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>>Heathrow: Good afternoon. My name is Heathrow and I'm a volunteer with the Santa Monica
Authors@Google team. If you'd like to get involved or have people and authors you'd
like to recommend, please don't be shy. We're always open to ideas.
Today we're here to learn a little bit about something that's just spitting distance away
from the office -- the Santa Monica Pier. And today we've got someone who probably knows
more about the Pier than at least anyone that I've met. His name's James Harris, or Jim
Harris, and he's the Pier historian for the Santa Monica Pier Restoration Corporation.
He's been a fixture on the Pier since 1989, and his first job on the Pier was tending
bar at a little dive called The Boathouse Restaurant, which is where Bubba Gump is today,
and so the Pier has, has a long, long history of various locations. He's the historian for
the Pier, but he's also a writer, a playwright and his writing credits include the stage
plays, An Illegal Start and That Little Ding.
He also does a couple of online newsletters for various area experiences such as the newsletter
for the website venicebeach.com, and he does the newsletter for the Pier called, Beyond
Pier Sign. Jim Harris.
[applause]
>>Jim: Thank you, Heath, and thank you to all of you who are attending today and all
of Google. I, when I toured the offices here in Santa Monica a couple of months ago, I
ran back to my office at the Pier and I said, "I found the best place in Santa Monica to
work." And they laughed at me as they were looking out the window because we do have
enviable offices ourselves.
[laughs]
Anyway, the Santa Monica Pier just celebrated its one-hundredth birthday, and when we learned
that nobody was writing a book to commemorate the Pier's one- hundredth birthday, our office
took on the task of doing so. And I was assigned the task because I'd had some writing experience,
and because I've been on the Pier for 20 years.
The Pier, today, hosts four million visitors. And it's four, four million annual visitors
and that's far more than it ever has in its history. It actually began as something much
more modest and has grown. Sometimes it has had its ups and downs, like anything else,
but today, we are at the peak of the Pier's popularity.
And it's really been a pleasure to be a part of this centennial celebration and to be able
to share the history with people in, in this book, Santa Monica Pier: A Century on the
Last Great Pleasure Pier. Like I said then, and like Heath said, I began as a bartender
at The Boathouse, and when you're a bartender you learn early on that the best skill that
you have to make yourself money is your listening skills. And so, I became a very good listener
and I found an extra benebit-, benefit.
I got to learn about the history and the character of the Pier. And the more I heard, the more
interested I became. And so, I would, I would gather these stories in my head so that someday
I could tell them, tell other people, tell other customers, since I was a bartender about
what the Pier was like. When this wri-, when this book project came up, I was probably
the most excited person in the office to get-to get the actual book out until I began the
research.
And the reason I say that is the research that I wanted to do was from the beginning
to the end; finding everything out that I could in old newspapers and such, and that
included the Santa Monica paper, The Evening Outlook. The Evening Outlook in the library
is not indexed. So I had to read through every single headline and catch every single, little
bit using what knowledge that I did have and a lot of hope to try and get as much information
as I could, and that's what went into this book.
Also what went into this book was interviews with people -- local people, people who had
some sort of relationship with the Pier. And some of those really gave the book a lot of
personality. You'll notice it's not just a history book, it's not just a picture book,
but there's a lot of color in the stories and the people that I, I share in the book.
Among those, and I, I've gathered quotes from people about, what they felt about the Pier
and one-, among those was the, the late mayor, late Santa Monica mayor, Herb Katz, who, unfortunately
never got to see the book in its published form, but was generous enough to give me this
quote, which is right at the front of book.
And it's, "The Pier is sacred. It is part of Santa Monica, it is part of our life. Without
it, Santa Monica would not be Santa Monica." And if you think about it for a minute, when
you, when you hear "Santa Monica" just about everyone pictures the Ferris wheel or the
Pier sign -- certainly something to do with the Pier. Otherwise, it's just another beach
community that, that would mix in with others.
Now, the Pier, as I said, four million ann-, four million visitors annually now. The Pier
was not built to be the great tourist attraction that it's become. Rather, it was built as
a public utility. In 1909, actually in 1907, the city of Santa Monica was dealing with
a lot of growth and a lot of waste and by waste, I mean sewage -- the accumulation of
sewage. So, the city leaders brainstormed for ideas of what they were gonna do with
their sewage and ultimately came up with the plan to run a 1600 foot pipe out over the
ocean, underneath a pier and dropped treated sewage into the ocean.
And the reason it ran out 1600 feet was so that they would not have the sewage washed
back onto their already popular beaches. So, it would wash out to sea. Not exactly a glamorous
beginning. However, it was no, it was no, it was notable that the Pier was the first
ever concrete pier to be built on, built on the West Coast of the United States.
