Pacific Ocean Park

The Pacific Ocean Park was a 110,000 square meter park which was on the same Pacific Ocean Park Pier in Santa Monica. The park was competing strongly in the 1960s with Disneyland in Anaheim and was forced to close in 1968 final.

History

First opening

The pier was built in 1905 for the Amusement Park of Abbot Kinney, the founder of Venice, as one of several piers. Opened in 1911, the Ocean Park, a theme park, which had to be closed in 1957 due to poor economic management Tung.

Second opening

The park closed, changed hands and the operation was resumed in 1958 as Pacific Ocean Park. The opening with more than 20,000 visitors took place on 28 July 1958. The next day, the park had 37 262 visitors with higher number of visitors than Disneyland. Admission was 90 cents. As a result of the immense popularity of the Pacific Ocean Park Pier was called since then the only Pacific Ocean Park Pier or POP (which was also considered a synonym for Pay One Price, which is a price for everything. However, this did not correspond to the facts, because for many attractions had to be paid an additional entrance fee for use).

The park closes

In 1965, the city of Santa Monica began her Ocean Park renovation project. Houses were demolished and roads leading to the park is closed. The result was that visitors to the park could no longer easily accessible and visitor numbers from 621,000 in 1965, fell to 398,700 in 1966. In addition to that, although the park was very popular and did attract many visitors for a long time, repeatedly attractions were defective due to wear and tear and salt water influence. The operators missed it increasingly, also for lack of money to put the attractions repaired.

At the end of the 1967 season, the park passed into the possession of the creditor and the City of Santa Monica, as the park owners were with rent and taxes since 1965 in the residue. The Pacific Ocean Park was closed on 6 October 1967. The assets of the park were the end of June 1968 auctioned. The profits of 36 tracks and 16 game booths were required to to repay creditors. The pier was henceforth place for surfers, junkies and pyromaniac, " who populated the pier in a disharmonious symbiosis ".

The End of the Pier

After the park closed, the pier became a local surfing spot of the legendary Zephyr team from Dogtown, a group of young people, the long pier trained their surfing skills several summers, then soon in the " Twenty-four -hour waves " dry defined concrete channels and pools of neighborhoods to change and the most influential representatives of the resurrected sport to be skateboarding Venice and Santa Monica.

After the pier was almost completely destroyed by fire dozens over the years, they tore it down in the winter 1974/1975. Today is nothing more to see from the huge pier. At the beach warning signs in front of piles and debris under the water surface. It is therefore forbidden to swim at this beach area, or to operate other water sport activities. From the air is still a larger gap as well as discoloration of the sea visible.

Attractions of the Pacific Ocean Park

  • Westinghouse enchanted forest / Nautilus submarine exhibition
  • House of Tomorrow - showed visions of the future
  • Sea Circus - dolphins and sea lions showed here artistic maneuvers that could be fed after the presentation also
  • Diving Bells - here visitors could look at the ocean bottom
  • Ocean Skyway - in bubble-shaped gondolas could be at a height of 23m 800m almost go out into the ocean (and back again )
  • Union 76 Ocean Highway - miniature cars could be driven on a simulated road
  • Flight To Mars - an audio-visual presentation that simulated a trip to Mars
  • Flying Carpet - the visitors could experience impressions from 1001 nights here in a simulation of a flying carpet.
  • Mirror Maze - A Classic Mirror Maze
  • Davy Jone 's Locker - another experience home with pirates as the main theme
  • Flying Dutchman - similar to Davy Jone 's Locker
  • Deepest Deep - simulated a submarine, but over water
  • Around the World in 80 Days - here were present images from all over the world, but had to be closed for safety reasons
  • Safari Ride - children could in small jeeps with electronic weapons on animals go hunting in the jungle
  • Mystery Iceland Banana Train Ride - one of the most popular attractions, where visitors drove in a banana through the jungle and marvel simulated volcanoes and earthquakes could
  • Sea Serpent roller coaster - a wooden roller coaster
  • Jacuzzi - the visitor has been pressed in a centrifuge to the wall, while the bottom broke slowly
  • Mr Dolphin
  • Flying Fish - a miniature roller coaster
  • Carousel - a carousel, which was built in the old style

For shopping or eating the Fisherman's Cove and the International Promenade were available, which had a range of different offers.

On January 5, 1959, the park has already achieved 1,190,000 visitors and was planning an expansion of four other attractions worth two million U.S. dollars. However, only the following two were actually built:

  • Space Wheels
  • Fun Forest - a small park with specially manufactured for children attractions
Santa Monica, California Anaheim, California Venice (Los Angeles) Nautilus (disambiguation) House of mirrors
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