MLK Center to Reopen Saturday

More than 10 months after Hurricane Sandy battered Long Beach the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center will ceremoniously reopen this weekend after extensive repairs were made to the building.

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The MLK, along with the City of Long Beach and other organizations, will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony at the center, at 615 Riverside Blvd., starting at 11 a.m. Saturday. Following this event the center will play host to a basketball game at 2 p.m., a sports equipment giveaway at 4 p.m., and a book bag and school supplies giveaway at 6 p.m.

“The MLK Center has been an important part of our community for decades,” the city said in an announcement about Saturday’s event.

During the October storm the city-owned facility sustained two feet of flooding that destroyed its heating system, bathrooms and kitchen, and substantially damaged other areas of the building, including the walls and gym floor.

Following the storm, building served only as a distribution center for donated clothes, food, hot meals, and cleaning and hygiene supplies, as well as trailers where residents could take hot showers. After pleas from residents to keep the center open for this purpose into January, the city obliged their request but that decision delayed reconstruction of the storm-damaged building.