Other piers had been made of wood and had been, not lasted long against the elements
and against the natural, the teredo worms which were eating up the pilot-, the pilings
on the piers. So, the city of Santa Monica decided to build a concrete pier. That technology
was pretty new and the concrete piles that were built to last forever, lasted about ten
years before giving away and ultimately, the Pier became, they replaced the concrete pilings
with wooden pilings and the concrete deck with a wooden deck and you have the Pier like
you see today, with the wooden deck that you can walk upon.
Today, it's a mixture of concrete and wooden pilings. But it didn't, the most popular thing
about the Pier was, of course, not the sewage and not the ability to walk over the ocean,
but the fisherman immediately became attracted to the Pier. In fact, a week before the Pier
opened, a fisherman named John McCreary, snuck out to the end of the Pier and caught a yellowtail
and declared the Santa Monica Municipal Pier as the best fishing spot in all of Santa Monica
Bay.
Quickly, of course, fisherman were lining up and down the Pier. There was a man who
sweared he would fish on the Pier until the day he died. He did. And back in those days,
the fish were much more abundant and much larger. What you see in this picture is a
giant black sea bass. These were common. They were caught off barges and off the Pier.
Now, if you can imagine, this fish could weigh as much as 500 pounds, be 8 feet long, if
you can imagine trying to haul, hoist that up onto a pier, it was quite a task. These
fish could last to be, could live to be 60 years old. They were fished out so quickly
that it, that it became, they couldn't replace themselves and they've become an endangered
species. We've begun seeing more black sea bass around the Pier and it's very exciting
when, whenever a diver sees one or they have hooked one off of the Pier -- gotten it, caught
it and released it.
It's just very exciting to have them back in our-the Pier community. Now, it didn't
take long for people to think they could do more with the Pier than just walk on it and
fish on it. Charles Looff, who was a very famous carousel carver in the early 1900s,
wanted to build an amusement pier somewhere in the area and he chose next to the Santa
Monica Municipal Pier as his ideal destination.
Now Charles, he was famous, like I said, a famous carousel carver, he carved the very
first carousel horses for Coney Island and then he began expanding his enterprise all
over the United States. He had a shop in Long Beach, and he still chose Santa Monica over
Long Beach. And the reason he chose the Santa Monica Pier was three things. He chose it
for the people; he liked the community. He chose it for the, the beaches, the beautiful
beaches that Santa Monica had, but most of all he chose it for the accessibility.
Already, there was an electric tram that ran up and down Santa Monica Beach, and some of
you may have seen pictures of this tram. Apparently, as a side note, apparently nobody paid for
this tram. I keep hearing stories of, "I used to ride that tram. I used to hide on the back."
Nobody paid a nickel or so. Anyway, there was a tram that ran up and down the beach.
Also, the Santa Monica Municipal Pier was a, an ending point for the, the Red Car trains
that used to, to travel all over Los Angeles.
So, immediately, you had a place that a lot of people were going to be dropped off. Also,
with the new boulevard systems that were being developed, Santa Monica was going to become
a very popular place, particularly near the Pier for the automobile to, to drive. So,
people, the beaches, but mostly for the transportation. He wanted everybody who came to Santa Monica
to come right to his access point first. This is what the Santa Monica Pier looked like
when -- this is what Charles Louff's version of Santa Monica Pier looked like.
This is a photo from 1917. Some of you may recognize the building in the foreground as
the, the building that houses the carousel. It's called the Looff Hippodrome and it was
built in 1916. It included one of Looff's carousels, of course, his own hand-carved
carousel and above it were apartments. And he and his son, Arthur, lived in the apartments
while they were building this, the Santa Monica Looff Pier. Also in this picture are the Piers
first roller coaster, the wooden Blue Streak Racer and the, the Aeroscope, which is a big,
a giant swing, which I don't think would probably be legal in any amusement park today. If you've
ever seen pictures close up of it, it would be a very frightening ride, but a lot of fun.
Unfortunately, in 1918, Charles Looff passed away. And Arthur, his son, tried to continue
running operations, but he was also involved in the Santa Cruz Pier, or the Santa Cruz
Beach Boardwalk, rather. And the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk still has his roller coaster.
That old wooden roller coaster at Santa Cruz -- that's Arthur Looff's, the son of Charles
Looff, the man who created the Looff Pier in Santa Monica. In 1923, Arthur Looff sold
the amusement pier operations to a Santa Monica amusement company, a group of Santa Monica
businessmen who wanted to build up the Santa Monica Pier as the people's playground.
A, the first thing they did was replace the roller coaster. The roller coaster that the
Looff's had put on was not fastest, not the scariest, really not a feature type roller
coaster, especially when you compare it to other amusement piers in Santa Monica Bay.
