“Want to build rockets a mile from the beach?”
Thus, twenty years ago, I was introduced to El Segundo.
In town it’s sunny almost all year round, in the 60s or 70s, with just a bit of gray in May and June. That’s when the marine layer creeps in, and burns away a little west of Sepulveda. To the north, the area is bordered by LAX, less than ten minutes door to door. To the south, the huge Chevron refinery El Segundo is named after (“the second,” as in the second refinery Standard Oil built in California). Grand Avenue cuts through town from east to west, and at the end — down a big hill — is Dockweiler, a surf beach that used to be good before they removed a critical jetty and tried to make up for it with an undersized pile of sand bags. “Downtown” consists of a modest, well-policed, 1950s-looking strip of small shops and restaurants on Main Street, El Segundo’s north-south corridor. Last year, the town won the Little League World Series. Life is quiet here, and peaceful.
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