The history of Santa Monica,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
, covers the significant events and movements in
Santa Monica
Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to ...
's past.
Population by decade
* 1880 – 417
* 1890 – 1,580
* 1900 – 3,057
* 1910 – 7,847
* 1920 – 15,252
* 1930 – 37,146
* 1940 – 53,500
* 1950 – 71,595
* 1960 – 83,249
* 1970 – 88,289
* 1980 – 88,314
* 1990 – 86,905
* 2000 – 84,084
* 2010 – 89,736
Pre-history
Santa Monica was long inhabited by the
Tongva people
The Tongva ( ) are an Indigenous peoples of California, Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Channel Islands of California, Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately . Some descendants of the people p ...
. The village of
Comicranga
Comicranga was a coastal Tongva village located at what is now the area of Santa Monica, California. The village is also referred to as Comigranga, Comicraibit, Comicrabit, and possibly Coronababit. It is most notable as the home village of Bartol ...
was established in the Santa Monica area.
One of the village's notable residents was
Victoria Reid, who was the daughter of the chief of the village. During the Spanish period, she was taken to
Mission San Gabriel
Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to:
Organised activities Religion
*Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity
* Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...
from her parents at the age of six.
The general area of Santa Monica was referred to as Kecheek.
1760s
The first non-indigenous group to set foot in the area was the party of explorer
Gaspar de Portolà
Gaspar is a given and/or surname of French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish origin, cognate to Casper (given name) or Casper (surname).
It is a name of biblical origin, per Saint Gaspar, one of the wise men mentioned in the Bible.
Notable peo ...
, who camped near the present day intersection of Barrington and Ohio Avenues on August 3, 1769. There are two different versions of the naming of the city. One says that it was named in honor of the
feast day of
Saint Monica
Monica ( – 387) was an early North African Christian saint and the mother of Augustine of Hippo. She is remembered and honored in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, albeit on different feast days, for her outstanding Christian virtues, partic ...
(mother of
Saint Augustine
Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Af ...
), but her feast day is actually May 4. Another version says that it was named by
Juan Crespí
Joan Crespí or Juan Crespí (1 March 1721 – 1 January 1782) was a Franciscan missionary and explorer of Las Californias.
Biography
A native of Majorca, Crespí entered the Franciscan order at the age of seventeen. He came to New Spain ...
on account of a pair of springs, the
Kuruvungna Springs (
Serra Springs), that were reminiscent of the tears that
Saint Monica
Monica ( – 387) was an early North African Christian saint and the mother of Augustine of Hippo. She is remembered and honored in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, albeit on different feast days, for her outstanding Christian virtues, partic ...
shed over her son's early impiety.
[Paula A. Scott, ''Santa Monica: a history on the edge. Making of America series'' (Arcadia Publishing, 2004), 17–18.]
Regarding the latter, Crespi did note in his diary that the group found a Tongva village at the springs (where the SE corner of the campus of
University High School is today). However, as is also recorded in his diary, Crespí actually named the place ''San Gregorio'',
[ while the expedition soldiers called it "El Berendo" after a deer they wounded there. The "Santa Monica" name for the springs came later.][Handcock, Ralph, "Fabulous Boulevard", Funk & Wagnalls, 1949] The springs were probably commonly called by the name "Santa Monica" by the turn of the 19th century, as they did indeed remind incoming settlers of the weeping eyes of the saint. What is known for certain is that by the 1820s, the name ''Santa Monica'' was in use and the name's first official mention occurred in 1827 in the form of a grazing permit,[ quickly followed by the grant filing for the Rancho Boca de Santa Monica in 1828.]
It remains slightly curious that the City of Santa Monica (together with the canyon, bay, mountains, boulevard, airport and freeway) is named for a natural feature not actually within its borders. The name for the springs has since reverted to Kuruvungna ("the place where we are in the sun"), which is what the Tongva People have called them all along. The springs remain sacred to the Tongva People.
1870s
Government sovereignty in California passed from Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
to the US on February 2, 1848. The northern sections of the city of Santa Monica once belonged to Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica
Rancho or Ranchos may refer to:
Settlements and communities
*Rancho, Aruba, former fishing village and neighbourhood of Oranjestad
*Ranchos of California, 19th century land grants in Alta California
**List of California Ranchos
*Ranchos, Buenos Ai ...
and Rancho Boca de Santa Monica
Rancho or Ranchos may refer to:
Settlements and communities
*Rancho, Aruba, former fishing village and neighbourhood of Oranjestad
*Ranchos of California, 19th century land grants in Alta California
**List of California Ranchos
*Ranchos, Buenos Ai ...
. The Sepulveda family sold of Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica for $54,000 in 1872 to Colonel Robert S. Baker
Robert Sidney Baker (27 October 1916 – 30 September 2009) was a British film and television producer, who at times was also a cinematographer and director. Born in London and serving as an artillery man in the British Army, he was posted to Nor ...
and his wife, Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker
Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker (1827–1912) was a wealthy Californio landowner and socialite of Los Angeles. She played an important role in the elite society of Los Angeles and, later, Santa Monica. She was married to two wealthy Anglo-Ameri ...
. Bandini was the daughter of Juan Bandini
Juan Bandini (1800 – November 4, 1859) was a Peruvian-born Californio public figure, politician, and ranchero. He is best known for his role in the development of San Diego in the mid-19th century.
Early history
Bandini was born in 1800 in Lima ...
, a prominent and wealthy early Californian, and was the widow of Abel Stearns
Abel Stearns (February 9, 1798 – August 23, 1871) was an American trader who came to the Pueblo de Los Angeles, Alta California in 1829 and became a major landowner and cattle rancher and one of the area's wealthiest citizens.
Early life
Stear ...
, once the richest man in Los Angeles. Baker also bought a half interest in Rancho Boca de Santa Monica. Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...
Senator
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
John P. Jones bought a half interest in Baker's property in 1874.
Jones and Baker subdivided part of their joint holdings in 1875 and created the town of Santa Monica. The town site fronted on the ocean and was bounded on the northwest by Montana Avenue, on the southeast by Colorado Avenue and on the northeast by 26th Street. The avenues were all named after the states of the West, the streets being simply numbered. The first lots in Santa Monica were sold on July 15, 1875.
Jones built the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad
The Los Angeles and Independence Railroad, opened on October 17, 1875, was a steam-powered rail line which ran between the Santa Monica Long Wharf (north of the current Santa Monica Pier) and 5th and San Pedro streets in downtown Los Angeles.
...
, which connected Santa Monica and Los Angeles, and a wharf out into the bay. The first town hall was a modest 1873 brick building, later a beer hall, and now part of the Santa Monica Hostel
A hostel is a form of low-cost, short-term shared sociable lodging where guests can rent a bed, usually a bunk bed in a dormitory, with shared use of a lounge and sometimes a kitchen. Rooms can be mixed or single-sex and have private or shared b ...
. It is Santa Monica's oldest extant structure.
The southwestern section of the city originally belonged to the Rancho La Ballona
Rancho La Ballona was a Mexican land grant in the present-day Westside region of Los Angeles County, Southern California.
The rancho was confirmed by Alta California Governor Juan Alvarado in 1839, to Ygnacio and Augustin Machado and Felipe ...
of the Machado and Talamantes families. Mrs. Nancy A. Lucas purchased from the rancho in 1874 for $11,000. The property was farmed by her sons, and a parcel of was sold to Williamson Dunn Vawter for subdivision
Subdivision may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Subdivision (metre), in music
* ''Subdivision'' (film), 2009
* "Subdivision", an episode of ''Prison Break'' (season 2)
* ''Subdivisions'' (EP), by Sinch, 2005
* "Subdivisions" (song), by Rus ...
in 1884.
