Photo Essay: A Night on the Battleship (Updated for 2019)

[Last Updated 4/20/19 10:11 PM PT—new photos added]

When I first visited the Battleship Iowa, there was one thing I couldn't get out of my mind: It would be really fun (and interesting) to spend the night there.



A couple of months later, I found myself on the darkened flight deck, under a waxing gibbous moon, by the glow of blue and red LED lights (so-colored in honor of Veterans Day)...



...and the creaks and moans of the shipping container cranes of the Port of LA.



Everything sure does look different at night.



Part of that was because it was empty in those "after" hours, our group of overnight visitors having the entire historic, retired warship to ourselves.



We peered into dimly-lit hatches...



...and carefully descended backwards down steep stairs into the bowels of the ship.



On this private adventure, we ventured off the path of the normal public tour route, stepping into the officers' galley...



...and lounge areas...



...where 1980s-era furniture intermingles with World War II-era macramé.



And then there's the brig, the cellblock where captives are thrown in alongside unlawful combatants and misbehaving sailors.

circa 2019

This is really how you see how sailors in WWII, the Korean War, and the Cold War lived and worked, be it in the tailor shop (which was something of a dry cleaner for officers' Navy blues)...

circa 2019

...the laundry facilities...

circa 2019

...with the biggest washer/water extractors...

circa 2019

...and dryers you've ever seen.

circa 2019

Then there's the barber shop...



...whose chairs are still outfitted with ashtrays...



...and the dentist's office...

circa 2019

...with its interrogation lights overhead...

circa 2019

...and its spittoon sinks below.



While necessary, those occupations and tasks weren't quite as sexy as being at the helm of a command center...



...in a war room filled with knobs and radars...

circa 2019

...red telephones...

circa 2019

...and secret boxes and switches.



Of course, the ex-USS Iowa has been decommissioned, so it's been painted a few times and cleaned up, no longer having to protect us from the deep waters of the remote Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans.



But the lower you go, the more you can see the ship in its unrestored condition, unfit for public consumption.



Signs warn of asbestos and PCB-based transformer oil.



And these are the steepest staircases yet, where low overhead abounds...



...and higher-than-usual knee-knocker door thresholds, since the potential full-load water line was so high (at my eye level).



Despite the ship's decommissioning, there are still lights to be lit and levers to be adjusted...

welding area, circa 2019

...buttons to be pushed...

circa 2019

...and valves to be turned.

welding area, circa 2019

After all, though the Iowa no longer sails...

welding area, circa 2019

...it still, to some degree, runs.



And that was evident as we tried to sleep in the tight quarters of the berths, listening to the rat-a-tat-tat of expansion and contraction, water or other fluids running through pipes, and the hum of decades-old electronics. It was pitch black after our 10 p.m. "lights out," but the ship was still very much alive.



At 6 a.m., we awoke to the lights being flicked on and a call of "Reveille" (the spoken word of it, not the actual bugle song). We emerged out onto the deck to catch the sunrise and wave at the early birds on deck of the Ruby Princess, a grand-class cruise ship coming in to dock at the World Cruise Terminal.



Our bellies filled with eggs, pancakes, and bacon, and our hands cupping hot coffee, we gathered one final time to reflect on our experience...



...and ask questions of "Battleship Larry," who has clocked in over 1000 hours of volunteer service -- on both the Iowa and the Missouri at Pearl Harbor -- a number that will most certainly go up once he retires.



As a maritime museum, the Battleship Iowa is owned and run by a non-profit organization called the Pacific Battleship Center -- but it couldn't host these kinds of tours and create its displays and interactive experiences without the help of its volunteers, many of whom are veterans (and some of whom actually served on this ship).



As our one night in our coffin-like bunks showed, life at sea wasn't easy for a sailor. They worked hard, slept little, and risked their lives. But for those who love to shoot at things and blow stuff up, they wouldn't have it any other way.

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Photo Essay: A Jeepney Tour of Historic Filipinotown

This city never ceases to blow me away.

