A Pair of Merry-Go-Round Icons

Looff Hippodrome

Just a few weeks ago I finally “checked a box” that had been long overdue. And, if you have ever known someone with the last name of Looff or Newcomb, you will understand why doing so was important to me. Those two surnames have provided a literal carousel of fun and memories to the Santa Monica Pier for many generations.

In June, 1916, Charles I.D. Looff, a famed carousel carver turned amusement park entrepreneur, literally brought the fun to the pier when he flung open the doors of the Looff Hippodrome and turned on the Wurlitzer band organ inside the building, thereby announcing to all within earshot that the pier’s first amusement park attraction – the carousel – was open for business. Earlier that year, he had begun construction on what would become the pier’s original amusement park, building a wooden pier immediately adjacent to and connected to the all-concrete Santa Monica Municipal Pier that had been in place since 1909.

The Looff Hippodrome, which we know today as the Merry-Go-Round building, still provides thrills to riders of all ages with its beautiful array of painted ponies circling inside. The building, which is a combination of Moorish, Byzantine, and California-style architecture, is on the National Registry of Historic Places – the highest distinction that a building can have.

Learn about the history of the Merry-Go-Round on the Santa Monica Pier in Jim Harris’ monthly column. Photo by Julie Dobkin Gilberg

A few decades later, long after Looff had passed and his part of the pier had changed ownership a couple of times, a Venice banker named Walter Newcomb took over operations of it in 1943. At that time, Newcomb also operated a few amusements on the old Abbot Kinney-built Venice Pier. As that pier’s days came to an end in 1947, Newcomb moved his prized 1922 Philadelphia Toboggan Company carousel from Venice into our pier’s Looff Hippodrome.

Newcomb’s carousel is the very same carousel that brings smiles to the faces of people of all ages who come to enjoy it today, over 77 years later.

So next time you come down to ride on that wonderful antique carousel, wander over to the south wall. There you will find two framed posters honoring Looff and Newcomb, a pair of the Pier’s most important dignitaries.

By Jim Harris

Jim Harris is the Executive Director of the Santa Monica Pier Corporation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.