Image:SantaMonica-portadvert-1875.jpg, Advertisement for first land sale in Santa Monica, 1875.
Image:SantaMonica-1875.1.jpg, Investors gather to buy lots in the new "City on the Sea", 1875.
Image:SantaMonica-1875.jpg, Sketch of Santa Monica, 1875.
Image:SantaMonica-1877.jpg, Santa Monica, 1877
Image:SantaMonica-Pier-1877.jpg, An early Santa Monica Pier, 1877
1880s
Business started springing up. The town's new business district was initially centered around the current Third Street Promenade
The Third Street Promenade is a pedestrian mall esplanade, shopping, dining and entertainment complex in the downtown area of Santa Monica, California which originally opened as the Santa Monica Mall on November 8, 1965. It is considered a premier ...
. Early street names consisted of both numbers and the names of western states; however Utah eventually became Broadway and Oregon became Santa Monica Boulevard
Santa Monica Boulevard is a major west–east thoroughfare in Los Angeles County. It runs from Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica near the Pacific Ocean to Sunset Boulevard at Sunset Junction in Los Angeles. It passes through Beverly Hills and West ...
.
By 1885, the town's first hotel, the Santa Monica Hotel, was constructed on Ocean Ave., between Colorado and Utah in 1885. The Hotel burned in 1887. The 125-room " Arcadia Hotel" opened on January 25, 1887. Named for Arcadia Bandini, it was one of the great hotels on the Pacific Coast of its era. The hotel was the site where Colonel Griffith J. Griffith
Griffith Jenkins Griffith (January 4, 1850 – July 6, 1919) was a Welsh-born American industrialist and philanthropist. After amassing a significant fortune from a mining syndicate in the 1880s, Griffith donated to the City of Los Angeles wh ...
shot his wife in 1903, which led to their divorce and his (short) imprisonment.
The residents voted to incorporate November 30, 1886, and chose the first board of trustees
A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...
. The original townsite was bounded by Montana Avenue on the north, 26th Street on the east, Colorado Avenue on the south, & the Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
on the west.
Senator Jones built a mansion, ''Miramar'', and his wife Georgina planted a Moreton Bay Fig
''Ficus macrophylla'', commonly known as the Moreton Bay fig or Australian banyan, is a large evergreen banyan tree of the family Moraceae native to eastern Australia, from the Wide Bay–Burnett region in the north to the Illawarra in New So ...
tree in its front yard in 1889. (The tree is now in the courtyard of the Fairmont Miramar Hotel and is the second-largest such tree in California, the largest being the tree in Santa Barbara.)
Image:SantaMonica-Pier-1880.jpg, A busy day on the beach, 1880.
Image:ThirdStreetPromenade-santamonica-1880.jpg, Businesses on Third Street, between Utah and Oregon.
Image:SantaMonica-hotel-1880.jpg, Santa Monica Hotel, 1885.
Image:SantaMonica-1887.jpg, Santa Monica, 1887.
Image:Arcadia-Hotel-SantaMonica-1890.2.jpg, The Arcadia Hotel, oceanside.
Image:Arcadia-Hotel-SantaMonica-1890.jpg, The Arcadia Hotel, street-side.
Image:SantaMonica-1888.jpg, Looking south across the bluffs, the Arcadia Hotel sits at the end of the pier, 1888.
Image:JohnPJones-house-miramar-1890.jpg, Senator Jones' ''Miramar'' mansion
1890s
When the Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...
arrived at Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, a controversy erupted over where to locate the seaport
A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...
. The SP preferred Santa Monica, while others advocated for San Pedro Bay. The Long Wharf was built in 1893 at the north end of Santa Monica to accommodate large ships and was dubbed Port Los Angeles. At the time it was constructed, it was the longest pier in the world at 4700 feet, and accommodated a train. The plan did not last: San Pedro Bay, now known as the Port of Los Angeles
The Port of Los Angeles is a seaport managed by the Los Angeles Harbor Department, a unit of the City of Los Angeles. It occupies of land and water with of waterfront and adjoins the separate Port of Long Beach. Promoted as "America's Port", t ...
, was selected by the United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
in 1897. Still, the Long Wharf acted as the major port of call for Los Angeles until 1903. Though the final decision disappointed Jones and other property owners, the selection allowed Santa Monica to maintain its scenic charm. The rail line down to Santa Monica Canyon was sold to the Pacific Electric Railway
The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system ...
, and was in use from 1891 to 1933.
Meanwhile, Abbot Kinney acquired deed to the coastal strip previously purchased by W.D. Vawter and named the area ''Ocean Park'' in 1895. It became his first amusement park and residential project. A race track and golf course were built on the ''Ocean Park Casino''. After a falling out with his partners he focused on the south end of the property, which he made into Venice of America.
File:LongWharf-SantaMonica-1893.train.jpg,
File:SantaMonica-1890.1.jpg">Bustling Santa Monica beach, 1890
File:SantaMonica-1893.jpg, View north from Hotel ArcadiaArcadia Hotel, 1893 (note the 3 piers)
1900s
Amusement piers became enormously popular in the first decades of the 20th century. The extensive Pacific Electric Railroad easily transported to the beaches people from across the Greater Los Angeles Area. Competing pier owners commissioned ever larger roller coaster rides. Wooden piers turned out to be readily flammable, but even destroyed piers were soon replaced. There were five piers in Santa Monica alone, with several more down the coast. The earliest part of the current Santa Monica Pier
The Santa Monica Pier is a large double-jointed pier at the foot of Colorado Avenue in Santa Monica, California, United States. It contains a small amusement park, concession stands, and areas for views and fishing.
Attractions Pacific Park
Th ...
, which is now the last remaining amusement pier, was built in 1909 on what was referred to as the North Bay. The second half, an amusement park pier, was built later and the two rival piers were merged.
Among the South Bay piers, the most notable in this period was Abbot Kinney's Venice of America pier, started in 1904 and built to rival his former partner's Ocean Park Pier. Located at the end of Windward Avenue in Venice, Kinney's pier was 900 feet long, 30 feet wide and included an Auditorium, large replica Ship Cafe, Dance Hall, Dentzel carousel, a Japanese Tea House and an Ocean Inn Restaurant. Venice soon became considered its own neighborhood.
A new charter
A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the rec ...
was adopted in 1906 that converted the city government
Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...
to a Mayor – Council form of government. Under the new charter, the City Council was composed of one Mayor with veto power, and one Councilmember from each of its seven wards.
Around the start of the 20th century, a growing population of Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...
s lived in or near Santa Monica and Venice. A Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
fishing village was located near the Long Wharf while small numbers of Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
lived or worked in both Santa Monica and Venice. The two ethnic minorities were often viewed differently by White Americans who were often well-disposed towards the Japanese but condescending towards the Chinese. The Japanese village fishermen were an integral economic part of the Santa Monica Bay community.
Natural Arch was a natural formation located just south of Topanga Canyon
Topanga () (Tongva: ''Topaa'nga'') is a census-designated place (CDP) in western Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located in the Santa Monica Mountains, the community exists in Topanga Canyon and the surrounding hills. The narrow s ...
at along the coast of Santa Monica Bay. Locals called it Arch Rock and it was a popular destination for day trips from Santa Monica. The arch collapsed or was surreptitiously demolished in March 1906.
Image:OceanPark-1900.jpg, Ocean Park coast, 1900
Image:Venice-Pier-1905.jpg, Kinney's Venice pier, 1905
Image:SantaMonica-JapaneseFishingVillage-1900.jpg, Japanese fishing village at the end of the Long Wharf, 1900.