And at the time, there were five other amusement piers in Santa Monica Bay, two of which had
many roller coasters. So, they, they built a roller coaster to compete with those other
piers, but the, the diamond in their crown was the La Monica Ballroom. This was the largest
ballroom in the world. It had a dance floor that could hold five thousand people at one
time. On the opening day of, of the La Monica Ballroom, there were over 50 thousand people
that showed up. This caused the first ever traffic jam in Santa Monica.
If you can imagine 50 thousand people coming to the Santa Monica Pier at once, just to
go to a ballroom, that's quite a spectacle of people waiting outside a building that
can only fit 10 thousand people in it. The La Monica Ballroom was unfortunately a victim
of the financial difficulties that came just a few years later and never really saw the
success that, that they had dreamed of it as a ballroom. But it did, eventually, become
things like a roller rink, the city's convention center.
It was briefly used as the city jail. There were apartments in it. There was an aquarium
in it, the lifeguard headquarters. They found many uses for this ballroom up until in 1962,
the walls were beginning to buckle and the roof was caving in and they had to tear it
down. And it's really a tragic loss that we really, that we only have this ballroom in
photos anymore. They say it looked like a palace floating over the ocean. It was, it
was where Pacific, excuse me, where Pacific Park is now, where the Ferris wheel and the
roller coaster are -- right in that area.
[pause]
Yes, the Spade Cooley Show. Spade Cooley was a swing western musician who was very popular
at the time, and he had a weekly show in the Santa Monica Ballroom, the La Monica Ballroom,
later called the Santa Monica Ballroom. And in 1947, KTLA broadcast from, broadcast his
show from the La Monica Ballroom for the first-ever live broadcast of a variety TV show and then
it became a weekly, a weekly broadcast. Ultimately, Spade Cooley moved into a studio for KTLA
to continue shooting. They did again at Santa Monica Pier.
Now also, when they first built the municipal pier in 1909, many people were talking about
creating a yacht harbor. Santa Monica seemed like the ideal town to have a yacht harbor,
it just, it was something the community was well behind for many years. Unfortunately,
it just never quite happened for the first couple of decades. A lot of bureaucracy, even
William Randolph Hearst got involved for awhile to keep the, the harbor from being built because
he was going to build his own nearby.
Ultimately, in 1933, the City of Santa Monica passed an initiative where they could fund
a breakwater, and they did decide to build it. They were going to build it out of concrete
cribs, which I guess is a little bit questionable when you've already failed with concrete once.
Why would you try again? And they did learn the same lesson again, they, they placed the
first concrete crib out off at the end of the Pier and it cracked. And all this money
that the people had put into it, all of a sudden, seemed as if it was going to go to
waste.
The US Army Corps of Engineers stepped in and said, "Scrap the idea of the concrete
cribs and just build a rock mound." And so they did. They built the breakwater out of
rock-big rock mound like what you see at, at Long Beach or Marina Del Ray today and
Santa Monica had its own breakwater and its own official yacht harbor. It opened in 1934
just in time for the first annual Santa Monica yacht regatta.
It's, there, there was actually a little bit of stress about whether or not they were gonna
get it open in time, and they did in August of 1934. The breakwater, unfortunately, was
not, still not very well built. The top rock was too heavy and it kept falling off. Sand
would accumulate behind the breakwater to the point where they had to keep dredging
it, so the, the breakwater and the yacht harbor became a very big financial burden on the
city, and by the late 1970s it was sparsely populated, and in 1983, storms did away with
the breakwater altogether. Now, I mention the accumulation of sand because originally,
the beach at Santa Monica was not the broad beach that it's famous for now.
The, the beach actually began that, the, the waterline came all the way to the carousel
building, which if you've been to the Santa Monica Pier you know it's pretty close, it's
pretty close to, to the city of Santa Monica and the cliffs. The breakwater caused all
of that sand to build up, and it created the broad sandy beaches that Santa Monica is famous
for today.
And the Piers sign. What I love about this sign and I have to go back to a time when
I was speaking, about a year ago, in front of a group of people and a young man who had
just moved here from Africa said that his friends told him that he had to go to the
Santa Monica Pier. So, he went driving by in front of this sign several times, looking
for a sign that said, "Santa Monica Pier." Now, we all know this is the Santa Monica
Pier sign, but nowhere on it does it say "The Santa Monica Pier." It actually says, "Santa
Monica Yacht Harbor."
That, of course, is because of the yacht harbor that existed at the time. This sign was put
up in 1941, and the reason that they put this, this large arched sign at the top of the cliff
was because of the highway interchange that goes underneath where this sign is. Now, driving
under this sign today, you're driving over a bridge and underneath is a very complex
little system of roads and highways.
