Santa Monica Pier

Pacific Park is an oceanfront amusement park located in Santa Monica, California. The park, located on the Santa Monica Pier, looks directly out on the Pacific Ocean, in the direction of Catalina Island. It is the only amusement park directly located on the West Coast of the United States located on a pier and LA's only admission-free park. There are a total of thirteen rides in Pacific Park, including the world's first and only solar-powered ferris wheel that provides a view of the Pacific Ocean and a roller coaster that circles the majority of the park. Pacific Park is also home to 14 midway games and over-the-ocean food and retail outlets. It has appeared in over 500 movies and television shows such as Fat Albert, Hannah Montana, Hannah Montana: The Movie, Kidsongs, 90210, Bean, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, as well as the popular video game Grand Theft Auto V. In 2020, it featured in the opening ident for the sky television channel Sky Comedy. It is operated by Premier Parks LLC.

Heal the Bay Aquarium, previously named the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium, is a private-public aquarium at a California State Beach Park managed by Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors, located beneath the Santa Monica Pier, adjacent to the Pacific Ocean. Since 2003, it is operated by Heal the Bay, a nonprofit organization. It was formerly known as the Ocean Discovery Center and was operated by UCLA until 2003.As Heal the Bay's marine education, advocacy, and community science facility, it is open to the general public and attracts more than 100,000 visitors from around the world per year (approximately 15,000 are students). This facility offers educational programs, activities, and special events dedicated to marine conservation, pollution prevention, and environmental education. Species on display include:

The Santa Monica Looff Hippodrome is located on the Newcomb Pier adjacent to the Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica, California. It was designed and built in 1916 by Charles I. D. Looff and his son Arthur to hold a Looff Carousel. Looff's carousel was housed at the Hippodrome until it was sold in 1939. It was replaced by Philadelphia Toboggan Company Carousel #62, which was moved from the Ocean Park Pier. The building remains a rare example of structures that used to be on the amusement pier, and scenes were filmed therein for the 1973 award-winning film, The Sting. Since 1977, the carousel has been owned by the city, and was restored from 1977 through 1981. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987.

Muscle Beach is the birthplace of the United States physical fitness boom, which started in 1934 with predominantly gymnastics activities on the south side of the Santa Monica Pier. Muscle Beach Venice is the contemporary title of the outdoor weightlifting platform constructed in Venice, California, a distinct neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, 18 years after Muscle Beach was established.

Muscle House or Muscle House by the Sea was a famous (in bodybuilding circles) boarding house on the beach. The building was owned by Fleurette Crettaz, aka "Joy" and was located at 1659 Ocean Front Walk, Santa Monica, California. Joy was a fan of bodybuilding and would let bodybuilders stay for minimal rent. The house operated from the 1950s to the 1970s. It was a common waypoint for up and coming bodybuilders such as Steve Reeves, Vince Edwards, Jack Delinger, George Eiferman and Dave Draper.

The McClure Tunnel is a tunnel in Santa Monica, California, that connects Pacific Coast Highway (State Route 1) to its junction with the western terminus of the Santa Monica Freeway (Interstate 10). The tunnel passes through the Santa Monica ocean bluffs, underneath the Colorado Avenue–Ocean Avenue intersection and close to the Santa Monica Pier and southern end of Palisades Park. The length of the McClure Tunnel is about 400 feet (120 m). The current tunnel opened in 1936, replacing an earlier rail tunnel which had been bored in 1886. It was officially named the McClure Tunnel in 1979 after Robert E. McClure, a local newspaper publisher and member of the state highway commission.

The Santa Monica Camera Obscura is a publicly accessible historical camera obscura, located in Palisades Park overlooking the Pacific Ocean, in Santa Monica, California. Installed (and perhaps constructed) by Santa Monica mayor Robert F. Jones around 1898, the camera obscura was one of the attractions on the Balloon Route streetcar tour of Los Angeles. The camera obscura has been in the current building, designed by Weldon J. Fulton, since 1955. The adjoining space was once used as a senior center and is now a community art center.

The Georgian Hotel is a historic building in Santa Monica, California, in the United States. An eight story skyscraper designed in the Art Deco style, it opened as a hotel in 1933.At the height of the prohibition era, the hotel housed a speakeasy hidden at the basement level of the hotel which has since been restored. The hotel was purchased in 2020 by the BLVD Hospitality and has since reopened as a hotel.

The Midnight Special Bookstore was an independent bookstore in southern California. It catered to a leftist clientele. Its merchandise and events emphasized current events such as the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Chinese democracy movement and U.S. intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Tongva Park is a 6.2-acre (2.5 ha) park in Santa Monica, California. The park is named after the indigenous Tongva people, who have lived in the Los Angeles area for thousands of years. The park is located just south of Colorado Avenue, between Ocean Avenue and Main Street. The park includes an amphitheater, playground, garden, fountains, picnic areas, and restrooms. An overlook offers scenic views of the Pacific Ocean and of the Santa Monica Pier. Notable trees in the park include "Morty," a large Moreton Bay Fig Tree (Ficus macrophylla) and the "Three Amigos," three Rusty Fig (Ficus rubiginosa) trees each weighing over 100 tons. The "Three Amigos" were moved 550 ft from their prior location at the intersection of Main Street and Olympic Drive and replanted in the park.A Santa Monica City Ordinance prohibits smoking in any City park.The park was dedicated on October 13, 2013.

The Mayfair Music Hall was an English music hall-styled vaudeville theater devised and created by entrepreneur Milt Larsen, located in Santa Monica, California. The theater was originally designed by architect Henry C. Hollwedel, and built in 1910 as the Santa Monica Opera House. On December 12, 1911, it opened under the new name Majestic Theater. When live shows proved unpopular, it featured silent movies and vaudeville acts. Milt Larsen transformed the venue into a Victorian music hall in 1972 and produced British variety shows there. In 1974, the theater was used to film the famous "Puttin' on the Ritz" sequence in Young Frankenstein. In 1974, it was used to film a scene for the pilot movie of The Rockford Files, which featured an acrobat and a dog act. In 1989, it housed the Los Angeles wing of The Second City comedy troupe. The theatre was damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and the owner gutted the building and removed all the ornate decor. As of 2019, the theater housed a Shoe Palace store.

The Hotel Arcadia was a hotel in Santa Monica, California that stood on the oceanfront between 1886 and 1909. The hotel was located on Ocean Avenue between Colorado and Front (later Pico Boulevard).Built during what one historian called the Great Boom, the “fashionable and luxurious” hotel attracted wealthy visitors to the climate and scenery of the area, which ultimately became “important factors in the upbuilding of Southern California.”Named in honor of Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker, the five-story hotel built by Jesup W. Scott had “glass observatories” facing the beach. At the time of its completion it was considered the “finest seaside hotel” in the state, comparable only to the Del Monte in Monterey. A history of early Southern California resorts described it as a “summer society capitol.”In 1903, Griffith J. Griffith shot his wife Tina Mesmer in a room at the Hotel Arcadia as she was packing for the return to Los Angeles after their month at the resort, which she had hoped would put her husband in better mind. Ultimately, patronage declined and the Arcadia Hotel was demolished.