Santa Monica Pier reaches into the Pacific at the foot of Colorado Avenue, where fishing, amusement rides and ocean views share a wooden deck. Its origins were practical: the city built a concrete outfall pier before recreation gradually became its defining use.
Guide preview
The pier’s cheerful attractions sit atop an unexpectedly practical beginning. Santa Monica built its first municipal pier to carry a sewage outfall pipe into the ocean, choosing concrete because wooden structures were vulnerable to shipworms and weather. The city completed the pier in 1909, and public recreation soon became part of its identity.
Continue exploring
Discover the full story
Keep reading with a travel pass and explore every full guide and tour.
UpgradeQuick facts
- The municipal pier officially opened in 1909.
- Its original function included carrying a sewage outfall pipe.
- The Looff pleasure pier and carousel were added in 1916.
More places in Los Angeles
Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
The Academy Museum occupies the restored May Company building and a newer spherical addition on Wilshire Boulevard. Its architecture links Los Angeles’s commercial past with the art and technology of filmmaking, giving the museum a campus shaped by both preservation and invention.
Angels Flight Railway
Two compact cars climb a steep slope in a short ride that links downtown’s modern grid to the former Bunker Hill neighborhood. Angels Flight is a surviving funicular, and its interrupted history reflects the dramatic rebuilding of central Los Angeles.
Beverly Hills Sign
The Beverly Hills sign and lily pond sit within Beverly Gardens Park, a landscaped ribbon that gives the city a recognizable public image. The sign works as a civic marker, while the water and planting soften the surrounding urban streets.
Bradbury Building
The Bradbury Building’s restrained street façade opens into a dramatic five-storey atrium of brick, iron, marble and daylight. Built in 1893, the office building makes its interior circulation the main event, drawing visitors’ eyes up through stairways and open balconies.
California Science Center
California Science Center presents science through hands-on galleries and major artifacts in Exposition Park. The Space Shuttle Endeavour anchors its aerospace story, connecting visitors to the engineering, teamwork and research behind human spaceflight.
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
The cathedral’s angular concrete walls and amber-toned alabaster panels create an interior shaped by filtered light rather than conventional stained-glass storytelling. Rafael Moneo’s design places a contemporary Catholic landmark beside the civic buildings of downtown Los Angeles.