When they built that system of roads and highways and built this bridge, you could no longer
see the Pier from above the cliff. So people were confused as to where they would actually
turn to go down to the Pier. So, the Santa Monica Pier Businessmen's Association gathered,
pooled up their money and they had this sign erected in 1941. And it's turned out to be
the, one of the greatest icons of Santa Monica. The people in the photo are a mixture of,
of pier businessmen and city commissioners and two actresses -- Marian Driscoll and Susan
Hayward. And the man in the fedora -- an interesting story about this photo -- the man in the fedora
with the striped tie--
[pause]
that man that I just pointed to, his name is, is *** Hernage. He was the President
of the, the Santa Monica Pier Businessmen's Association at the time. He ran boating operations
out off at the end of the Pier ever since the 1920s. Very much a fixture on the Pier,
he, he passed away in 1951, and I never thought I'd be able to come across any of his relatives,
but I did happen to meet, just by chance, his son through a series of phone calls. And
his son sent me this photo and the reason I mentioned it is this photo is a first generation
of, of the photo of the Pier's sign.
For years, we've been looking, our office, has been looking at Pier, photos of this particular
sign that were faded. They didn't have near the detail that this one does. So, you'll
see the tear in the corner and you saw a tear in an earlier picture, also supplied by, by
Jim Hernage. I will take that tear in the corner and keep the clarity of the photo any
day.
It's just, it's one of our favorite photos that we have in the office right now. Or the
fact that it is an actual first generation photo that nobody else seems to have. In 1943,
the, the amusement part of the Pier, it had the roller coasters, was not so much of an
amusement park anymore. In fact, by 1930, the roller coaster and all the thrill rides
were gone and the only real ride left on the Pier was the carousel. In 1943, Walter Newcomb,
who was a banker from Venice, stepped in and purchased the franchise to the amusement pier.
He had hoped to, to rebuild it as the thrill, thrill ride filled amusement park that had
been there before, but he never did quite achieve his goal. What he did though, was
bring his own carousel from the Venice Pier.
[audience member sneezes]
He owned a carousel on the Venice Pier. The carousel on the Santa Monica Pier, the Looff
carousel had been gone for a few years and this carousel was a much nicer carousel than
what had replaced it. So he bought this 1922 Philadelphia Toboggan Company carousel from
the Venice Pier and put it on to, to the Santa Monica Pier. It is the same carousel that
is on the Pier now.
[audience member coughs]
It was built in 19-, it was built in 1922. It's Philadelphia Toboggan Company, PTC number
62, all original hand carved horses, and it is really one of the treasures of Santa Monica
today. I think it's hard for me to, whenever I, whenever I meet somebody on the Pier, it's
hard for me to meet someone who hasn't ridden it at some point in their life.
If they've been to the Pier before or if it's their first time to the Pier, it's just a
very popular attraction. And it's popular for all ages. I mean, children love it and
parents take their children and the grandparents take their grandchildren. It's just something
that-that provides endless joy and all it really does is go around in a circle, which
is also endless joy if you really think about it.
Walter passed away in 1954 and left the amusement pier to his wife, Enid Newcomb. At the time
it was unusual for a woman to be operating something as large as an amusement pier, but,
but she did it. She actually, she owned and operated it until 1974. She did bring in family
friends, the Gordon family. And I mention their involvement because their family is
still on the Pier today. They've been on the Pier since 1955.
They own the Playland Arcade, but throughout their, their history they owned, for a long
time they owned and operated the carousel. They had arcades, of course, they had archery,
they, they had a gift shop. In fact, they still have a gift shop on the Pier. So, the
Playland Arcade and Marlene's Beachcomber Gift Shop -- over 50 years on the Pier. And
I think that's pretty, pretty astounding these days to find a family that's been involved
in, in a business like that for, for so long. The, the late 50s--
[audience member coughs]
and throughout the 60s and even into the early 70s, were not so kind to the Santa Monica
Pier. It was a financial drain, like I said, in having to rebuild the breakwater and having
to, to dredge the sand from the harbor and just general upkeep. And it got to be too
much for the city to where they couldn't keep up, and it began to fall into a serious state
of disrepair.
A lot of people consider these the best days of the Pier and the reason is, is because
the community that developed during that time, made it to where the Pier was like an actual
neighborhood floating over the water. Apartments and the carousel, those were not the only
apartments. There were other buildings that had been on the Pier began to lease out for
apartments, and it became the home for a lot of artists and activists.
Now, anyone who knows Santa Monica knows it's, its history of activism. One of my, one of
my dearest friends that I've made in all this, her name is Colleen Creedon, and she used
to host parties in the carousel to support the plight of Daniel Ellsberg and Cesar Chavez.
She was very good friends with Joan Baez, who we'll hear a little bit more about in
a minute, but the, the Pier was, was filled with those kind of people, and it was just
a really interesting community to hang around. A lot of people considered it seedy. Seedy,
artistic -- I think they kinda go hand in hand sometimes in a very positive way. But
throughout the 60s, the state and the city of, the state of California and the city of
Santa Monica were trying to figure out what, what they could do to make traffic towards
Malibu easier and more, more, to, to make it better. And they were considering making
a causeway, which is basically a bridge over a series of small islands that would take
you over the water to Malibu. And when this i-, idea finally failed--
[audience member coughs]
after several attempts that it came up, the city of Santa Monica, the city manager of
Santa Monica, was given the task of figuring out what to do with the Pier.
