Manhattan Beach, California

The Manhattan Beach Pier is a pier located in Manhattan Beach, California on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. The pier is 928 feet (283 m) long and located at the end of Manhattan Beach Boulevard. An octagonal Mediterranean-style building sits at the end of the pier and houses the Roundhouse Aquarium. Surfers usually can be seen below the pier. The pier is popular with locals, tourists, photographers, and artists and for fishing. It offers sunsets and vantage points from the shore and hillside. The pier includes the Volleyball Walk of Fame, featuring plaques dedicated to past winners of the Manhattan Beach Open beach volleyball tournament.

Bruce's Beach was an African-American beach resort at Manhattan Beach in Los Angeles County, California. The property, which was located at 26th Street and Highland Avenue, was owned and operated by Charles and Willa Bruce for the benefit of the black community when racial segregation prevented them from enjoying opportunities provided at other beaches in the area. After it opened in 1912, it became a successful and popular visitor destination for African Americans. In 1924 the city of Manhattan Beach council used eminent domain to close it down as the area proposed was to be redeveloped as a public park. The property, acquired from the Bruce family and other owners, remained undeveloped for decades. Part of the site was eventually turned into a park in the 1960s and renamed Bruce's Beach in 2007. A lifeguard facility and parking lot were constructed on the beach parcels. In 2021, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve returning the county land to the heirs of Charles and Willa Bruce. The complex process of transferring the parcels to their great-grandsons was completed in 2022. In January 2023 the Bruce family announced their decision to sell the beach back to the county for $20 million.

Beach Cities is a nickname for the coastal area of Los Angeles County comprising the oceanfront cities of Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach, located on the south end of the Santa Monica Bay west and south of downtown Los Angeles, north of the Palos Verdes Peninsula on the Pacific Ocean in Southern California. Neighboring Torrance also shares a strip of beach property in the South Bay, but is generally excluded from the group. The three cities share public agencies including the Beach Cities Transit District (with El Segundo) and the Beach Cities Health District.All three are known for their beaches and municipal piers. They are popular with swimmers, surfers, bodyboarders, and other beachgoers. The Strand runs along the beaches and is used for cycling, running and rollerblading.

Sand Dune Park is an area of public sand dunes partly on a steep slope that is used for exercise in Manhattan Beach, California. The area has been used by amateur and professional athletes and has been featured in fitness magazines and newspaper accounts as a great workout spot.The park around the dune was built on a converted dump site by local residents in 1964. It was "just a little patch of grass and sand to enjoy when the area was still mostly small beach cottages" and remains one of the last "remnants of a time when much of the South Bay landscape was sand dunes", according to local historian Jan Dennis. Its popularity has grown and fencing, parking restrictions, and closure are being considered.

The Beach Cities Greenway in Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach, California is a 3.9-mile (6.3 km) rail trail. The greenway is a linear park on the median between Valley Drive running along the west side and Ardmore Avenue on the east. Northern trailhead of the Beach Cities greenway is Sepulveda Blvd. and Valley Drive opposite the Manhattan Village shopping center in Manhattan Beach; southern trailhead is Herondo Street and Valley Drive at the Hermosa Beach-Redondo Beach municipal boundary. (Note: Manhattan, Hermosa and Redondo are collectively called the Beach Cities.) Hermosa's section is officially named the Hermosa Valley Greenbelt. Manhattan Beach's section was called Manhattan Parkway until 1988 when was renamed Veterans Parkway. The Manhattan Beach section is approximately 21 acres (85,000 m2) in area and 2 miles (3.2 km) long. The Hermosa Beach section is approximately 19 acres (77,000 m2) in area and 1.9 miles (3.1 km) long. The boundary between the two municipalities is approximately the 1st Street crossing but technically occurs “mid-block.” Popular with joggers and dog walkers, amenities along the trail include quarter-mile markers, outdoor fitness equipment, public art installations, benches and drinking fountains. For those who seek an extended workout, two blocks from the southern terminus of the greenway, down Herondo Street, is the Strand, part of the larger 22-mile (35 km) Coastal Bike Trail along the Pacific Ocean. Bicycles are not permitted on the greenway. The route is unpaved; locals sometimes call the route “the wood-chip trail.”

