Santa Monica Pier
— — a wooden pier with a Ferris wheel on its shoulder.
Not only on a wall.
“The wooden pier at the foot of Colorado Avenue, 1,600 feet out over the Pacific, with Pacific Park strung along its back. The Pacific Wheel is the only solar-powered Ferris wheel in the world; it turns above the carousel, the arcade, the old hot-dog stand. The Municipal Pier opened in 1909, the Pleasure Pier in 1916, and the two have stood as one ever since. Route 66 ends here, at the western edge of the country, marked with a small wooden sign. Late afternoon, the light comes flat off the water and lands on the wheel, the rails, the surfers below.
Santa Monica Pier, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Santa Monica Pier extends about 1,600 feet over the Pacific from the foot of Colorado Avenue, in the city of Santa Monica, Los Angeles County. It is the union of two structures: the Santa Monica Municipal Pier, opened on September 9, 1909, and the adjacent Looff Pleasure Pier, built in 1916. The two have been operated as one since the mid-twentieth century. The pier is the western terminus of historic U.S. Route 66, marked with a small wooden sign near the entrance arch. It sits about 14 miles west of downtown Los Angeles, on Santa Monica Bay.
The pier faces due west, which means it stands directly into the sunset more than three hundred days a year. The Pacific Wheel rises 130 feet above the deck and is the only solar-powered Ferris wheel in the world; it carries 174,000 LED lights that change colour each night. Pacific Park, the amusement park strung along the pier's back, installed the current wheel in 2008 to replace its 1996 predecessor. Late afternoon light comes flat off the water, picks up the white deck, the painted rails, and the surfers in the line-up just south of the pier.
The pier itself is open twenty-four hours a day, free to walk. Pacific Park's rides operate on a separate schedule, generally late morning to ten or eleven at night with longer hours in summer. The carousel inside the Hippodrome, a 1922 Charles I. D. Looff machine, runs weekend afternoons. The aquarium beneath the deck, operated by Heal the Bay, is free to children and a small fee for adults. The pier has appeared in more films than its operators can count.