A Birthday Bash and BIG Stroll

By Lookout Staff

Santa Monicans will hold a birthday bash and take a BIG Stroll into the millennium this weekend as the past meets the future on the city's famous beachfront.

Ninety years after a flotilla of warships, cruisers and torpedo boats helped to kick off the opening of the Santa Monica pier, the city will hold a birthday celebration this weekend for the massive wooden structure, which has gone from sewage disposal system to world renown attraction.

1917 View of the Municipal and Looff piers from Ocean Avenue atop the Palisades

The pier, or actually two piers, has undergone numerous transformations, heralding booming times with ballroom dancing and weathering depressions and near destruction.
Today, it is Santa Monica's most recognizable icon, a beacon that can be seen for miles up and down the coast.

"Pier Days" will be held Saturday and Sunday, with festivities packed with free entertainment for all ages starting at 11 a.m. There will be antique cars, fireworks, musical performances, a daily fishing derby, drawings for prizes, boat rescue demonstrations and more.

Pier merchants will offer discounts, and rides on the historic carousel - featured in the Academy-award winning film "The Sting" -- will be free for children under the age of 12. The festivities will coincide on Saturday with the "BIG Stroll," a walk along the oceanfront that officially launches Santa Monica's millennium celebrations. The event will get underway at 12:30 p.m. at South Beach with a surf band and short ceremony recognizing the pioneering Muscle Beach body builders, who triggered today's fitness craze.

At 1 p.m., a rusty leaf fig will be planted at Bay Street and Oceanfront Walk. It will be the first of 2,000 trees the city plans to leave as a lasting legacy for the new millennium.

At 1:30 giant puppets and a drummer will lead the way up the beach, where Cirque de Soleil will stage a brief performance. Then it's on to Muscle Beach for a demonstration of gymnastics and body building. A short stroll away, chess masters will duel it out on an enormous chess set in the newly renovated Chess Park.

The strollers will then join the pier festivities, which will be in full swing.

At 4:30, the celebrants will walk - or take a shuttle - to the newly landscaped Inspiration Point at the northern end of Palisades Park, where members of a local Indian Tribe will tell stories, dance and offer blessings. After some light refreshments, a time capsule, which represents the geologic and human history of the area, will be placed in the new Millennium Wall.

Then it's finally back to the pier for a dazzling display of fireworks to cap off the evening.

For information on other Santa Monica Millenium Events: www.iam2m.com