Amusement Piers, Santa Monica/Venice, September 14, 1940
Amusement piers were a favorite of beachgoers in the early 1930s and 1940s. The Venice Amusement Pier, first developed by the Kinney family in the 1920s, was a major attraction in Venice, then a seaside resort town to which residents of Santa Monica and Los Angeles flocked on weekends. The rebuilt pier had a Ballroom large enough for 800 couples to dance on its floor and several rides. Ocean Park Pier, seen here, with its gigantic water slide “Shoot the Shoots” at its seaward end, was replaced in 1958 by Pacific Ocean Park, a nautical-themed park intended to compete with Disneyland.
