drilling platforms offshore and start hammering away. The city said no—until someone came up with a bright new way to do the drilling behind a screen of camouflage that would make a Hollywood set designer envious.

Balconies Too. The idea was to make the whole thing look like a South Sea archipelago. In February 1965, a consortium of oil companies (Texaco, Humble, Union, Mobil and Shell) went to work hauling in rock and sand fill to build four ten-acre islands. Palm trees as tall as 60 feet were transplanted from Santa Barbara and San Diego, and architects were put to work sketching terra-cotta and steel shells for the oil rigs, designed to look like handsome balconied apartment buildings and soundproofed to keep the drilling noise from echoing across the bay.

Oil is now being pumped from the islands at the rate of 56,000 barrels a day, and production is expected to reach 200,000 barrels a day by 1970. As each well is brought in, the oil rig, along with its high-rise cover, is moved along a rail to the next spot for drilling. Underground pumps send the oil through submarine pipelines to refineries on shores.

Sharing the Loot. Some residents of Long Beach find the islands so effective that they would like to see them made a permanent addition to the harbor. At night, the “apartment buildings” are illuminated, providing an appealing vista along the coast. Eventually, each island will be decorated with shrubbery, artificial 30-foot waterfalls and clusters of large abstract sculptures.

Over the next 35 years, the city will receive $250 million from the oil companies and 10,000 property owners will share an additional $136 million. The biggest beneficiary by far will be the state of California, which will get about $1,250,000,000 out of the deal. For Long Beach, the new riches will help finance many of the improvements in the minds of the city’s imaginative leaders, who already have bought the Queen Mary for $3,450,000 for use as a waterfront museum and hotel, and have contracted to build a 3,500-seat A.A.U. pool where the U.S. Olympic trials will be held next year. It is all in line with Long Beach’s proud boast of being the “Riviera of the West.”