‘Save the Pier' Celebrates the Santa Monica Landmark's Enduring Spirit

The visitors may change every day, and the Pacific Park food offerings may look a little different, now and then, and your favorite arcade game, the one you always played at Santa Monica Pier when you were a kid?

That may be long gone, it's true.

But something that has consistently happened at the world-famous pier, each and every day of its century-plus existence, is this: The sun has set on the picturesque attraction, which famously faces the Pacific Ocean and the world to the west.

True, the setting sun may be harder to detect on cloudy days, but there was nothing quite as cloudy as Santa Monica Pier's immediate future back in 1972.

That's when an artificial island was proposed, a 35-acre development that would lead to the demolishment of the historical pier, a fabled destination that could trace its long and twist-filled story back to Sept. 9, 1909.

The pier rather fortuitously shares a birthday with our state — they're both September 9ers — and like California, the salty superstar has pluckily persevered in the face of numerous ups and downs.

One of the pier's biggest hurdles will be remembered in the free-to-see "Save the Pier" play, which will be presented nightly from Oct. 20 through 23, beginning at 7 o'clock, at the west end of the ocean-adjacent attraction. Adding a note of particular poignancy in 2022? It's the 50th anniversary of the campaign to preserve the attraction.

The performance recalls the proposal of the manmade island and how it would have meant the end for the pier.

The stalwart citizens who stood strong on behalf of the pier's future are also remembered, even as their hope-filled outlook may have dimmed at times, growing as heavy as the fog that can sometimes settle over Santa Monica in the late spring.

Those locals are honored during the yearly look-back at the passionate grassroots campaign, called the "Battle of the Bay," for they're the people who fought to preserve the ride-sweet, view-big, carousel-cool landmark for future generations.

The sun continues to set each night on "The People's Pier," whether its rays are dimmed by the marine layer or it brightly dominates a brilliant blue sky.

But the sun didn't set on Santa Monica Pier in 1972, thanks to those visionaries that saw that millions of people, over the decades still to come, would love this briny and beautiful bastion of recreation, adoring the pier for its history, commitment to fun, and enduring community spirit.