Just when I think I must've done it all, seen it all, and lived it all, I come across something that's completely new to me—and shows me LA in a totally new light.

I need these times to remind me that there's still so much to learn and do here. There are still layers to peel back. There are still corners and basements and tunnels and crawlspaces.

And sometimes, there are discoveries to be made right there, out in the open.



Last year, my friend Robert put together an excursion to take a ride on something called a "jeepney" through Historic Filipinotown. At the time, it seemed quite mysterious—a vintage, military-grade jeep that had been painted and otherwise decked out and was now being used as some kind of shuttle. Despite my intrigue, I showed up just a few moments late and literally missed the bus.



So, over a year later, I put together my own excursion on a jeepney through Historic Filipinotown, a city-recognized district that I'd driven through and been next door to several times, but didn't know much about. The non-profit Pilipino Workers Center supports the Filipino community in LA—the city's largest and perhaps least visible Asian population—and conducts the jeepney tours to educate about Filipino history in LA as well as its current cultural impact.



With Aqui, the PWC Executive Director, behind the wheel and Emi, the PWC Communications Director, riding shotgun, we set off on our hour-long tour—using the wind as our air conditioning, each other as seat belts...



...and our arms as turn signals.



The PWC just has one jeepney—a 1944 Sarao jeep from the Philippines that had been in storage in Seattle. It's one of seven jeepneys in the United States, though they're not all as authentic as this one. (It doesn't count if it was built as a jeepney.) They're in such limited supply because it's actually illegal to import vehicles into the United States unless they were made before 1950.



What makes the funny shuttle a "jeepney" isn't just the fact that it's a jeep that's been turned into a jitney. It's the way that it's been hand-painted and ornamented—which is unlike any other public transport system (at least in LA).



It makes the vehicles utterly unmistakable—though they're pretty hard to miss anyway, given their slow speed (usually around 30 mph, though it could probably do 50), roaring engine, and blaring horns.



Pedestrians and fellow motorists felt compelled to wave as we passed. One women called out to us as we pulled up to her at a red light, "I thought I was in the Philippines for a second!"



Historic Filipinotown (or "HiFi," as the hipsters have started calling it) has become home to a burgeoning community of muralists and street art—particularly those in the alleys of The Gabba Arts District—but there's one particular mural in Unidad Park that depicts over 5000 years of Filipino and Filipino American history, the largest of its kind in the nation.



Originally unveiled in 1995, it tells the story of the Philippines' colonial history starting in the 1500s with the Spanish explorers, leading up to its independence in 1946, and through emigration to the United States, the fight for farm workers' rights with Cesar Chavez, and all the way up to the present-day jeepney tours.



The fight for workers' rights is far from over—which makes the PWC so essential. Following the Civil Rights Era, when Filipinos could no longer be barred from commercial establishments, any discriminatory behavior had to slither its way underground. If you wanted to limit the civil rights of, say, black people and Filipinos, you'd put restrictions on the occupations they were most likely found in—in this case, home care providers and farm workers.



Even today, home care providers in the state of California don't receive mandatory lunch breaks or rest periods. Even when they provide live-in residential care, and are on-call pretty much 24/7, they only get paid for eight hours of work—no overtime.



The money the PWC makes off the jeepney tours, then, helps fund their efforts in education, advocacy, and campaigning for policy reform—specifically, the acceptance of the California Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights and, as they say, "to eliminate discriminatory provisions in the labor code and grant domestic workers basic rights that other California workers gain through collective bargaining."



It's hard to believe that in 2016, this is still an issue. But I guess we're a long way from making widespread social justice a reality. So, sound the horn, I say! It's important to remember, though, that while every step forward is progress, it's not a promise—minds can change, and legislation can be repealed.



I thought I was just going to take a wacky ride through a tiny, largely ignored area of LA on a sunny Saturday afternoon—and it was fun, for sure. But I'm glad that there was a greater purpose to it. History can often be ugly to face, but it's important that we do, so that we don't repeat it.


PWC Hi Fi Jeepney from Public Matters on Vimeo.

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