Note: All film sessions in the Jergins Tunnel are full. However, you still purchase tickets for a brief viewing of the tunnel at Rennaissance High School (235 e. 8th Street) on Saturday, October 27th from 1pm-5pm.

The Jergins Tunnel, one of Long Beach’s best-kept secrets, runs beneath Ocean Boulevard in the heart of downtown Long Beach.  It was built in 1927 as a passageway for tens of thousands of daily visitors to the Long Beach Pike, and still features its original art deco mosaic tile.  Click here for our press release.

Jump To: Session One | Session Two | Session Three | Session Four | Session Five
Screening of Bill Viola's "The Passing" @ Jergins Historic Tunnel 1991; Videotape, black and white, mono sound; 54 minutes A personal response to the spiritual extremes of birth and death in the family. Black-and-white nocturnal imagery and underwater scenes depict a twilight world hovering on the borders of human perception and consciousness, where the multiple lives of the mind (memory, reality, and vision) merge. Tell a Friend · Learn More
Screening of "Earl Daugherty: First Flights" @ Jergins Historic Tunnel 1938; provided by Ken Larkey, Long Beach Heritage Museum An innovative, lost film of Earl Daugherty's aerial loops and high-altitude shenannigans over 1920's Long Beach. The stunts are spectacular, the post-production is unbelievable and the experience is not to be missed. Tell a Friend · Learn More
At the Pike with Buster Keaton @ Jergins Historic Tunnel Jean-Jacques Jura, co-author of 'Balboa Films' Screenings and discussion of "The Cook" and "Cavender," both beautifully restored and filmed in Long Beach. Tell a Friend · Learn More
Long Beach Home Movies: 1920's-1960's @ Historic Jergins Tunnel provided by Ken Larkey, Long Beach Heritage Museum and Ron Petke, Charter Communications 1960's Home Movies of Long Beach filmed by Ken Larkey, President of the Long Beach Heritage Museum. See the Pike, The Carnegie Library, Belmont Shore's Horny Corner and much more! Tell a Friend · Learn More
Reprise: Long Beach Home Movies: 1920's-1960's @ Historic Jergins Tunnel provided by Ken Larkey, Long Beach Heritage Museum and Ron Petke, Charter Communications 1960's Home Movies of Long Beach filmed by Ken Larkey, President of the Long Beach Heritage Museum. See the Pike, The Carnegie Library, Belmont Shore's Horny Corner and much more! Tell a Friend · Learn More
Reprise: Screening of "Earl Daugherty: First Flights" and Buster Keaton's "The Cook" @ Jergins Historic Tunnel provided by Ken Larkey, Long Beach Heritage Museum and Jean-Jacques Jura, co-author of 'Balboa Films' An innovative, lost film of Earl Daugherty's aerial loops and high-altitude shenannigans over 1920's Long Beach. The stunts are spectacular, the post-production is unbelievable and the experience is not to be missed. Also, Buster Keaton's "The Cook" which was shot at the Long Beach Pike and was considered lost until 2002 when it was pieced back together by a world-wide collective of film enthusiasts. Tell a Friend · Learn More

Seating is limited; RSVPs strongly encouraged. 
Click here for ticket information.

Forgotten Underground Tunnel Excavated for Long Beach History Spectacle

The Jergins Pedestrian Subway, or the Jergins Tunnel, has arched underneath Ocean Boulevard at Pine Avenue since 1927, but has been closed to the public since the late '60s. It once served as an underground walkway to the fondly remembered Pike amusement park in downtown Long Beach.

Time had its way with the structure, however, and in 1988, when the Jergins Trust Building was demolished, the city sealed off the tunnel’s entrances for safety reasons. The 181-foot by 30-foot, ornate tile-lined subway has been waiting patiently underground since then.

Mike Donelon of Donelon Construction, former eighth district city councilman, will do the necessary maintenance on the tunnel’s southern entrance, as well as some internal renovations, making it easily accessible to the public for the event.

Ron Petke, a local Charter Communications production manager and former president of the Long Beach Historical Society, will be showing a series of historic films in the tunnel from noon until 8 p.m.

Included in Petke’s playbill are comical black and white home videos from the early 1900s, some Technicolor footage from the late ‘30s and various mid-century shots of a beloved, nearly forgotten Long Beach.  These historic commercials and films will feature the Pike, downtown, Belmont Shore, ‘Horny Corner,’ Naples, Carnegie Library and much more.

Morgan Humphrey, a lifetime Long Beach resident with an invested interest in the Jergins Tunnel, will be giving several lectures at the event, outlining the complicated, fascinating history of the structure.

"All my childhood memories start there,” Humphrey said about the northern entrance of the tunnel. “We'd always go that way to get to the ocean or the Jergins arcade. I wish I could go down there again."