Sunset on Manhattan: artist Sweeney recalls family home

Gary Sweeney bid farewell to his family’s home with a photo installation celebrating the 70 years his family lived there. Photo

In 1945, artist Gary Sweeney’s mother Anita bought a house at 320 35th Street for $5,400 while her husband Mike was with the Navy in the South Pacific. After Gary’s father returned from World War II, he became an LAPD detective, owner of the long-standing Sweeney’s Hardware at Highland and Rosecrans Avenues, and Mayor of Manhattan Beach. Following his father’s passing Sweeney decided to sell the family home.

But first, he said, “I needed to do something to give it a proper farewell.”

That farewell included a month-long photo installation at the home. Sweeney commemorated the installation in “Manhattan Beach Memoir: Artist Gary Sweeney says goodbye to his childhood home.”

Sweeney will read from his book at Pages Bookstore on Thursday, Feb. 7 at 7 p.m. Pages is located at 904 Manhattan Avenue, Manhattan Beach. For more information visit PagesABookstore.com

Following is excerpted from an essay in the book by Wendy Weil Atwell.

Sunset on Manhattan Beach

In January 2016, Gary Sweeney and his wife Janet drove a big white truck from San Antonio, Texas to his childhood home in Manhattan Beach at 320 35th Street. Gary was returning home to create a site-specific installation, “A Manhattan Beach Memoir: 1945 – 2015.”

The truck was filled with family photos that Gary enlarged to giant, street-sign proportions. He covered the exterior walls of his childhood house and lit the house so the images could be seen at night. Because of its growing expense, Gary and Janet had decided to sell the home. The buyers planned to demolish it so they could build two townhouses covering every inch of the 30-foot by 90-foot lot, with with a potential listing price of $3 million.

“Every time a house like this disappears, it’s the end of an era,” Gary said.

For the month of February 2016, Gary occupied the house, opening it up during the day and weekly at night.

“Over 10,000 people came to see the house,” Gary recalled. “My high school had a reunion there, there was an opening party, a closing party and parties in between. My friends came up with excuses to have events there, the whole South Bay community got together and embraced it. It was the best possible send-off I could get.”

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