Santa Monica Pier

This guide to Santa Monica Pier follows Charles Looff, a woodcarver's son who spent his final years building carousels along the coast while dying of cancer, and the ornate Hippodrome he and his son Arthur raised here in 1916. It traces the horses that replaced his originals, a 1922 carousel with its own antique organ, and the afternoon Paul Newman filmed a con inside these same walls for The Sting. Listen for the organ's hum as you look out past the railing toward the Pacific.