Santa Monica, California

Santa Monica is a coastal city located in western Los Angeles County, California, USA, by the Pacific Ocean, south of Pacific Palisades and Brentwood, west of Westwood, Los Angeles, and north of Venice. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 84,084. Santa Monica is named for Saint Monica of Hippo, the patron saint of wives and abuse victims. In the skateboard and surfing communities Santa Monica's Ocean Park neighborhood and adjacent parts of Venice are sometimes called Dogtown.

Because of its agreeable weather, Santa Monica was a famed resort town in the early 20th century. Now, the city has been subsumed into the welter of towns in the greater Los Angeles area, but is still considered a pleasant place to live. Santa Monica has experienced a tremendous economic boom since the late 1980s through the revitalization of its downtown core, significant job growth, and increased tourism.

Santa Monica is famous for its progressive politics, including local policies that favor renters, consumers, and homeless persons. Residents of the city are among the largest contributors in the nation to Democratic Party candidates. Because of its political leanings the city has been jocularly labeled The People's Republic of Santa Monica and "Soviet Monica". The city was well-known for its strict rent control ordinance, which had been enacted in 1978 and was partially-overriden by state law in 1999. Santa Monica is sometimes called the "Homeless Capital of the West" due to its tight housing market and homeless problem; satirist Harry Shearer calls it "The home of the homeless."

The Santa Monica Looff Hippodrome (AKA carousel) is a National Historic Landmark. It sits on the world-famous Santa Monica Pier first built in 1909. The La Monica Ballroom on the pier was once the largest ballroom in the US, and the source for many New Year's Eve national network broadcasts.

The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium was an important music venue for several decades and hosted the Academy Awards in the 1960s. McCabe's Guitar Shop is still a leading acoustic performance space. The Cheetah was a famous nightclub. Bergamot Station is a city-owned art gallery compound which includes the Santa Monica Museum of Art. The city is also home to the Santa Monica Heritage Museum.

Santa Monica has been the site of many notable births and deaths due to its hospitals, St. Johns Hospital and the Santa Monica Medical Center. The municipal cemetery in Santa Monica is Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery.

The oldest theater in the city is the 1912 Majestic, aka Mayfair Theatre, closed since the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The Aero Theater (now operated by the American Cinematheque) and Criterion Theater were built in the 1930s and still show movies. The Santa Monica Promenade alone supports more than a dozen movie screens.

Palisades Park sits on the crumbling bluffs overlooking the Pacific and is a favorite walking area to view the ocean. It features a camera obscura. For 48 years local churches and the Police Association assembled a twelve-stop, drive-through story of Christmas along the Palisades Park. The sheds were open to the street side, covered in chain link fencing. Inside were dioramas of the Holy Family made from donated store mannequins, many with inappropriately fashionable features or missing limbs thinly disguised by clothing or palm fronds. In 2001 the city decided to temporarily end the practice of allowing private groups to place displays in city parks, but in 2004 the Christmas displays returned.

Santa Monica is known for having a large population of British and Irish expatriates, which accounts for the numerous pubs in the city. Bars are as likely to show English Premiership games as they are American football games.

The Santa Monica Rugby Club is the 2005 Division 1 National Champion of their sport.

Notable people born in Santa Monica

Dwight Evans
Miguel Ferrer
Bonnie Franklin
Anjelica Huston
Lorenzo Lamas
Lorna Luft
Christina Ricci
Bobby Sherman
Shirley Temple
Suzanne Vega
Sara Gilbert
Randy Rhoads