Peck's Pier was a wooden pier in Manhattan Beach, California, constructed in 1908 by George H. Peck, for whom it was named. Peck was a wealthy real estate developer who owned a lot of property in the area. The pier was located in the area of 33rd and 34th Street and was the only pier in the area open to African Americans.Peck's Pier and Pavilion was a "promotional attraction" for dances, parties, picnics, and roller skating. According to the city's website, it was destroyed in a 1913 storm, and the pavilion was destroyed in 1920 due to "timber rot". Another source, however, suggests Peck's Pier was torn down by "a combination of storms and social injustice", the same injustice that also put a stop to Bruce's Beach, a nearby black-owned beach resort, and chased off black residents.The town's first pier, which was conceived to attract new home buyers, above a "newfangled machine to convert the power of the waves into electricity to light the pier", was built in 1901 (Center Street pier, where Manhattan Beach Pier is now located) on what became Manhattan Beach Boulevard. Another wooden pier on Marine Avenue was also built in 1901.

The Manhattan Beach Botanical Garden (.66 acres (0.27 ha)) is a botanical garden located within Polliwog Park in Manhattan Beach, California. It is open daily with free admission. The garden was first envisioned in 1992, with garden construction starting in 1994. In 1997 the garden became a nonprofit organization, and its grand opening was on Earth Day 2001. It consists primarily of plants native to California.

The 1997 Acura Classic was a women's tennis tournament held between August 4 through August 10, 1997. It was played on outdoor hard courts at the Manhattan Country Club in Manhattan Beach, California. The tournament was a WTA Tier II tournament of the 1997 WTA Tour.

El Porto is a beach community that is part of northernmost Manhattan Beach, a city in the South Bay area of Greater Los Angeles in Southern California. The boundary of El Porto is 45th Street on the north side, which is the border with El Segundo, and its Chevron oil refinery, to 38th Street, which was the old border with Manhattan; the east-west boundary is Crest Drive, next to the fence of El Segundo's oil refinery, to El Porto State Beach and the Pacific Ocean. The commercial section of El Porto is along Highland Avenue, which is its only main thoroughfare. North of 45th Street, Highland becomes Vista Del Mar Boulevard, which runs along the coast to Playa del Rey. Residents of El Porto are currently zoned to Grandview Elementary School by the Manhattan Beach Unified School District. Fire and Police Services are generally provided by the downtown police and fire facility.

Manhattan Village is a neighborhood in Manhattan Beach, California, founded in 1985. It was the "last major parcel available for development" in the cityIts construction was said to signify "the passing of an era – the removal of oil tanks and the beginning of development of more than 100 acres of formerly bare ground." At that time the city had a population of 30,245. Early concepts had included "a graveyard, a regional wilderness park and a lake that could accommodate paddle boating and sailboating."West of the 405 Freeway and east of Sepulveda Boulevard, the neighborhood adjoins Marine Avenue to the north and is south of Rosecrans Avenue. The first part to be developed was 37 acres on Sepulveda.In earlier days, the petroleum-drilling area was part of Standard Oil's 186-acre "tank farm" which held oil used in steam engines and steamships, according to Richard J Miescke, vice president of the Southern Division of the Chevron Land & Development Co. "They built those reservoirs with mule teams back in the '20s," he said.The development as announced in 1983 was to have 115 single-family, zero-lot line estate homes (priced from 295,000 to $415,000), 177 town houses and 223 court homes.Chevron was to sell four acres of its property for about eighty units of affordable rental housing.Property sales were halted in June 1985 because of methane vapors discovered at the 76-acre site. After tests, there were found to be "no significant problems," said Nester Acedera of the state's Department of Health Services, and sales were resumed. A temporary vapor-venting system was put in place.

Mira Costa High School (MCHS, "Costa") is a four-year public high school located in Manhattan Beach, California that first opened 1950. It is the only high school in the Manhattan Beach Unified School District. The school's athletic teams are known as the Mustangs and the school colors are green and gold. Mira Costa is located on the corner of Peck Avenue and Artesia Boulevard.

El Porto Beach is a California public beach managed by the County of Los Angeles, located in Santa Monica Bay beside El Porto, which is now part of the City of Manhattan Beach, between the beaches of El Segundo Beach and Manhattan Beach, and is protected under the state park system. The entrance to El Porto's large parking lot, which has meters, is at the west end of 45th Street from Highland Avenue. El Porto is one of the most popular beaches in the South Bay area with surfers from near and far because of an underwater canyon that creates waves usually larger than those at neighboring beaches. These swells have lefts and rights that break over sandbars and are consistently big when other beaches are flat. The breaks can hold waves up to double overhead. El Porto is very close to the Chevron oil refinery and a private corporate Electricity-producing facility for Edison that uses natural gas. Also very close are two city of Los Angeles industrial facilities, namely Hyperion sewage treatment plant and Scattergood Electricity Facility that uses natural gas to produce the electricity. Volleyball courts are located throughout the El Porto beach area. Roller skates and bicycles are rented out at the snack bar for recreation along the bike trail. There are restrooms with showers located throughout; and lifeguards are on duty. No fires are permitted on the beach; dogs are not allowed.