Image:SantaMonica-1905.jpg, Santa Monica, 1905
1910s
The Ocean Park Pier burned down in 1912. In its place was Fraser's Million Dollar amusement pier, which claimed to be the largest in the world at 1250 feet long and 300 feet wide. The pier housed a spacious dance hall, two carousels, the Crooked House fun house, the Grand Electric Railroad, the Starland Vaudeville Theater, Breaker's Restaurant and a Panama Canal model exhibit. It too burned within the year.
A new charter
A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the rec ...
was adopted in 1914 that converted the city government
Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...
to a commission form. This proved to be very weak, especially since the police commissioner was poorly paid and had no accountability.
Auto racing
Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition.
Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organise ...
became popular. Drivers would race an 8.4-mile loop made up of city streets. The ''Free-For-All Race'' was conducted between 1910 and 1912. The United States Grand Prix
The United States Grand Prix is a motor racing event that has been held on and off since 1908, when it was known as the American Grand Prize. The Grand Prix later became part of the Formula One World Championship. , the Grand Prix has been held ...
was held in Santa Monica in 1914 and 1916, awarding the ''American Grand Prize'' and the ''Vanderbilt Cup'' trophies. By 1919, the events were attracting 100,000 people, at which point the city halted them.
Image:Venice-Oceanpark-PierFire-1912.jpg, Ocean Park Pier burns, 1912
Image:SantaMonica-CityHall-1910.jpg, Santa Monica City Hall, 1910
Image:SantaMonica-1915.jpg, Steps down the Palisades, 1915
1920s
Donald Wills Douglas, Sr.
Donald Wills Douglas Sr. (April 6, 1892 – February 1, 1981) was an American aircraft industrialist and engineer.
An aviation pioneer, he designed and built the Douglas Cloudster. Though it failed in its intended purpose—being the first to ...
founded the Douglas Aircraft Company
The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace manufacturer based in Southern California. It was founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas Sr. and later merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas; it then operated as ...
in 1921 with his first plant on Wilshire Boulevard. He built a plant in 1922 at Clover Field (Santa Monica Airport
Santa Monica Airport (Santa Monica Municipal Airport) is a general aviation airport largely in Santa Monica, California, United States. The airport is about from the Pacific Ocean (Santa Monica Bay) and north of Los Angeles International Air ...
), which was in use for 46 years. In 1924, four Douglas-built planes took off from Clover Field to attempt the first aerial circumnavigation of the world. Two planes made it back, after having covered 27,553 miles in 175 days, and were greeted on their return September 23, 1924, by a crowd of 200,000 (generously estimated). The Douglas Company (later McDonnell Douglas
McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor, formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its own merger with Boeing in 1997, it produ ...
) kept facilities in the city until 1975. The entire facility was demolished and removed by 1977.
In 1922, a local newspaper, discussing African Americans, stated "We don't want you here; now and forever, this is to be a white man's town".
The nationwide prosperity of the 1920s was felt in Santa Monica. The population increased from 15,000 to 32,000 at the end of the decade. Downtown saw a construction boom with many important buildings going up such as ''Henshey's Department Store'' (destroyed) and the ''Criterion Theater''. Elegant resorts were opened, including the 1925 ''Miramar Hotel'' and the 1926 ''Club Casa del Mar''. The Los Angeles firm of Walker & Eisen
Walker & Eisen (1919−1941) was an architectural partnership of architects Albert R. Walker and Percy A. Eisen in Los Angeles, California.
Partners in addition to Walker and Eisen included: Clifford A. Balch, William Glenn Balch, and Burt W ...
designed the art deco ''Bay City Building'', a 13-story skyscraper topped with a huge four-faced clock that was finished in 1930.
Beach volleyball
Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two or more players on a sand court divided by a net. Similar to indoor volleyball, the objective of the game is to send the ball over the net and to ground it on the opponent's side of the ...
is believed to have been developed in Santa Monica during this time. Duke Kahanamoku
Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku (August 24, 1890 – January 22, 1968) was a Hawaiian competition swimmer who popularized the sport of surfing. A Native Hawaiian, he was born to a minor noble family less than three years before th ...
brought a form of the game with him from Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
when he took a job as athletic director at the ''Beach Club''. Competition began in 1924 with six-person teams, and by 1930 the first game with two-person teams took place.
''La Monica Ballroom'' opened in 1924 on the Santa Monica Pier. It was capable of holding 10,000 dancers in its over 15,000 square foot (1,400 m2) area. A major storm in 1926 almost destroyed the pier and the ballroom, necessitating major repairs. ''La Monica'' hosted many national radio and television broadcasts in the early days of networks, before it was finally torn down in 1962. From 1958 to 1962 the ballroom became one of the largest roller-skating rinks in the western U.S.
Comedian Will Rogers
William Penn Adair Rogers (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935) was an American vaudeville performer, actor, and humorous social commentator. He was born as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, in the Indian Territory (now part of Oklahoma ...
bought a substantial ranch in ''Santa Monica Canyon'' in 1922. Among his improvements was a polo field where he played with friends Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (April 5, 1900 – June 10, 1967) was an American actor. He was known for his natural performing style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy was the first actor to win two cons ...
, Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
and Robert Montgomery. Upon his untimely death it was discovered that he had generously deeded to the public the ranch now known as Will Rogers State Historic Park
Will Rogers State Historic Park is the former estate of American humorist Will Rogers. It lies in the Santa Monica Mountains in Los Angeles, in the Pacific Palisades area.
Geography
In what is now the Los Angeles neighborhood of Pacific Palisade ...
, Will Rogers State Park, and Will Rogers State Beach
Will Rogers State Beach is a beach park on the Santa Monica Bay, at the Pacific coast of Southern California. Located in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, the beach is owned by the California Department of Parks and Recreation; ...
. More recent residents of Santa Monica Canyon have included Christopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...
, Don Bachardy
Donald Jess Bachardy (born May 18, 1934) is an American portrait artist. He resides in Santa Monica, California. Bachardy was the partner of Christopher Isherwood for over 30 years.
Early life
Born in Los Angeles, California, Bachardy studi ...
, Jane Fonda
Jane Seymour Fonda (born December 21, 1937) is an American actress, activist, and former fashion model. Recognized as a film icon, Fonda is the recipient of various accolades including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, sev ...
, and Tom Hayden
Thomas Emmet Hayden (December 11, 1939October 23, 2016) was an American social and political activist, author, and politician. Hayden was best known for his role as an anti-war, civil rights, and intellectual activist in the 1960s, authoring th ...
(the last two who previously lived in Ocean Park). The southern rim of the canyon is the oldest residential part of Santa Monica, while most of the canyon is in the City of Los Angeles.
In 1928, Will Rogers sold a parcel with two large houses on the beach at the base of the bluffs to William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboya ...
, who then gave it to Marion Davies
Marion Davies (born Marion Cecilia Douras; January 3, 1897 – September 22, 1961) was an American actress, producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. Educated in a religious convent, Davies fled the school to pursue a career as a chorus girl ...
. Architect Julia Morgan
Julia Morgan (January 20, 1872 – February 2, 1957) was an American architect and engineer. She designed more than 700 buildings in California during a long and prolific career.Erica Reder"Julia Morgan was a local in ''The New Fillmore'', 1 Febr ...
oversaw the construction of what ultimately became the $7 million, 5-building, 118-room ''Ocean House''. As with other lavish Hearst/Morgan projects it contained entire rooms removed from antique Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
an buildings. Davies was a vivacious and popular hostess and ''Ocean House'' saw many grand parties of Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
celebrities. Davies sold the property in 1945 for just $600,000 to a failed attempt at a hotel. Most of the property was torn down in 1958, leaving only the ''North House'' with a marble pool and tennis courts. The remaining property was sold to the State of California and leased as the private ''Sand and Sea Club''. Following the expiration of the 30-year lease in 1990, management of the property was turned over to the City of Santa Monica. For a short period of time until the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the City operated the site as a public beach facility. It was also used as a shooting location, most notably in the TV show ''Beverly Hills, 90210
''Beverly Hills, 90210'' (often referred to by its short title, ''90210'') is an American teen drama television series created by Darren Star and produced by Aaron Spelling under his production company Spelling Television. The series ran fo ...
