[4] It also has an original carousel hippodrome from the 1920s, the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium operated by Heal the Bay, shops, entertainers, a video arcade, a trapeze school, pubs, and restaurants.

[8] Attractions on the Pleasure Pier eventually included the Santa Monica Looff Hippodrome building (which now houses the current carousel and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places), the Blue Streak Racer wooden roller coaster (which was purchased from the defunct Wonderland amusement park in San Diego), the Whip, merry-go-rounds, Wurlitzer organs, and a funhouse.

Designed by T. S. Eslick with a Spanish façade and French Renaissance interior, it was the largest dance hall on the west coast, accommodating 5,000 dancers on its 15,000-square-foot (1,400 m2) hard maple floor.

Country music star Spade Cooley began broadcasting his weekly television show from the ballroom in 1948, where the program remained until 1954.

[citation needed] The La Monica Ballroom was demolished in 1963 as a result of the Newcomb family waiting too long to start repairs.

[11] The bridge and entry gate to Santa Monica Pier were built in 1938 by the federal Works Project Administration, and replaced the former grade connection.

[11] On June 18, 2009, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment issued a safe eating advisory for any fish caught from Santa Monica Pier to Ventura Harbor due to elevated levels of mercury and PCBs.

[17] On October 9, 2023, part of the pier was forced to evacuate after a man who claiming to have a bomb climbed onto the Ferris wheel at Pacific Park.

SMPRC is headquartered Hippodromes second floor, with former apartments being converted into offices, and conducted the daily operations of the Santa Monica Pier, such as managing events, filming, promotions, tenants, and street performers.

[citation needed] In the popular book series The Dark Artifices by Cassandra Clare, the fictional Los Angeles Institute overlooks the Santa Monica Pier.

[20][21] It also appears prominently in Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), Quicksand (1950), Elmer Gantry (1960), 1941 (1979 film), The Opposite of Sex (1998), They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

(1969), Night Tide (1961), Bean (1997), The Sting (1973), Farewell, My Lovely (1975) with Robert Mitchum, Her (2013), A Night at the Roxbury (1998), Mighty Joe Young (1998), Miracle Beach, Forrest Gump (there is a Bubba Gump Shrimp Company Restaurant on the pier), Not Another Teen Movie, Iron Man, Desperate Teenage Lovedolls, Dark Ride, Cellular, The Hottie and the Nottie, Falling Down, Ruthless People (the pier is the site of the movie's climactic final scene), Love Stinks, Hancock, The Happytime Murders, Sharknado, the indie romantic comedy She Wants Me, and Hannah Montana: The Movie (the scene with Lilly's birthday party).