Aquarium of the Pacific
Waterfront aquarium of over one hundred exhibits and roughly twelve thousand animals, from sea otters to giant Pacific octopuses.
This guide to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach starts with a restaurant napkin, where Mayor Beverly O'Neill and City Manager Jim Hankla sketched a list of names after Disney abandoned plans for a marine park called DisneySea on this same waterfront. It follows the scramble to build a major aquarium without one wealthy donor behind it, from hiring zoo executive Warren Iliff to the board's unusual decision to raise money by selling municipal bonds to ordinary investors. Listen for how a discarded Disney blueprint became the starting point for what stands here now.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.