'', in which it was the ''Beverly Hills Beach Club''. Redevelopment of the property has been a political issue in the city since the 1990s. In 2006, the City Council approved plans for the first ever public beach club, which included the rehabilitation of the property and construction of new facilities. The project, now under construction, is made possible by a generous gift from the Annenberg Foundation, at the recommendation of Wallis Annenberg, and in partnership with the City of Santa Monica and California State Parks. The Annenberg Community Beach House at Santa Monica State Beach opened to the public on April 25, 2009. The total construction costs were roughly $30 million. Local residents succeeded in forcing the city to significantly limit its hours of operation.
The area around the Davies mansion became known as the ''Gold Coast''. Stretching along Pacific Coast Highway between Santa Monica Canyon and the Santa Monica Pier it became fashionable in the 1930s for beach homes of discrete celebrities. Following the lead of Rogers and Davies, other actors with homes there have included Norma Talmadge
Norma Marie Talmadge (May 2, 1894 – December 24, 1957) was an American actress and film producer of the silent film, silent era. A major box-office draw for more than a decade, her career reached a peak in the early 1920s, when she ranked among ...
, Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson; 18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish-American actress. Regarded as one of the greatest screen actresses, she was known for her melancholic, somber persona, her film portrayals of tragedy, ...
and Cary Grant
Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English-American actor. He was known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. He was one o ...
. Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films including '' The Thie ...
spent his last years living there. Peter Lawford
Peter Sydney Ernest Lawford ( Aylen; 7 September 1923 – 24 December 1984) was an English-American actor.Obituary ''Variety'', 26 December 1984.
He was a member of the " Rat Pack" and the brother-in-law of US president John F. Kennedy and sen ...
had a house there in the 1960s.
Ed Kolpin, Jr., opened a small tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
, pipe
Pipe(s), PIPE(S) or piping may refer to:
Objects
* Pipe (fluid conveyance), a hollow cylinder following certain dimension rules
** Piping, the use of pipes in industry
* Smoking pipe
** Tobacco pipe
* Half-pipe and quarter pipe, semi-circular ...
, and cigar
A cigar is a rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco leaves made to be smoked. Cigars are produced in a variety of sizes and shapes. Since the 20th century, almost all cigars are made of three distinct components: the filler, the binder l ...
store in Santa Monica, the ''Tinder Box'', in 1928. Later it moved to its current location in 1948 where it began serving the many Hollywood celebrities living nearby. Part of the attraction were the famous pipes handmade by Kolpin himself. In 1959 Kolpin began a tobacco-store franchise, at first locally and then by the mid-1960s there were ''Tinder Box'' stores in malls across America. The franchise business was sold in the 1970s, but Kolpin still owns and operates the original store as of 2003.
1930s
The Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
hit Santa Monica deeply. One report gives citywide employment in 1933 of just 1,000. Hotels and office building owners went bankrupt. The pleasure piers were a cheap form of entertainment that got cheaper, attracting a coarser crowd. Muscle Beach
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 we ...
, located just south of the Santa Monica Pier, started to attract gymnasts and body builders who put on free shows for the public, and continues till today.
In the 1930s, corruption infected Santa Monica (along with neighboring Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
). This aspect of the city is depicted in various Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...
novels, where Santa Monica is thinly disguised as ''Bay City''. A sequence in Chandler's ''Farewell, My Lovely
''Farewell, My Lovely'' is a novel by Raymond Chandler, published in 1940, the second novel he wrote featuring the Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe. It was adapted for the screen three times and was also adapted for the stage and rad ...
'' was inspired by the true story of the ''S.S. Rex.'' Beginning in 1928, gambling ship
A gambling ship is a sea vessel of any kind on which gambling takes place.
Historically, international waters began just from land in many countries. Gambling ships, like offshore radio stations, would usually be anchored just outside the th ...
s started anchoring in Santa Monica Bay
Santa Monica Bay is a bight of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, United States. Its boundaries are slightly ambiguous, but it is generally considered to be the part of the Pacific within an imaginary line drawn between Point Dume, in ...
just beyond the 3-mile (5.6 km) limit. Water taxi
A water taxi or a water bus is a watercraft used to provide public or private transport, usually, but not always, in an urban environment. Service may be scheduled with multiple stops, operating in a similar manner to a bus, or o ...
s ferried patrons from Santa Monica and Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
. The largest such ship was the ''S.S. Rex'', launched in 1938 and capable of holding up to 3,000 gamblers at a time. The ''Rex'' was a red flag to anti-gambling interests. After state Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general.
In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
Earl Warren
Earl Warren (March 19, 1891 – July 9, 1974) was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as the 14th Chief Justice of the United States from 1953 to 1969. The Warren Court presided over a major shift in American constitution ...
got a court order to shut the ships down as a nuisance, the crew of the ''Rex'' initially fought off police by using water cannon
A water cannon is a device that shoots a high-velocity stream of water. Typically, a water cannon can deliver a large volume of water, often over dozens of meters. They are used in firefighting, large vehicle washing, riot control, and mining ...
s and brandishing sub-machine guns. The engine-less ship surrendered after nine days in what newspapers called ''The Battle of Santa Monica Bay''. Its owner, Anthony Cornero
Anthony Cornero Stralla also known as "the Admiral" and "Tony the Hat" (August 18, 1899 – July 31, 1955) was a bootlegger and gambling entrepreneur in Southern California from the 1920s through the 1950s. During his varied career, he bootlegge ...
, went on to build the Stardust casino in Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...
.
The greatest benefit to the city came from the Douglas Corporation when it built the DC-3
The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner
manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II.
It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper version ...
commercial aircraft. The DC-3, which first flew from Clover Field, was a terrifically successful airliner
An airliner is a type of aircraft for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. Although the definition of an airliner can vary from country to country, an airliner is typically defined as an ...
that transformed the air transportation business and brought needed jobs to the city. In a more modest show of entrepreneurship, Merle Norman founded her cosmetic
Cosmetic may refer to:
*Cosmetics, or make-up, substances to enhance the beauty of the human body, apart from simple cleaning
*Cosmetic, an adjective describing beauty, aesthetics, or appearance, especially concerning the human body
*Cosmetic, a t ...
business, Merle Norman Cosmetics
Merle Norman Cosmetics Inc. or simply known as Merle Norman, is an American multinational cosmetics company that manufactures skin care and makeup products founded in 1931 by Merle Norman. The company is known for pioneering the "try before you ...
in 1931 by making creams and cosmetics on her kitchen stove. Both her former house and her 1933 Streamline
Streamline may refer to:
Business
* Streamline Air, American regional airline
* Adobe Streamline, a discontinued line tracing program made by Adobe Systems
* Streamline Cars, the company responsible for making the Burney car
Engineering
...
-styled business headquarters are well maintained.
The federal Works Project Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, in ...
helped build several buildings in the city, most notably ''City Hall''. The 1938 Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
structure was designed by Donald Parkinson
John and Donald Parkinson were a father-and-son architectural firm operating in the Los Angeles area in the early 20th century. They designed and built many of the city's iconic buildings, including Grand Central Market, the Memorial Colise ...
and features terrazzo
Terrazzo is a composite material, poured in place or precast, which is used for floor and wall treatments. It consists of chips of marble, quartz, granite, glass, or other suitable material, poured with a cementitious binder (for chemical bindi ...
mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
s by Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Stanton Macdonald-Wright (July 8, 1890 – August 22, 1973), was a modern American artist. He was a co-founder of Synchromism, an early abstract, color-based mode of painting, which was the first American avant-garde art movement to receive int ...
