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Giant Redondo Beach Pier Barney West Tiki resurrected |
tikiyaki
Grand Member (5 years) 
Joined: May 18, 2004
Posts: 2677
From: The Exotic Port of REDONDO BEACH, CA
|  Posted: 2011-09-12 10:56 am Permalink
Great Article about this giant Barney west Tiki that sat on the redondo beach pier. It was stored in a park in RB and is now going to return to the Pier. I guess I'll have to visit it on my bike rides every day. Thanx Otto for putting this the Tiki News mailing list.
http://redondobeach.patch.com/articles/redondo-to-revive-giant-tiki#photo-7550842
Corrected for mispelling
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[ This Message was edited by: tikiyaki 2011-09-12 11:42 ]
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jingleheimerschmidt
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Apr 20, 2007
Posts: 328
From: santa rosa, calif.
| Posted: 2011-09-12 11:51 am Permalink
Thanks for the story! My in laws live just south of there. So I'll have to swing by and check it out.
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Hakalugi
Site Administrator
Joined: Aug 10, 2004
Posts: 2804
From: Redondo Beach, CA
| Posted: 2011-09-12 1:04 pm Permalink
Great news!
I too spotted that Tiki in Dominguez park a few years ago. I was able to identify it as the missing Barney West from a photo right here on Tiki Central: http://www.tikiroom.com/tikicentral/bb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic=18159&forum=2&start=0
(Same photo from Sven that's in the article linked above)
When I contacted Sven about finding the missing Barney West Tiki, I learned that Jonpaul had also located it and was already in contact with the city of Redondo Beach in regards to it.
In any case, here are some photos of it I took:
I visit this park often with my daughter but in June of 2009 I had noticed something I hadn't before. Looking through a chainlink fence into the storage area I immediately saw that a lot of brush had been cleared out. While looking at the piles of stuff that was not easily visible before, I spotted this:
I went around to the entrance of the storage area...:
...and was greated with this:
Fortunately there was a gap in the fence so I was able to get closer:
A short time later I went back and got some shots showing how big this thing actually is.
Kim on top of the Tiki:
Here's a shot turned sideways. That's me, I'm lining my feet up with the base and I'm about 5'10":
Maybe Jonpaul has some more goods on this.
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Unga Bunga
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 06, 2003
Posts: 5734
From: CaliTikifornia
| Posted: 2011-09-12 1:42 pm Permalink
Quote:
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On 2011-09-12 13:04, Hakalugi wrote:
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Hak,
I know you love Tikis but you really gotta draw the line somewhere. 
Who's Your Tiki?!
Great archeology my friend!
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Hakalugi
Site Administrator
Joined: Aug 10, 2004
Posts: 2804
From: Redondo Beach, CA
| Posted: 2011-09-12 2:07 pm Permalink
Quote:
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On 2011-09-12 13:42, Unga Bunga wrote:
Quote:
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On 2011-09-12 13:04, Hakalugi wrote:
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Hak,
I know you love Tikis but you really gotta draw the line somewhere.
Who's Your Tiki?!
Great archeology my friend!
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Hey, at least I wasn't facing the other way.
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aquarj
Grand Member (8 years) 
Joined: Apr 02, 2002
Posts: 1040
From: SF bay area, CA
| Posted: 2011-09-12 2:20 pm Permalink
That's great to hear it's been found and has a new destiny! Monsieur Lugi, thanks for the pics in situ!
Interesting that Leroy is quoted saying it came from a restaurant "near San Raphael". Talking to him years ago about the Barney West tikis at The Lanai in San Mateo, I'd gotten the impression that this is one of those. Not that I'm putting much stock in my memory of the conversation, or the correctness of linking the two. Here's the old Barney West thread where we chewed the fat about this tiki and its possible link to The Lanai. I also remember Leroy mentioning a "bad luck" perception that somehow became attached to the tiki.
San Mateo is kinda near San Raphael - they're both in the SF bay area!
-Randy
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aquarj
Grand Member (8 years)
Joined: Apr 02, 2002
Posts: 1040
From: SF bay area, CA
| Posted: 2011-09-12 2:23 pm Permalink
Oh - I mean "San Rafael".
Since the article quotes Leroy referring to San Raphael, I don't even know if there's a place with that spelling.
-Randy
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MadDogMike
Grand Member (3 years) 
Joined: Mar 30, 2008
Posts: 6401
From: The Anvil of the Sun
| Posted: 2011-09-12 3:03 pm Permalink
How come no one pointed out that lovely vintage MCM trailer the tiki is sitting on? 
