Vl-IV 3 Hermosa Pier/Manhattan Beach, pg 27

[Robin Landseadel]

From: Thomas Pynchon and the South Bay

by Garrison Frost

	"I was living in Manhattan Beach and dating a woman at UCLA

	who was a friend of his," Hall said. "We would hang out at his

	place occasionally. I honestly didn't know anything about him. I

	knew he was some sort of famous writer, but that was about it."



	According to Hall, Pynchon spent a lot of time at a local hangout

	called the Fractured Cow, and was also known to put away a

	burrito or two at a little Mexican joint on Rosecrans Avenue

	called El Tarasco, which is still a popular place today.

http://www.theaesthetic.com/NewFiles/pynchon.html	




	In 1904 the first pier was built.  It was constructed entirely of

	wood even to the pilings and it extended five hundred feet out

	into the ocean. The pier was constructed by the Hermosa

	Beach Land and Water Company. In 1913 this old pier was

	partly washed away and later torn down and a new one built to

	replace it.

	This pier was built of concrete one thousand feet long, and
	paved with asphalt its entire length. Small tiled pavilions were
	erected at intervals along the sides to afford shade for
	fishermen and picnic parties. A bait stand was built eventually
	out on the end. Soon after, about 1914, an auditorium building
	was constructed; it has housed various enterprises and at
	present the public rest rooms, the Los Angeles Life Guard
	Service, and the local branch of the Los Angeles County Library
	occupy rooms in the building. This pier is municipally owned.	


	Legendary in the romantic history of Hermosa Beach is that of
	"the haunted house on the old Duncan Ranch." In the early
	days of Hermosa's development, Colonel Blanton Duncan,
	Grandfather of the two Duncan Sisters of vaudeville, and one
	time private secretary to the-President Jefferson Davis during
	the Civil War, bought twenty five acres of land from Burbank
	and Baker. This acreage was mostly sand dunes and located
	on the northern limits of the town. On the highest hill on his
	land, he built a large, two-story frame house with gabled roofs,
	broad porches, and oddly arranged interior, with many queer
	nooks and passages. The peculiar arrangement of the house
	interior, while being most desirable in the plans of the eccentric
	old colonel, caused many weird suspicions that were quite
	unexplainable to the minds of his inquisitive neighbors - few
	though they were; and, neither did he offer any explanations to
	quiet the weird tales of the curious. He entertained often and
	lavishly but his guests were mostly people from other localities.
	He employed Chinese servants who padded silently about the
	house at their duties. The rooms were richly decorated and
	contained many curious and rare furnishings of silk and satins,
	and were filled with the aroma of languid incense and perfume
	of the Orient. While entertaining, Colonel Duncan observed all
	of the social traditions of Southern hospitality, but, withal, the
	place DID have an air of mystery about it - secretive and
	mysterious as the peculiar old colonel appeared to be. . .

http://www.hermosabeachhistoricalsociety.org/fernhist.html	

	Redondo Beach is the focus of many who want to be in the sun
	and near the ocean. Although a vibrant community in its own
	right, much of the Redondo Beach lifestyle is a blend of the
	neighborhoods, activities and people of the three Beach Cities
	of Southern California's South Bay. Like its sister cities of
	Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach, Redondo's key lifestyle
	draw is the vast beach that links these three cities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redondo_Beach,_California

http://www.seeing-stars.com/oc/HermosaPier.shtml