All of this thought of building the causeway, nobody thought to really, to fix up the Pier
and the, in that amount of time because they didn't know if they would keep the Pier. So,
you're, are you gonna build a causeway or are you gonna keep the Pier? They, so much
attention was put into the causeway, the Pier was getting worse and worse.
So, the city manager, Perry Scott, was given the task of trying to figure out what to do
with the Pier now that the causeway was dead. He came back with the idea of building a manmade
island out of the rem-, out of the remnants of the breakwater. The Pier wasn't in his
plans. His idea was to get rid of the Pier. Now, in 1973, or 1974, the franchise for the,
the Newcomb Pier, the Enid Newcomb Pier was going to expire anyway and she was, her orders
were to tear down her part of the Pier at the end of that, that lease.
The Municipal Pier, of course, I just said was in a serious state of disrepair, still
owned by the city. Perry Scott thought to replace both, since the Newcomb Pier was gonna
be torn down anyway, to replace both with a bridge to this manmade island. The manmade
island would have a resort hotel and a convention center and all sort of shopping and, and fun
amenities for people; it was a very commercial affair. The people of the city of Santa Monica
didn't agree and so there was a great outpour of, of rebellion actually against, against
the city.
The city council voted to pass, voted to accept the city manager's proposal and each city
council member who, who had voted to tear down the Pier ended up facing an assault from
the city of Santa Monica's and, and other people who loved the Pier.
And ultimately, each of the city council members who voted to tear down the Pier were voted
out of office. Now movements, there were two movements on the Pier, there was the Save
the, Save the Pier campaign and the Santa Monica Citizens Committee to Save the Pier
campaign. Both met on the Pier. Both were very heavily involved with trying to influence
media and petitioning and trying to influence the local politicians--
[man coughs]
During one city council meeting, Larry Barber, the Chairman of the Save the Santa Monica
Pier Committee, gave a beautiful, beautiful speech and part of it he said, and I think
that this is really striking statement, "It's like a family. You don't get rid of your grandmother
because she's a little old." Now in this speech, he presented a plan by a man named Jack Sikking,
who's, everybody credits with the Save, being behind the Save the Pier movement and really
making it all come together and happen. And this plan presented a very positive idea of
what the Pier could become if they would, if the City would just draw, draw their attention
more towards it. It included an amusement park, it included restoration of the carousel,
which, like the rest of the Pier, was seeing, had seen better times.
It included bringing all sorts of other fun elements to the Pier, which would make it
more attractive, including museums to, to attract, to focus on its history. All of these
things that were in his plan, in some form or another, has since come to be. In 1973,
the city council did go ahead and change their minds and, like I said, each city councilman,
even though they voted to keep the Pier standing, was ultimately voted out of office.
But they saved the Pier and in 1975, the Pier was declared a landmark, was given landmark
status and declared that the only way that anything could happen to tear down or alter
the Pier in a major way was through a vote of the people, not by the city council.
Then in 1983, Mother Nature did, effectively did what the city council had tried to do.
In, on January 27th of 1983, a storm was reported heading towards, headed towards the Pier with
ten-foot seas. The lower fishing deck at the west end of the Pier was eight feet above
the water. So, everybody knew something had to give, and a lot of people, a lot of locals
braved the weather that day, braved rain and sleet to stand on the palisades and watch
as these high seas rolled in. And sure enough, they rolled in and they destroyed the, the
lower fishing deck at the west end of the Pier.
The city manager at the time, after this storm and after, after surveying the damage said,
without even hesitation, "We will rebuild." And they began rebuilding out at the west
end, but the, the first thing they had to do was remove some debris. They took a large
crane out to the end of the Pier and began cleaning up the, the remnants of the west
end.
Another storm came on March 1st, an even bigger storm, and this storm ended up knocking that
crane into the water, which served as a battering ram and it wiped out the Pier, a total of
one-third the surface of the Pier, including the entire west end, and you can see almost
all the way to the beach. Again, the city manager said, "We will rebuild," but they
didn't make any immediate plans. It would be a much greater task, and so they went through
a lot of city planning as to exactly how to do this and where the funding was going to
come from.
And while they were at it, they were trying to figure out how to make the Pier more viable
and they used Jack Sikking's plans to make the Pier more attractive and more viable.
In 1989, and this is when I came to the Pier, this is what the Pier looked like. There was
a long metal pier alongside the, what would become ultimately, the rest of the Pier, and
they ran cranes alongside and they were rebuilding it. It was a three-year process, from 1987
to 1990, to rebuild the entire pier as it was, and that's without any buildings on the
end.