. The main ''Post Office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...
'' and ''Barnum Hall'' (Santa Monica High School
Santa Monica High School, officially abbreviated to SaMoHi, is located in Santa Monica, California. Founded in 1891, it changed location several times in its early years before settling into its present campus at 601 Pico Boulevard. It is a part o ...
auditorium) were among several other WPA projects.
1940s
Douglas's business grew astronomically with the onset of World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, employing as many as 44,000 people in 1943. To defend against air attack set designer
Scenic design (also known as scenography, stage design, or set design) is the creation of theatrical, as well as film or television scenery. Scenic designers come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, but in recent years, are mostly train ...
s from the Warner Brothers Studios
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
prepared elaborate camouflage that disguised the factory and airfield.
In 1945, Santa Monica City College started the Community Radio Workshop (CRW) to teach returning GIs broadcasting and used the call letters ''KCRW
KCRW (89.9 MHz FM) is a National Public Radio member station broadcasting from the campus of Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California, where the station is licensed. KCRW airs original news and music programming in addition to programm ...
''. (Later KCRW became a popular and innovative NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
affiliate.)
The Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
building was built in 1947 at the south end of the retail district and has retained architect Rowland Crawford
Rowland Henry Crawford (1902–1973) was an American architect and artist. Most of his buildings are located in the Los Angeles metro area.
Biography
Rowland Crawford was born October 28, 1902, in Deadwood, South Dakota. He attended the Universit ...
's original late- Moderne styling.
The RAND Corporation
The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed ...
began as a project of the Douglas Company in 1945, and spun off into an independent think tank
A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmenta ...
on May 14, 1948. RAND eventually acquired a 15-acre (61,000 m2) campus centrally located between the Civic Center and the pier entrance.
As a response to the corruption and inefficiency that grew in the 1930s, the current charter was enacted in 1946. The city government
Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...
adopted a council-manager government that has proven to be successful.
1950s
Papermate
Paper Mate is a registered division (business), division of Sanford L.P., a Newell Brands company that produces writing instruments. Paper Mate's offices are located in Oak Brook, Illinois, along with those of Newell Rubbermaid's other office pro ...
opened its Santa Monica factory in 1957. The plant produced 600 million ballpoint pen
A ballpoint pen, also known as a biro (British English), ball pen (Hong Kong, Indian and Philippine English), or dot pen ( Nepali) is a pen that dispenses ink (usually in paste form) over a metal ball at its point, i.e. over a "ball point". ...
s in 1971 and closed in 2005.
The 3,000-seat Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, built on the site of an early African American neighborhood in the city known as Belmar, designed in the International Style by Welton Becket
Welton David Becket (August 8, 1902 – January 16, 1969) was an American modern architect who designed many buildings in Los Angeles, California.
Biography
Becket was born in Seattle, Washington and graduated from the University of Washingt ...
, opened in 1958. From 1961 to 1968 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motio ...
held its annual ''Oscar'' awards ceremony there. Performers that have appeared over the decades include: Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez (; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more ...
, The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American Rock music, rock band that formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian Wilson, Brian, Dennis Wilson, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and frie ...
, Tony Bennett
Anthony Dominick Benedetto (born August 3, 1926), known professionally as Tony Bennett, is an American retired singer of traditional pop standards, big band, show tunes, and jazz. Bennett is also a painter, having created works under his birth ...
, David Bowie
David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...
, Dave Brubeck
David Warren Brubeck (; December 6, 1920 – December 5, 2012) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Often regarded as a foremost exponent of cool jazz, Brubeck's work is characterized by unusual time signatures and superimposing contrasti ...
, Buzzcocks
Buzzcocks are an English punk rock band formed in Bolton, England in 1976 by singer-songwriter-guitarist Pete Shelley and singer-songwriter Howard Devoto. They are regarded as a seminal influence on the Manchester music scene, the independen ...
, The Carpenters
The Carpenters (officially known as Carpenters) were an American vocal and instrumental duo consisting of siblings Karen Carpenter, Karen (1950–1983) and Richard Carpenter (musician), Richard Carpenter (born 1946). They produced a distinct ...
, Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson Sr. (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. He is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential singers in history, and was often referred to by contemporaries as "The Ge ...
, The Clash
The Clash were an English rock band formed in London in 1976 who were key players in the original wave of British punk rock. Billed as "The Only Band That Matters", they also contributed to the and new wave movements that emerged in the wa ...
, Bill Cosby
William Henry Cosby Jr. ( ; born July 12, 1937) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and media personality. He made significant contributions to American and African-American culture, and is well known in the United States for his eccentric ...
, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
, Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917June 15, 1996) was an American jazz singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, in ...
, Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
, Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Davy Guthrie (born July 10, 1947) is an American folk singer-songwriter. He is known for singing songs of protest against social injustice, and storytelling while performing songs, following the tradition of his father, Woody Guthrie. Gut ...
, Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...
, Bob Hope
Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) was a British-American comedian, vaudevillian, actor, singer and dancer. With a career that spanned nearly 80 years, Hope appeared in more than 70 short and feature films, with 5 ...
, Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...
, Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The group comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. With a heavy, guitar-driven sound, they are ci ...
, André Previn
André George Previn (; born Andreas Ludwig Priwin; April 6, 1929 – February 28, 2019) was a German-American pianist, composer, and conductor. His career had three major genres: Hollywood films, jazz, and classical music. In each he achieved ...
, Public Enemy
"Public enemy" is a term which was first widely used in the United States in the 1930s to describe individuals whose activities were seen as criminal and extremely damaging to society, though the phrase had been used for centuries to describe p ...
, Ramones
The Ramones were an American punk rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first true punk rock group. Despite achieving a limited commercial appeal in the United ...
, The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically d ...
, Pete Seeger
Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
, Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American singer and songwriter. He has released 21 studio albums, most of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he is an originat ...
and the E Street Band
The E Street Band is an American rock band, and has been musician Bruce Springsteen's primary backing band since 1972. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014. For the bulk of Springsteen's recording and performing caree ...
, T.Rex
''Tyrannosaurus'' is a genus of large theropod dinosaur. The species ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' (''rex'' meaning "king" in Latin), often called ''T. rex'' or colloquially ''T-Rex'', is one of the best represented theropods. ''Tyrannosaurus'' live ...
, Jonathan Winters
Jonathan Harshman Winters III (November 11, 1925 – April 11, 2013) was an American comedian, actor, author, television host, and artist. Beginning in 1960, Winters recorded many classic comedy albums for the Verve Records label. He also h ...
, and countless others. Since the late 1980s the auditorium has been more popular for trade conventions than performances. The films ''The T.A.M.I. Show
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' and ''Urgh! A Music War
''Urgh! A Music War'' is a 1982 British concert film featuring performances by punk rock, new wave, and post-punk bands and artists. Filmed in August to September 1980 it was directed by Derek Burbidge and produced by Michael White and Lynd ...
'' were shot there.
Pacific Ocean Park
Pacific Ocean Park was a nautical-themed amusement park built on a pier at Pier Avenue in the Ocean Park section of Santa Monica, California in 1958. Intended to compete with Disneyland, it replaced Ocean Park Pier (1926-1956). After it closed ...
, the last of the great amusement piers, opened in 1958. While it temporarily eclipsed competitor Disneyland
Disneyland is a amusement park, theme park in Anaheim, California. Opened in 1955, it was the first theme park opened by The Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. Disney in ...
