On Sept. 91909 an icon was born. The Santa Monica Pier. One-hundred years later its fans still ask: What makes it “The Pier?”
Is it the wood planks and concrete supports that rise out of the Pacific? No. That only makes it a pier not the pier. Most agree what transforms a pier into the pier is the people and the personalities that flourish there.
Here on the centennial celebration all year long people and personalities will join in for special events. And as anybody who has been there knows the Santa Monica Pier is home to many personalities. Current personalities that fill the pier with music and dancing bring life and entertainment to the Pier making it unique.
But the Pier has had far more interesting personalities than a man who paints himself gold or a crew of break-dancers as seen on the Pier today. In the old days mobsters and world-famous body builders frequented the Pier.
Additionally the Santa Monica Pier was once a launch pad for boat trips to off-the-coast gambling facilities. These facilities were run by famous mobster Tony Cornero and his crew. These gambling boats were highly successful until 1939 when then-Attorney General Earl Warren managed to shut them down. The raid on the final boat became so famous that it has been referred to as “The Battle of Santa Monica Bay.”
While Cornero was using the Pier to shuttle people to his gambling boats Jack LaLanne and Joe Gold founder of Gold’s Gym were flexing their muscles. These body builders helped establish the famous “Muscle Beach” nearby adding another attraction for people of the thirties who flocked to the Santa Monica Pier.
In 2009 a hundred years after its grand opening the Pier has an abundance of entertainers.
Zapata “as in Manuel Zapata the revolutionist is one of them, as a member of a break-dancing group that is a crowd favorite. Zapata said that his group is down at the Pier every weekend” and that they make “pretty good money” working there.
Zapata said that his break-dancing group did nothing out of the ordinary to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the Pier performing as usual for the crowds who came.
On the contrary another group offered a special deal to customers in commemoration of the 100-year anniversary.
Jonathan Conant of the Trapeze School of New York is one of several teachers for those who come to the school on the Pier to learn the art of the trapeze. On the anniversary the school coordinated a special show and granted “free swings” to all interested customers. Conant noted many interested people patiently waiting “out and down the pier for a free swing.
Pacific Park is much more a part of the 100-year history of the Pier than the trapeze school. The current Park opened in 1996, but according to SantaMonicaPier.org the opening was bringing back the first full-scale amusement park on the Pier since the 1930’s.”
The Santa Monica Pier that exists today relying on entertainers and vendors to draw tourists is a far cry from the original Pier that opened in 1909 which was built for sanitation needs.
In 1918 carousel manufacturer Charles Looff built an amusement pier adjacent to the sanitation pier. Here Looff constructed the Hippodrome which housed the Pier’s carousel and became Santa Monica’s first National Historic Landmark initiating the trend toward the Pier we know today.
Aside from the amusement park trapeze school dancers musicians and man who paints himself gold another aspect of this jambalaya of entertainment is the family vendors scattered along the pier. If you aren’t sure if you want your name written in tropical animal and fauna the first time you pass a vendor offering this artwork you have three more opportunities to decide as more artists from the family have set up shop farther down the pier.
Similarly there are vendors that specialize in re-creating your face in a clay block as well as the popular “Your Name on Rice” stands.
Julio the most recent in his family to oversee the “Your Name on Rice” stand said that he loves working on the Pier and “the diversity of the people. All the cultures and religions present in one place is great to be around.”
The Pier is also home to food for all pocketbook sizes with Taco Bell-Express Bubba Gump Shrimp Company and Mariasol a Mexican restaurant at the Pier’s end to name a few choices.
The Pier also welcomes back Cirque de Soleil as part of its centennial celebration and will remain as a choice of entertainment next to the Pier until Dec. 20 2009.
The Pier survived bureaucrats in 1973 when the Santa Monica City Council sought to destroy it and replace it with a faux island resort. A decade later the Pier survived a violent storm that practically stripped it bare.
One hundred years after its birth the Pier stands as a popular landmark for tourists.
Though now visitors witness a man of gold dancers or vendors peddling random goods in its history gangsters politicians and body builders also walked these planks searching for much of the same: a place to escape – a place to find a little entertainment before returning to their normal lives.