In April of 1990, they, they opened, reopened the west end for the first time, and it was
a very exciting day. I was there; it was amazing. There was a lot of really positive energy,
and it just for a great big flat pier. Now, that's not the Pier that we know today. Since
then, the Pier has reached the, really the full potential that everyone wanted, hoped
and imagined. And it's known, actually, primarily for two things today. And both of those are
in this picture. Has anyone been to the Pier that can tell me what the two things are in
this picture that really identify Santa Monica Pier today?
[no answer]
The Ferris wheel, the amusement park, Pacific Park, for one; bringing back the amusement
parks to the Pier, and all of these people are sitting on the Pier deck waiting for one
of the famous Thursday night concerts. And the Thursday night Twilight Dance Series concerts
have been going on, this will be their 26th year.
Last year, we were so lucky to have Joan Baez, who's been a long time friend of the Pier.
And, and I mentioned her because she and Robert Redford were the honorary co-chairs of our
centennial committee for our centennial celebration last year. Each has had a very, very active
role in the Pier's history and, and Robert Redford actually, his first memory is of being
four years old when he came to ride the carousel. And he learned that, or he heard, he knows
that he was four years old because another kid had approached him and asked him how old
he was and, and he said, "I, I'm four." And the guy says, "Well I'm five. I'm older than
you." And this is-this is Robert Redford's first memory. Everybody knows Robert Redford
was in The Sting, too. I'm sorry, The Sting also.
And he has had a long, long history of, of just being on or near the Pier and, and of
course, one of his most famous films on the Pier, in the carousel building. Joan Baez,
I mentioned Colleen Creedon earlier, the activist that lived above the carousel. Joan was a
regular visitor. She was around for the 1973 Save the Pier movement and was very involved
with the, the people in saving the Pier at the time. But really what she liked to do
was kick back in Joan's apartment, or in Colleen's apartment and relax. And this is a photograph
of her kicking back and relaxing in that apartment. A lot of people thought that she lived up
in that apartment and one my first tasks when I, I thought that I would write this book
was to track down that rumor and see if it was true.
And I contacted Joan Baez's manager, he said, "No, she never really lived there, she just
spent a lot of time in there, but I can put you in touch with her friend, Colleen Creedon."
And that's how my friendship with Colleen started. And it's just been a very beautiful
thing for, for all of us. I think-I know Scott enjoyed meeting her. Everybody who's been
at the Pier and has met her really has gotten a kick out of, out of Colleen and we've seen
a lot more of Joan lately, which has been great. Now there have been a lot of celebrities
on the Pier, and there have been a lot of, like I said, other colorful characters on
the Pier.
And there's one that I just can't go without mentioning, and his name is Captain Olaf C.
Olsen. He's a retired sailor who came to Santa Monica for his retirement and basically for
his health, but he couldn't stop working. He immediately bought a barge and then operated
it for awhile, sold it to a movie company, bought another barge, bought some more fishing
boats, and it's not exactly the life of a retired man that he left, that he led. Nor
was the fact that he was so active to preserve the Santa Monica Bay's fishing conditions.
He fought hard to keep commercial net fishing out of the Bay.
Santa Monica activism, I think he fit in pretty well. He was a local hero during the Great
Depression in that he would take someone from the Unemployed Gentleman's League on one of
his boats for free every day to catch their haul of fish. He would donate ten percent
of his cash to needy families. He just seemed like a really great man.
I enjoyed, as I was going through all of those old newspapers over and over again, and, and
finding all these headlines and these little tidbit stories -- he just seemed like a really,
really great man who I would love to have met. And it turns out that in a way I did
because I was a big fan of the cartoon, Popeye, and he was the physical model for Popeye.
E. C. Segar, the man who created Popeye, was a regular visitor to the Santa Monica Pier.
He lived here in Santa Monica, he'd go down to the Pier every day, rent a skiff with his
assistant. They would go out in the water in the harbor and discuss story ideas. Well,
the man that they rented the boats from was Olaf Olsen and immediately, Olaf Olsen had
a very distinct look; E. C. Segar saw that and applied that to his character, Popeye.
There are all sorts of really interesting and intricate and fun stories that- that I've
learned through this process; it's been tremendously rewarding. Sometimes I just don't even know
when to stop talking about what I, what I know and if you'd like to hear anything else,
I'm happy to share any time. I love p-taking people on tours of the Pier.
So, anytime you come, try to let me know beforehand that you're coming, and I'll give each of
you my card. And I'm happy to give tours, I'm happy to just talk and another thing I
love is to hear stories. I record stories. It's part of my job. If you've had a long
relationship with the Pier, if you've had interesting stories, I wanna hear them, and
I wanna get them recorded so that they don't get lost. It's been really, like I said, the
most rewarding part of my job is working on this project and to me it's never-ending.