, attendance later plummeted and by 1967 the park was foreclosed for back taxes. It sat empty and rotting, an unattractive "attractive nuisance
The attractive nuisance doctrine applies to the law of torts in some jurisdictions. It states that a landowner may be held liable for injuries to children trespassing on the land if the injury is caused by an object on the land that is likely ...
" until finally removed in 1974.
Adjacent to Pacific Ocean Park was the rock and roll club, The Cheetah, which featured early
performances by such acts as The Doors
The Doors were an American Rock music, rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential ro ...
, Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier, February 4, 1948) is an American rock singer whose career spans over five decades. With a raspy voice and a stage show that features numerous props and stage illusions, including pyrotechnics, guillot ...
, Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd are an English rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experimentation, philo ...
, Love
Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest Interpersonal relationship, interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of ...
, The Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention (also known as The Mothers) was an American rock band from California. Formed in 1964, their work is marked by the use of sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows.
Originally an R&B band ...
, The Seeds
The Seeds were an American psychedelic garage rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1965, best known for their highest charting single " Pushin' Too Hard". The band's classic line-up featured frontman Sky Saxon, guitarist Jan Savag ...
, Buffalo Springfield
Buffalo Springfield was a rock band formed in Los Angeles by Canadian musicians Neil Young, Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin and American musicians Stephen Stills and Richie Furay. The group, widely known for the song "For What It's Worth", rele ...
and others. It closed in 1968.
The Synanon
Synanon is a US-founded social organization created by Charles E. "Chuck" Dederich Sr. in 1958 in Santa Monica, California, United States. It is currently active in Germany.
Originally established as a drug rehabilitation program, by the early ...
drug rehabilitation cult moved into the old National Guard building in 1959 and added their strange presence to the area. In 1967 it moved into the swank Del Mar Club until 1978. After that they held a small presence until shut down in 1991. http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-man-who-fought-cults-and-won-1634267961. https://www.thefix.com/content/aa-cults-synanon-legacy0009
1960s
The completion of the Santa Monica Freeway
Interstate 10 (I-10) is a transcontinental Interstate Highway in the United States, stretching from Santa Monica, California to Jacksonville, Florida. The segment of I-10 in California runs east from Santa Monica through Los Angeles, San Bernar ...
in 1966 brought the promise of new prosperity, though at the cost of decimating the Pico neighborhood that had been a leading African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
enclave on the Westside.
Third Street in downtown was converted into the ''Santa Monica Mall'' in 1965, an innovative but ultimately unsuccessful development that turned the three block core of the retail district into an open-air pedestrian mall. Large parking structures were built, but rarely filled. Within a couple of decades it was in severe decline. (The ''Santa Monica Mall'', just prior to its conversion to the ''Third Street Promenade'', is a location for some scenes in the movie, '' Pee-wee's Big Adventure'').
The Douglas plant closed in 1968, depriving Santa Monica of its largest employer. A decade passed before the site was redeveloped into an office park. The Museum of Flying was opened on the same site another decades later, in 1989.
Bandleader Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk (March 11, 1903 – May 17, 1992) was an American accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, who hosted the ''The Lawrence Welk Show'' from 1951 to 1982. His style came to be known as "champagne music" to his radio, tele ...
built the ''Champagne Towers'' apartment building and the adjoining ''Lawrence Welk Plaza'' in 1969. The plaza is now known by its address, ''100 Wilshire'', and it is still the tallest building in the city.
1970s
During the 1970s, a remarkable number of notable fitness- and health-related businesses started in the city. The Supergo bicycle shop (originally named Bikecology founded by Susan and Alan Goldsmith as a pro ten-speed bike shop opened in 1971, and was ranked the top grossing bike shop in America by the time it relocated from Wilshire Blvd to the corner of 5th and Broadway in 1995. And coincidentally work on the bicycle path
Cycling infrastructure is all infrastructure cyclists are allowed to use. Bikeways include bike paths, bike lanes, cycle tracks, rail trails and, where permitted, sidewalks. Roads used by motorists are also cycling infrastructure, except whe ...
along the beach was undertaken by the city. The ''Santa Monica Track Club Santa Monica High School Girls Track team first coach is Dalal M. Ahmad, a USC graduate doing her second semester of student student teaching . She was placed in charge of the team in 1972 during her second semester of student teaching
The Santa Mo ...
'', founded in 1972 by Joe Douglas, has helped the careers of many Olympians, such as Carl Lewis
Frederick Carlton Lewis (born July 1, 1961) is an American former track and field athlete who won nine Olympic gold medals, one Olympic silver medal, and 10 World Championships medals, including eight gold. His career spanned from 1979 to 1996, ...
. Sensei James Field opened his dojo
A is a hall or place for immersive learning or meditation. This is traditionally in the field of martial arts, but has been seen increasingly in other fields, such as meditation and software development. The term literally means "place of the ...
in 1974, which became one of the primary Shotokan karate
(; ; Okinawan language, Okinawan pronunciation: ) is a martial arts, martial art developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom. It developed from the Okinawan martial arts, indigenous Ryukyuan martial arts (called , "hand"; ''tii'' in Okinawan) under the ...
schools in the US and is now called the ''Japan Karate Association (JKA) Santa Monica''. Joe Gold
Joe Gold (born Sidney Gold; March 10, 1922 – July 11, 2004) was an American bodybuilder and businessman. He was the founder of Gold's Gym and World Gym. He has been credited with being the father of the bodybuilding and the fitness craze. ...
, who had sold his chain of Gold's Gym
Gold's Gym International, Inc. is an American chain of international co-ed fitness centers (commonly referred to as gyms) originally started by Joe Gold in Venice Beach, California. Each gym offers a variety of cardio and strength training equipm ...
s years before, started the World Gym
World Gym International LLC is an American fitness center founded in 1976 by Joe Gold during the glory days of " Muscle Beach" in Venice Beach, California. Joe Gold is also the founder of Gold's Gym, another gym chain, which he sold in 1973. The g ...
chain in 1977. Nathan Pritikin opened the ''Pritikin Longevity Center'' in the Casa Del Mar building in 1978 after prior owner Synanon tried to murder attorney Paul Morantz by placing rattlesnake in his mailbox. https://www.thefix.com/content/aa-cults-synanon-legacy0009. Ocean Park resident Jane Fonda
Jane Seymour Fonda (born December 21, 1937) is an American actress, activist, and former fashion model. Recognized as a film icon, Fonda is the recipient of various accolades including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, sev ...
opened a small aerobics
Aerobics is a form of physical exercise that combines rhythmic aerobic exercise with stretching and strength training routines with the goal of improving all elements of fitness (flexibility, muscular strength, and cardio-vascular fitness). It ...
studio on Main Street.
In the late 1970s, progressivism
Progressivism holds that it is possible to improve human societies through political action. As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, tec ...
became the dominant political force in Santa Monica. Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights
Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring children gifts during the late evening and overnight ...
(SMRR) formed in 1978 and was led by Ruth Yannatta Goldway, Derek Shearer
Derek Shearer (born December 5, 1946) is an American former diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Finland.Wadler, Joyce.Lloyd Shearer, Longtime Celebrity Columnist, Dies at 84" ''The New York Times''. May 27, 2001. Retrieved on ...
, Dennis Zane, and Reverend
The Reverend is an style (manner of address), honorific style most often placed before the names of Christian clergy and Minister of religion, ministers. There are sometimes differences in the way the style is used in different countries and c ...