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bigbrotiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Mar 25, 2002
Posts: 10561
From: Tiki Island, above the Silverlake
| Posted: 2011-09-12 3:38 pm Permalink
The bad luck perception came from the fact that the original restaurant (of unknown name) in San Rafael that displayed it failed, and the poor thing was left abandoned "in a ditch", in Leroy's words. Then that label got cemented by the fact that Helen Yue's place had to close too. Me thinks that that closure had more to do with the fact that Polynesian restaurants had fallen out of favor with the public.
I am a little embarrassed by that "Credit Sven Kirsten" credit now under the photo: When I saw the article, the photo had Augustin Garnier's name on it, the guy who got the ball rolling to re-erect the Tiki. I am sure he did not claim the photo to be his, he just provided it for the article from his Facebook page, for which, yes, he had clipped it from my post on Tiki Central. Internet photo clipping without credit is such a common procedure nowadays, I didn't mind, especially for such a good, Tiki-saving purpose. But when it appeared in a news article with his name, I wrote the writer a brief e-mail requesting to correct the error. But why didn't she say "Photo: Sven Kirsten". "Credit" sounds like I am trying to take credit for the whole thing!? Oh well...
In any case, this story is a lesson in Tiki preservation: Go to the right channels, like a politician that needs something colorful for his campaign, to get things saved. Great job, Team Tiki!
Here are some more shots of the Tiki in Situ, photographed during one of my earliest expeditions in 1991:
Here's the shot that appears in the article and on Team Tiki's Facebook page:
And here's a frontal shot, for which I must have used a Polarizer, cause the sky is so deep blue:
This pic has been hanging out on my aging website bookoftiki.com, from where, (as one of the earliest examples of copying my Tiki images), it was clipped in the early 2000s to be used on a "STEADY" Tiki shirt:
I need to loose a little weight to wear that shirt on Tiki re-erection day! 
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aquarj
Grand Member (8 years)
Joined: Apr 02, 2002
Posts: 1040
From: SF bay area, CA
| Posted: 2011-09-12 6:10 pm Permalink
Quote:
| On 2011-09-12 15:38, bigbrotiki wrote:
The bad luck perception came from the fact that the original restaurant (of unknown name) in San Rafael that displayed it failed |
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Since I'm the kind of guy to belabor things - not sure if there was supposed to be a restaurant in San Rafael - Leroy's quote was "near San Rafael". But the only context I ever heard Leroy talk about it (tiki X that was supposed to be bad luck and ended up in a Redondo Beach restaurant), was in a discussion of tikis from The Lanai.
Probably easiest to just ask Leroy if we're curious. It would be pretty cool if this really is the 3rd (4th? 5th?) life for this particular BW tiki, starting from The Lanai. A fitting epitaph for Barney and his "last a lifetime" motto!
-Randy
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abstractiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Aug 29, 2009
Posts: 582
From: Lodi, CA
| Posted: 2011-09-12 8:39 pm Permalink
That is a cool piece of urban tiki archeology by Hakalugi. What a great artifact just lying there in it's decay and forgotten surroundings waiting to be discovered.
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christiki295
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Apr 09, 2003
Posts: 3616
From: LA-2547 mls east Hawaii &5500 Easter Is
| Posted: 2011-09-13 07:56 am Permalink
Excellent work, Team Tiki!
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christiki295
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Apr 09, 2003
Posts: 3616
From: LA-2547 mls east Hawaii &5500 Easter Is
| Posted: 2011-09-18 11:57 am Permalink
Quote:
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[i]On 2011-09-12 15:38, bigbrotiki wrote:
I need to loose a little weight to wear that shirt on Tiki re-erection day!
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When is re-erection day?
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Dustycajun
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Nov 16, 2007
Posts: 3923
From: Santa Barbara, CA
| Posted: 2011-09-18 12:12 pm Permalink
Good question. Has the new location at Seaside Lagoon been finalized? That could be a fun venue for a Tiki get-together on re-erection day. I go to the LSU crawfish boil at Seaside Lagoon every year. Room for a band, bars, vendors, kids etc. Lots of hotels across the street.
Love this story.
DC
[ This Message was edited by: Dustycajun 2011-09-18 12:15 ]
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Swangulo Tikis
Tiki Centralite
Joined: Feb 24, 2008
Posts: 50
From: Redondo Beach, CA
| Posted: 2011-09-20 4:06 pm Permalink
From what I understand, the tiki will be placed somewhere on the Redondo Beach Pier.
The future of the Seaside Lagoon itself is murky.
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