The beautiful Ocean Center Building – a wonderfully asymmetrical Mediterranean Revival design – was conceived by the Los Angeles firm Meyer & Holler, the architects famous for their Hollywood buildings, Grauman’s Chinese Theater and the Egyptian Theater.

Built in 1929, it was originally home to accountants, tax attorneys, bankers, real estate salesmen, and some city government workers who moved within its walls while Long Beach City Hall was being repaired after the Long Beach earthquake of 1933.

In its early splendor, the Ocean Center Building was the gateway to the adventures and pleasures of the Pike. Visitors by the thousands passed through the arches on the 14-story building’s south side and headed west into the land of thrill rides, penny arcades, hot dogs, and tattoo parlors.

Cocktails poured abundantly from the buildings’ bars, including the venerable ‘Hollywood on the Pike.’  There were carousels and coasters, burlesque theaters, skating rinks and dance halls, the Bath House, and the Plunge.

Today, it has reopened as Long Beach’s preeminent residential apartments on Ocean and Pine.