Few city locations have as much notoriety as Horny Corner in Long Beach does.
And few artists have chronicled the beach the way Francis Orlando has.
Orlando, a commercial artist, has been around Belmont Shore for decades, and has plenty of illustrations to prove it. One semi-random Facebook post during the COVID-19 shutdown has brought it all back to the forefront.
It started like this: Orlando connected with Fred Khammar early on, as Khammar was building Alfredo’s Beach Club to include all of the Long Beach concessions — even the Kayak Club at Horny Corner.
“It was actually artwork that brought Fred and I together back in 1988 when I was selling Horny Corner T-Shirts out of a cardboard box at bars on Second Street,” Orlando said. “At Panama Joe’s, what started as a confrontation with Khammar claiming he ‘owned’ Horny Corner turned into a long-term business relationship.”
Orlando created all of the artwork for Alfredo’s Beach Club’s summer events, including Tiki Fest, the Pirate Invasion, Movies on the Beach and more. But Khammar died suddenly at Christmas in 2016, and while family members attempted to keep Alfredo’s afloat, the coronavirus pandemic caused the beach operation to close.
Orlando, meanwhile, explained what prompted him to revisit his artwork now.
“During the quiet lockdown days of last year, I posted (on Facebook) an image of the old Horny Corner artwork I had done in 1988 on a Throwback Thursday,” he said. “Well, I was super surprised at the response. So many people came out of the woodwork wanting a copy.”
The T-shirt, like the beach’s name, is a description of the singles bar vibe on the sand, especially on summer holidays and weekends.
Orlando offered one origin story for the beach’s nickname.
“The story goes that originally, there was a city planner named Thomas Hornay who was responsible for dredging the area to make Belmont Shore and Naples canals,” he said. “There is a street corner there at Bayshore Avenue and 54th Place and that’s where all the young kids used to congregate in the early days of Long Beach.”
Maureen Neeley, a reference librarian and founder of HouStories — a website that documents the history of Long Beach properties — did a quick search of her resources and noted the Long Beach Public Library has two aerial photos of the area in their digital archive — one from the 1950s and another from the ‘70s. She said the area was probably surveyed by Charles T. Heatley.
The name goes as far back as anyone can remember — locals like Greg Kight, whose family have had property on Bayshore since the early 1950s, Realtor Loree Scarborough, who has been swimming there since 1962 and Max Darling, who says he is “One of the foremost world experts on everything that happens there (Horny Corner) on a 24-hour basis for his entire life,” all say it is the only name they’ve known.
No matter how it came about, the name still has cachet, as Orlando attests.
“But instead of just re-hashing the old image — that was very dated by today’s standards,” he said, “I completely redrew everything to bring it into the 21st Century.”
He said his Etsy shop has been busy with orders of T-shirts, hats and posters being sent nationally and internationally.
Orders can be placed at etsy.me/3j9E4RO.