[pause]
I do, I do, it's a Civil War cannon. They were gifted to the city, there were two of
them. They were gifted to the city in the early 1900s, never, of course, used. They
were not usable ones when they were, when they were given to the city. They used to
have actual cannon balls stacked up beside them and those have, those have long been
gone, but they're not. I had always wondered that myself from the first time I went to
the Pier, I thought, "Wow, is that something left from, from World War II when they were
worried about an invasion of Los Angeles." Nothing like that; they're just a decorative
gift that the city received. Yes.
>>audience member 1: [inaudible] [feedback]
>>Jim: There are things that need to be done and a lot of people, including myself would
like to see the parking lot go somewhere else and be better utilized. We would like to see
Pacific Park expand. I would like go get a mu-, a real museum, not just, you know, we've
considered small spaces for museums. We have some his-, historical photo displays. I have
a lot of things that I already can put into a museum right now. I would like to see a
space created for that.
There's been talk about moving the Heal the Bay Aquarium, which is underneath the Pier,
up onto the deck. Lots of really good ideas, but it all hinges on finding parking close
to the Pier, but not on the Pier deck. And another thing would be the return of the boating
community. When I first started on the Pier, in 1989, the, there was talk of rebuilding
the breakwater and recreating the yacht harbor. And the city heard the, the US Army Corps
of Engineers had put up half the money to, to do that. That money is long since gone.
The city never matched their half, they never rebuilt the breakwater and there are a lot
of environmentalists who think that it probably shouldn't be built, be rebuilt anyway as a
yacht harbor. But what we are trying to do is put a, a gangway at the end of the Pier.
Number one for emergency escape if, if the need ever arose, and number two to be used
commercially to, to get fishing boats back into the Bay somehow or maybe even just a
tour boat around the Bay. We're always working on something.
>>audience member 2: [inaudible]
>>Jim: Those are the remnants of the breakwater, those jagged rocks. And actually, they create,
the way that, that, the way that they are now creates more of a hazard than if it was
a, makes the water inside more hazardous than it does actually break the water. The current
that's right behind those rocks now is extremely dangerous. That's why that you'll see Harbor
Patrol won't let any boaters or swimmers out in that area.
>>audience member 3: [inaudible]
>>Jim: Uh-huh.
>>audience member 3: [inaudible]
>>Jim: Oh, great.
>>audience member 3: [inaudible] Yeah. [inaudible]
>>Jim: Yes, that's all I hear about is the lobsters in summers as big as people, so.
[laughter]
>>audience member 3: [inaudible]
>>Jim: 1934 [inaudible]
>>audience member 3: [inaudible]
>>Jim: Yes.
>>audience member 4: [ ]
>>Jim: It--
>>audience member 4: [inaudible]
>>Jim: That's a very good question. I, the other piers that you mentioned, the Venice
Pier, the Ocean Park Pier, and the Horseshoe Pier, and these other, there were the smaller
ones, the Horseshoe Pier and the Crystal Pier, they were all privately owned. And one by
one, they either fell to bankruptcy or weather or fire. And the Santa Monica Pier, the Municipal
Pier, the long part that goes out over the ocean -- the original concrete, that was originally
made of concrete has always been owned by the city. And, and it never, until 1983 it
never suffered the, the storm damage that, that would necessitate tearing the rest of
it down.
So, part of it's by luck and then the other part is by the people standing up for it.
In 1973, it was the only one left. And the people, the fishermen and the other people
who would come to the piers all the time, noticed that one by one, each of their piers,
each of their fishing spots, each, each of their walking over the water spots, was disappearing.
This was the last one, and that's why it was so important to the people to save this last
one in favor of a manmade island.
>>audience member 5: [inaudible]
>>Jim: I have not, but I've heard that the, that the Pier's in that somehow.
>>audience member 5: [inaudible]
>>Jim: Sure.
>>audience member 5: [inaudible]
>>Jim: I, I remember when we were talking in the early days of planning for the centennial,
we were trying to come up with the, what the theme of the centennial would be. And one
of our board members said, "A hundred years in the past, a hundred years in the future."
And that's the one that we ended up sticking with, but she continued with that, she said,
"For the hundred years in the future part we can have it 30 feet underwater because
of global warming."
[laughter]
>>audience member 6: [inaudible]
>>Jim: Sure.
>>audience member 6: [inaudible]
>>Jim: They say that the places that hadn't been on a pier before, those are the stories
that I used to get as a bartender, and I've included in the book, in the back of the book,
there's a section called "Pier Icons," --
[clears throat]
and a lot of these are the places that I heard so much about. I was lucky enough to work
in one of them for, for several years before it, it disappeared, too. The Boathouse was
considered the last of its kind, which was a real dive out on the Pier, and I think that,
that, that's part of what built the character, so I'm glad you mentioned that. Some of the
other places, prior to The Boathouse, probably the most popular restaurant on the Pier was
called Moby's Dock.
