This past week, Q-line asked:
The Santa Monica Pier Restoration Corp. is considering creating a museum at the west-end of the historic structure to tell the story of the pier’s illustrious past. It would replace a viewing deck that currently is open to the public and offers the best views of the bay, which at least one Coastal Commission member (Richard Bloom) says may be problematic. Should pier officials build the museum or leave the viewing deck as is?
Here are your responses:
“What next from the nutcases on the City Council? Of course leave the public viewing deck at the end of the pier. If they must have another museum, put it in the library next to the city museum or anywhere else. Then the bums and free-loading homeless will have another spot to flop.”
“Councilman Bloom is wrong in his assessment that the museum at the west-end of the pier would be problematic. There aren’t any problems with a small museum at the end of the pier, which will clearly define the pier’s history to the city of Santa Monica. I am for the museum at the west-end of the pier.”
“Everything that would be shown in the pier museum could be shown at the Main Library in the Santa Monica history museum. Also, if a new museum is considered, we should wait until we have all the money for the building, for the exhibits, and an untouchable endowment fund that will be used only for the running of it.”
“Yeah, well how big will this museum be? Maybe it will be so heavy that when the next storm hits, the whole thing will collapse into the ocean.”
“The merry-go-round is the only historic structure left on the pier and so that’s where the museum should be. The upstairs is wasted on offices for privileged Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights cronies and pals running the pier when it should open for public use and one of the many public uses upstairs might be a museum.”
“Having lived in the bay area between Palos Verdes and Malibu for many years and the lack of museums in Los Angeles county, I have always felt that the one thing Santa Monica has always needed is an museum on the pier. The construction will again give us the crescendo of the rhythmic staccato of the steelhead of a hammer crashing down on the flat head of a nail. A sound that has become dear to my ears here in Santa Monica. Biblically, we are told that the love of money is the root of all evil. Then some entity mentioned greed. I personally believe that the need and necessity of money to function is the root. It appears that the need for pier operation cash is the footings for the construction of this new pier edifice, thus enabling the city to dig a little deeper into the pockets of the pier’s congesting tourism trade. My choice is save the observation deck.”
“The idea of tearing down the viewing deck for a museum is ludicrous. Why live in the past? The past stories of the Santa Monica Pier are not all that illustrious. What pictures or stories would it have? Would it be pictures of the shootings near the pier on the Fourth of July? Or perhaps the pier when it broke off in the early ‘80s during the El Nino winter. Or, or yes, the hostage taking of one of the victims during Fourth of July weekend. Or, oh yes, Bruce Hensel of Channel 4 news diving off the pier to save a suicidal woman. Please, please leave well enough alone. Let the viewing deck live.”
“No, no, no for a museum. That’s just more space taken away from us. Let’s enjoy the museum now. Let’s enjoy the ocean now. People who are into the past can have a nice little pamphlet if they want to read about the past. But let’s live for now.”
“I am a long-time resident of Santa Monica and I live near the pier and I definitely do not want a museum on the viewing deck. I think people should go to the beach to see the water.”
“No, they should not build a museum at the end of the pier. It’s the only place on the pier where you can sit quietly and enjoy the ocean and I have a family member whose ashes were scattered out in the ocean and we go down there and sit quietly on the pier and think about him. They should put the museum where there’s already traffic. Leave one peaceful section on the pier.”
“Please leave that little spot alone so we can enjoy ourselves semi-quietly.”
“By all means, can’t they find another place for that museum as opposed as to the very end of the pier? That would be my proposal. Sounds like a terrible idea.”
“My response is no to the museum on the pier. We need the open space and we need more of it to live. Once again, save the pier.”
