Long Beach to be featured on C-SPAN Cities Tour this weekend

Long Beach got a stop on C-SPAN’s Cities Tour in March, and the network will feature the city in its programming with a “Long Beach Weekend” Saturday and Sunday.

The programming includes features and interviews with several Long Beachers on different aspects of the city’s history. Highlights include:

• History of Aviation in Long Beach, with author/historian Claudine Buett.

• Discovery of oil in Long Beach, featuring a visit to the Historical Society of Long Beach and its new exhibit Black Gold: Oil in Your Neighborhood.

• Long Beach authors, featuring interviews with the Press-Telegram’s Tim Grobaty (“I’m Dyin’ Here: A Life in the Paper”), Claudine Buett (“Fighting Fear: Long Beach in the 1940s”), Cora Goldstein (“Capturing the German Eye: Visual Propoganda in Germany”), Craig Smith (“Confessions of a Presidential Speechwriter”) and Gerrie Schipske (“Rosie the Riveter in Long Beach”).

• Additional segments on the Townsend Plan, the Port of Long Beach, the Queen Mary and Rancho Los Alamitos.

The individual programs will be scattered throughout the weekend on C-SPAN2’s Book TV and C-SPAN3’s American History TV. The entire block will be aired on Book TV (Charter chaels 174 and 882) at 9 a.m. Saturday; and on American History TV (Charter chaels 175 and 883) at 11 a.m. Sunday.

C-SPAN has also created a Long Beach City page at www.c-span.org/citiestour, where the segments can be viewed after they air, and they will be available indefinitely on C-SPAN’s video library site at www.c-span.org.