[clears throat]
And Moby's Dock was out just past where the ballroom was, if you can picture where the
ballroom was, or if you know the Pier today, it was out just beyond where the bumper cars
are.
[clears throat]
Excuse me. And it was, it was a very popular place, really drink, most primarily a drinking
establishment. There was, you know, the local trouble that you get with the term "dive,"
the visual image that you get, but it was where all the characters would hang out. Santa
Monica Seafood was right across the Pier from that, the original Santa Monica Seafood, seafood
distributors, before moving inland in 1969, they had been on the Pier for about 40 years.
There was Al's Kitchen, which I mentioned; did I mention Al's Kitchen? Al's Kitchen was
where the Save the Pier movement, that's where one of the groups met. Al's Kitchen was where
a lot of activists would hang out. Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden, one of their favorite places,
Joan Baez, too. That was really the activist artist hangout for a lot of years.
Out at the end there was The Porthole Cafe, which was open all night and really, primarily
to serve the fishermen who would fish overnight. They were supposed to have excellent coffee.
It was where, where Rusty's Surf Ranch is today was, was called Fish n' Chips. And they
were, they were very well known for their homemade potato chips which you could smell
across the entire Pier, and people still today, you know, when they come to the Pier, they,
they say this place used to smell like homemade potato chips. Things that we would love to
see come back.
[clears throat]
Before The Boathouse was-it was The Boathouse, it was for 30 years O. J. Bennett's Seafood
Grotto. Originally, it was a place where they had an outdoor patio that overlooked the ocean
and, and they had card games going out on the patio.
There was, there were, and then the Pier has a history of, of gambling going on the Pier
and off of the Pier. There was a, I detail in the book, a story of a man who was caught
playing craps with loaded dice and was thrown off the side of the Pier.
Even more notorious than that was, of course, the gambling ships. There were gambling ships
out at the Bay that water taxis would take you from the Pier to the, to these ships to,
to gamble and they were just beyond the three mile limit until Earl Warren stepped in, State
Attorney Earl Warren stepped in and declared the limit to be three miles beyond an imaginary
point between, making it far too out, far too out of the way to, to water taxis to and
back in a reasonable amount of time. Lots of really rich stories that, I, I could go
on. Yes.
>>audience member 6: [inaudible]
>>Jim: The police station was added in -- it opened in 1995, just before Pacific Park,
and it was added for the specific reasons that they were building an amusement park
on the Pier.
When I started at the Pier there, it was not the popular place it is today. There was,
it was really considered seedy and, and not a, not a good place to visit and certainly
not a good place to go at night. There was a homeless encampment along the north side.
There were, there was always gang activity. I remember my first Saturday night, I saw
a gang incident and that was my introduction to Saturday night in Los Angeles.
I'm a small town kid from Colorado, and so when they decided they were gonna build an
amusement park on the Pier, they did not want that to be attractive to, to that element.
They wanted to do something about that element first and they put the police station on the
Pier for that purpose. Sure.
>>audience member 7: [inaudible]
>>Jim: Fall or jump? Yeah, he asked how many, how many times or how often people fall off
of the Pier. By accident, I don't recall anything in the last, it's been, I don't recall any
real accidents. There's been people who have been pushed, there have been people who may
not have really realized where they were and fell by accident, but they've been more considered
jumpers. It is illegal to jump off the Pier, but that's just like being illegal to commit
suicide. It's really only illegal if you get caught.
[laughter]
And people do get caught. I've, and I've jumped off of the Pier, I've jumped off of the Pier
under the supervision of the Harbor Patrol, and it is a long way down. You know, about
halfway down, you're thinking, "I should've hit the water by now." And then you end up
underwater for a long time. The most dangerous part though, and the Harbor Patrol will tell
you this, they're not so worried about the fall, it's when you try to, try to rescue
yourself and grab onto one of the pilings, because of all the barnacles on the pilings,
cutting people up. That's the most dangerous part of falling off the end of the Pier.
>>audience member 7: [inaudible]
>>Jim: Swim, yeah, swim to the beach.
>>audience member 7: [inaudible]
>>Jim: They did.
>>audience member 7: [inaudible]
>>Jim: Yeah.
>>audience member 7: [inaudible]
>>Jim: Good.
>>audience member 7: [inaudible]
>>Jim: I have a huge photo library and I have, I have photos that you can find in other people's
collections that I cannot give you to use, but I can send you to the people who have
them and seek their permission. But, I, I have--
>>audience member 7: [inaudible]
>>Jim: No, I have, I have those actual posters in my office.
[laughter]
Yes, we'll definitely talk and I, I want to see the Santa Monica Pier room, definitely.
>>audience member 7: [inaudible]
>>Jim: Good. Very good. Anybody else?
[pause]
Thank you.
[applause]