A Port Calling: Alan and Eric Johnson reimagining the San Pedro Waterfront with West Harbor
Alan and Eric Johnson were PV kids who loved Ports O’ Call. Now they are the developers who are reimagining the San Pedro waterfront with West Harbor by Mark McDermott When Eric and Alan Johnson were grade school kids growing up in Palos Verdes in the early 1960s, they had a favorite adventure. They’d bicycle down the Hill into the industrial wilds of San Pedro, all the way to the Port of Los Angeles, a land of towering cranes, big ships and barges. At the water’s edge awaited Ports O’ Call, a sprawling new entertainment district that was built in the style of a 19th Century New England fishing village — with a few odd Polynesian touches — but to the wide-eyed amazement of the Johnson boys contained a whole world of wonders. “There was so much activity,” Eric Johnson said. “We’d ride our bicycles down and spend all day. We’d have five bucks to spend, get ice cream and go to the joke shop, and leave your bike in front of the store while you went inside. Nobody stole it.” “They had these Japanese pearl divers,” Alan Johnson said. “You’d buy an oyster, open it up, and there’s a cultured pearl inside. They would just have these long lines. They had a glass blower who would build these…
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