The Show’s Over : Hollywood USO to Close After Serving Military for 48 Years

Since 1940, the Hollywood USO has stood like a beacon for wayfaring military personnel. Here, far from home, they could find a cup of coffee, a meal, a game of pool, a friendly conversation. On Saturday nights they could even find a dance or some live music.

But all that is about to change.

Faced with dwindling attendance and a declining neighborhood, the United Services Organization of Los Angeles has decided to relocate. Beginning in December, USO officials say, the USO will be in downtown Long Beach with a satellite site in Barstow.

“That’s where the military is,” said Anne Milkes, the organization’s executive director. “We decided to take Mohammed to the mountain.”

The Bob Hope Hollywood USO Club, which occupied various buildings before arriving in 1973 at its present site on North Ivar near Hollywood and Vine, has a rich history. It was the first facility of its kind in the nation, Milkes said, and became a model for the chain of USO clubs chartered by Congress in 1941 to serve the needs of the nation’s military personnel overseas.

During World War II, the Hollywood club held a special place in the hearts of young soldiers and sailors passing through the city of glamour en route to the gritty sites of war. It was here that some of the most famous movie stars of the era came to mingle with the enlisted men, serving as entertainers, coffee servers and dance partners. At its height, Milkes said, the center attracted as many as 25,000 servicemen a year.

Then the war ended and the neighborhood began to change. With the development of entertainment facilities around the region, from Disneyland to multiscreen movie complexes, fewer and fewer military people--most of whom were based in the South Bay, desert areas or Orange County--were willing to make the bus trek to Hollywood.

“We wanted to provide a wholesome environment for young people and Hollywood had a lot of problems,” Milkes said.

Put Up for Lease

So the Hollywood USO--which shares a block with a club featuring nude dancers--has been put up for lease. In the meantime, it is being maintained by a small staff and is open to servicemen only during the day as a drop-in center. There are no organized activities.

At its new location in Long Beach, Milkes said, the USO will be readily accessible to the estimated 30,000 military personnel stationed at several major military installations nearby. The second club in Barstow will serve another 30,000 based in that area, she said.

While both facilities will offer the USO’s traditional smorgasbord of food, non-alcoholic beverages, television and occasional dances or live entertainment, the Long Beach center will also host the club’s regional offices and provide services such as housing and child-care referrals. Located in the restored Masonic Temple, a historic building on the city’s trendy Pine Avenue, the 5,600-square-foot center is expected to eventually serve as many as 2,000 service personnel each week.

“A lot of guys, when they get off the ship, want to leave the base,” said John Chadwell, spokesman for the Long Beach Naval Station, where 15,000 sailors are stationed. “This will provide an alternative to going out and looking for bars.”

But not everyone is pleased.

“It’s going to kill the rest of the businesses downtown,” complained Marcia Lamb, co-owner of Overreact Gallery, an art gallery across the street from the new USO site.

She said merchants who worked hard to revitalize the area fear that the USO will raise the specter of the “old” Long Beach, which was dominated by the presence of the Navy.

“We’re trying to develop a community feeling and a reputation for a certain consistent type of nighttime entertainment,” Lamb said. “We don’t just need bodies downtown, we need people who are going to contribute to the neighborhood.”

Milkes said such fears are based on outdated perceptions of the military when, in fact, most military personnel today are well-educated and more than half are married.

“We certainly plan to run a place that will be attractive,” she said. “Those who object are carrying around an image of drunken sailors from the past.”