James Conn with support from Tom Hayden
Thomas Emmet Hayden (December 11, 1939October 23, 2016) was an American social and political activist, author, and politician. Hayden was best known for his role as an anti-war, civil rights, and intellectual activist in the 1960s, authoring th ...
and Jane Fonda. Conn's Ocean Park Community Organization (OPCO) was formed in 1979 as an adjunct to the Church in Ocean Park, partly in reaction to the rapid pace of change along Main Street. It was the first of what became nine community organizations that serve as neighborhood advocates. A strict rent control
Rent regulation is a system of laws, administered by a court or a public authority, which aims to ensure the affordability of housing and tenancies on the rental market for dwellings. Generally, a system of rent regulation involves:
* Price con ...
ordinance passed in 1979 and SMRR achieved a council majority in 1981. It has largely remained the controlling political organization since then.
By 1977, the large 1894 "American Foursquare
The American Foursquare or American Four Square is an American house style popular from the mid-1890s to the late 1930s. A reaction to the ornate and mass-produced elements of the Victorian architecture, Victorian and other Revival styles popul ...
"-style home of Roy Jones (son of founder John P. Jones) was threatened with destruction. It had been converted into rooming houses and was decrepit. It, along with an adjoining 19th century house, was saved by being relocated to Main Street in Ocean Park and renovated. The Jones house became the home of the Santa Monica Heritage Museum and the other house became a restaurant. The salvation of the buildings was representative of the changes taking place in the city.
The late-1970s/early-1980s situation comedy
A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...
''Three's Company
''Three's Company'' is an American sitcom television series that aired for eight seasons on ABC from March 15, 1977, to September 18, 1984. It is based on the British sitcom ''Man About the House''.
The story revolves around three single roomma ...
'' was set in Santa Monica.
1980s
After the economic doldrums of the 1960s and early 1970s, the city's economy began to recover in the 1980s. An early sign of that change was in the neighborhood of Ocean Park. Main Street, a quaint mile of sawdust bars and dilapidated stores selling old furniture, was upgraded by the concerted efforts of a new generation of owners. Soon it was attracting increasingly expensive boutiques and restaurants. At the northern end of Main Street adjacent to the still-declining Santa Monica Mall, a city block was levelled in 1980 to build a new mall, Santa Monica Place
Santa Monica Place is an outdoor shopping mall in Santa Monica, California. The mall is located at the south end of Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade shopping district, two blocks from the beach and Santa Monica Pier. The mall spans 3 levels. T ...
, designed by architect Frank Gehry. Further south on Main Street, the mixed-use museum, retail, and restaurant complex, Edgemar – also designed by Frank Gehry – opened in 1988.
While the Santa Monica Pier
The Santa Monica Pier is a large double-jointed pier at the foot of Colorado Avenue in Santa Monica, California, United States. It contains a small amusement park, concession stands, and areas for views and fishing.
Attractions Pacific Park
Th ...
had been preserved from intentional destruction in 1973, it was nonetheless poorly maintained. By the 1980s it had become a blight. The area around the pier was filled with poorly built and maintained buildings that housed seedy biker bar
A biker bar is a bar that is frequented by motorcyclists (bikers). Some are owned or managed by people who are friendly toward motorcyclists. s and head shop
A head shop is a retail outlet specializing in paraphernalia used for consumption of cannabis and tobacco and items related to cannabis culture and related countercultures. They emerged from the hippie counterculture in the late 1960s, and ...
s. The pier itself had dilapidated bars, an odd plaster statue store, and creepy game arcades. The city put off repairing the breakwater
Breakwater may refer to:
* Breakwater (structure), a structure for protecting a beach or harbour
Places
* Breakwater, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria, Australia
* Breakwater Island
Breakwater Island () is a small island in the Palme ...
that protected the pier and the so-called "yacht harbor" immediately north. Studies were made for rehabilitation of the pier and repair of the breakwater, but they were never acted upon. In 1983 major winter storms, part of the El Niño
El Niño (; ; ) is the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and is associated with a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific (approximately between the International Date L ...
weather pattern, struck Santa Monica on January 27 and again on March 1. The storms destroyed more than a third of the pier, along with stores, bars, cars, and a large crane brought in to begin repairs. Rebuilding the pier was a contentious effort, costing $43 million. Ultimately the work was completed and the pier remains the city's best-known landmark. Three interesting buildings owned by the city were abandoned and destroyed, including the ''Sinbad's Restaurant'' that featured a large whale's tail in the facade.
In the 1980s, the city put together the plan for turning the failed ''Santa Monica Mall'' into the ''Santa Monica Promenade''. The project, completed in 1989 has proven to be a huge success and is a major regional shopping and entertainment center. Between 1988 and 1998, taxable sales in the city grew 440%, quadrupling city revenues. Retails rents in the development area also quadrupled. More than $500 million of private money has been invested into the Promenade and the adjacent streets in the Bayside District Corporation business association.
The city opened its ''Public Electronic Network (PEN)'' in 1989, providing citizens with a bulletin board system
A bulletin board system (BBS), also called computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as ...
(BBS) to discuss local issues and access city services. PEN was the first municipally operated BBS in the world. While plagued by the ills common to BBSes, the site empowered residents. Due in part to the placement of publicly available terminals in libraries, homeless
Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are:
* living on the streets, also kn ...
persons and their issues received considerable attention on PEN. The SWASHLOCK (Showers, WASHers, and LOCKers) plan was developed on PEN and implemented in 1993. PEN also served as a center to organize opposition to the 1990 proposal to redevelop ''415 PCH''.
1990s
The 1990s saw continued development in Santa Monica. The Promenade caught on. ''Colorado Place'', ''Water Garden'', and other nearby office developments on the east side of town attracted MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
, Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
, Symantec, and other corporations. The ''Shutters Hotel'' was the first of several new hotels built between the pier and Pico Boulevard. One of them, the ''Loews'', is on the site of the long forgotten Arcadia Hotel. The Casa Del Mar returned to its former glory as a luxury hotel in 1999 after a reported $60 million renovation by the owners of the Shutters Hotel. Even the comparatively dowdy Miramar Hotel found new prominence with the many visits of President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
.
In 1994, an old rail station was transformed by the city into Bergamot Station
Bergamot Station Arts Center is a Santa Monica facility housing many different private art galleries and appears in most tourist guides as a primary cultural destination. Opened September 17, 1994 as Bergamot Station the campus-like complex is ...
, a collection of art galleries that has become a center of art exhibition and retailing.
The 1994 Northridge earthquake
The 1994 Northridge earthquake was a moment 6.7 (), blind thrust earthquake that occurred on January 17, 1994, at 4:30:55 a.m. PST in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles.
The quake had a duration of approximately ...
caused the loss of many residences and historic buildings, particularly on the north side of the city. Other notable damage: St. John's hospital came close to collapsing; Honda of Santa Monica's parking structure pancaked crushing numerous cars. In all, 100 buildings were condemned outright, including 3,100 apartment units, while far more suffered repairable damage.
The ''Evening Outlook'', which had been purchased by the Copley Press
Copley Press was a privately held newspaper business, founded in Illinois, but later based in La Jolla, California. Its flagship paper was ''The San Diego Union-Tribune''.
History
Founder Ira Clifton Copley launched Copley Press c. 1905, eventu ...
newspaper chain in 1983, was closed in 1998 after 123 years of reporting. It reportedly had 20,000 paid subscription at the time of the closure.
MTBE
Methyl ''tertiary''-butyl ether (MTBE), also known as methyl tert-butyl ether and ''tert''-butyl methyl ether, is an organic compound with a structural formula (CH3)3COCH3. MTBE is a volatile, flammable, and colorless liquid that is sparingly sol ...
, a major gasoline additive (10% by volume), was discovered in the city's water well
A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. Th ...
s in August 1995. The MTBE was found almost by accident since it was not on the list of known contaminant
Contamination is the presence of a constituent, impurity, or some other undesirable element that spoils, corrupts, infects, makes unfit, or makes inferior a material, physical body, natural environment, workplace, etc.
Types of contamination
Wi ...
s and acceptable level had not been set. The city waters engineers had to research the hazard and they raised the alarm. Within a year all five wells were closed, leading to the loss of 45% of the city's water supply. One well had a concentration of 600 parts per billion
In science and engineering, the parts-per notation is a set of pseudo-units to describe small values of miscellaneous dimensionless quantities, e.g. mole fraction or mass fraction. Since these fractions are quantity-per-quantity measures, they ...
, while another rose from 14 parts per billion to 490 parts per billion within a year. The California EPA guidelines now call for no more than 35 parts per billion. The city's well field is in the ''Charnock Sub-Basin'', a small aquifer in Mar Vista, Los Angeles
Mar Vista is a neighborhood on the Westside of Los Angeles, California. In 1927, Mar Vista became the 70th community to be annexed to Los Angeles. It was designated as an official city neighborhood in 2006.
History
Mar Vista was called Ocean Par ...
that both Santa Monica and Culver City
Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. Founded in 1917 as a "whites only" sundown town, it is now an ethnically diverse city with what was called the "third-most ...
draw upon. To maintain supply to customers Santa Monica was forced to purchase water from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is a regional wholesaler and the largest supplier of treated water in the United States. The name is usually shortened to "Met," "Metropolitan," or "MWD." It is a cooperative of fourteen cit ...
(MWD) at a cost of over $1.1 million per year. Cleanup of the site is ongoing at a current cost of $3 million per year, paid for by the responsible parties, principally: Shell
Shell may refer to:
Architecture and design
* Shell (structure), a thin structure
** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses
** Thin-shell structure
Science Biology
* Seashell, a hard o ...
, Chevron
Chevron (often relating to V-shaped patterns) may refer to:
Science and technology
* Chevron (aerospace), sawtooth patterns on some jet engines
* Chevron (anatomy), a bone
* '' Eulithis testata'', a moth
* Chevron (geology), a fold in rock ...
and Exxon
ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...
. Following this discovery other water districts began testing that revealed tens of thousands of MTBE pollution cases across the United States.
Santa Monica also was booming in business at the time. The state of California enacted a law, effective January 1, 1999, that overrode Santa Monica's rent control ordinance by mandating vacancy decontrol. Landlords were reported to have raised rents so high that units remained vacant, requiring them to lower their rents to more marketable levels. Rent controls remained on inhabited units, leading to stories of landlords harassing existing tenants in order to make them leave so that higher rents could be charged.
2000s
On July 16, 2003, George Russell Weller
On the afternoon of July 16, 2003, George Weller, then age 86, drove his 1992 Buick LeSabre westbound down Arizona Avenue in Santa Monica, California, toward the city's popular Third Street Promenade. The last few blocks of the street, before it e ...
drove his Buick
Buick () is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM). Started by automotive pioneer David Dunbar Buick in 1899, it was among the first American marques of automobiles, and was the company that established General ...
at speeds of up to 70 miles per hour through the busy downtown Farmers Market, which was held on a city street that was closed to vehicular traffic by temporary signage at each end. The 86-year-old driver killed 10 that day and injured 63, stopping only due to the Buick's engine and transmission being clogged with body parts. The city vigorously fought against accepting its responsibility in causing the death and injuries of market patrons through the lack of any barricade. In the wake of numerous civil lawsuits filed against the City of Santa Monica and the company organizing the Farmer's Market, a new policy was adopted requiring portable concrete
Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wi ...
barricade
Barricade (from the French ''barrique'' - 'barrel') is any object or structure that creates a barrier or obstacle to control, block passage or force the flow of traffic in the desired direction. Adopted as a military term, a barricade denot ...
s to reliably block vehicle access for pedestrian
A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In modern times, the term usually refers to someone walking on a road or pavement, but this was not the case historically.
The meaning of pedestrian is displayed with ...
street events.
Santa Monica passed a law in 2003 restricting the distribution of food to homeless people in the city. Some organizations have deliberately disobeyed these laws.
The increasingly upscale nature of the city – not just the northern part, which was always affluent, but the southern Ocean Park neighborhood as well which has become a favorite of those in the entertainment industry – has created some tensions between newcomers and longtime residents nostalgic for the more bohemian, countercultural past. Nevertheless, with the recent corporate additions of Yahoo!
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...
(2005) and Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
(2006), gentrification continues.
During the 2000s, LA Metro has developed plans to return rail transit to Santa Monica
Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to ...
, which was gone after the dismantling of the Pacific Electric Railway
The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system ...
during the 1960s. It has developed two plans, including the Metro Expo Line and Metro Purple Line both which would extend into Santa Monica. The Purple Line was originally to be extended into Santa Monica, but was stopped due to legislative action. However, Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman
Henry Arnold Waxman (born September 12, 1939) is an American politician who served as a U.S. representative from California from 1975 to 2015. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
His district included much of the western part of the city of ...
, one of those who opposed the Purple Line's extension, has recently reconsidered extending the Purple Line into Santa Monica. The proposal to extend the Purple Line has been described colloquially as the Subway to the Sea. It is estimated that if successful, both lines will be in service by the late 2010s.
2010s
On June 7, 2013, a killing spree occurred in several locations at or near the campus of Santa Monica College
Santa Monica College (SMC) is a Public university, public, community college in Santa Monica, California. Founded as a Junior college#United States, junior college in 1929, SMC enrolls over 30,000 students in more than 90 fields of study. Althoug ...
. The shooter, identified as 23-year-old John Zawahri, fired shots from an AR-15-type semiautomatic rifle, killing six people, including himself. The shootings started at Zawahri's father's house, where he fatally shot his father and brother after a domestic dispute, and afterwards, he set the home on fire. He then commandeered a passing vehicle and fired several shots at other vehicles, including a city bus and a police cruiser, killing two and wounding several others. Upon arriving at Santa Monica College, Zawahri shot and killed a woman outside and then fired 70 shots inside the college library, hitting no one. He was then shot by responding police officers after engaging them in a gunfight, later dying after being taken outside.
See also
* List of City of Santa Monica Designated Historic Landmarks
This is a List of City of Santa Monica Designated Historic Landmarks.
Ordinance
As the 1975 Santa Monica Centennial approached, the City Council created the Historical Site Committee, and adopted the Landmarks and Historic District Ordinance on ...
* Santa Monica City Council
* Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker
Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker (1827–1912) was a wealthy Californio landowner and socialite of Los Angeles. She played an important role in the elite society of Los Angeles and, later, Santa Monica. She was married to two wealthy Anglo-Ameri ...
References
* Luther A. Ingersoll, "Ingersoll's Century History, Santa Monica Bay Cities – Prefaced with a Brief History of the State of California, a Condensed History of Los Angeles County, 1542–1908; Supplemented with an Encyclopedia of Local Biography", , 2008
* Paula A. Scott, “Santa Monica: A History on the Edge”,Arcadia Publishing, , 2004
External links
Imagine Santa Monica – Santa Monica Public Library's Digitized Historical Collections
Tom Morello, Serj Tankian Break Law To Feed Homeless – MTV.com
* ttps://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.01/pen.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set= ''Yakety-Yak, Do Talk Back!'' Wired magazine article on PENbr>"Ocean Park Forward and Backward"
(Tinder Box) Little Shop of Briars
(Tinder Box) A 75-Year Pipe Dream
{{DEFAULTSORT:Santa Monica
History
History of Los Angeles County, California
Histories of cities in California