Boardwalks

For more than a century, millions of Easterners have made summer pilgrimages to the ocean boardwalks of the Jersey shore, an institution romanticized in song and memories of saltwater taffy. When people consider the boardwalks along the state's 127 miles of Atlantic coastline, they generally think of the first in the world, erected in 1870 in Atlantic City to reduce the amount of sand tracked into shops and hotels.

A sea lion stranded on the boardwalk in Newport Beach was safe Thursday after residents helped the animal by pushing it away from bicycle traffic and giving it water, officials said. Resident Fred Levine spotted the adult female sea lion leaning against his home's wall about 10 p.m. Tuesday about 1,500 feet from the ocean on the Balboa Peninsula. He left a Scooby Doo pail of water outside for the thirsty animal. Residents called police for help and the city posted signs that read, "Marine mammals rest on shore.

The Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Commission on Wednesday adopted a renovation plan for the Venice Boardwalk despite complaints from local residents and businesses about a new concrete surface. City parks officials are redesigning the 1.7-mile boardwalk--refurbishing pagodas, adding bathrooms and replacing the cracked asphalt surface with concrete. Some residents call the textured concrete "too upscale" for Venice.

When Eugene, Ore.-based Will Leather Goods opened the doors of its first flagship store on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in late September, 60-year-old founder and Chief Executive Bill Adler found himself barely a belt buckle's toss from the Venice Beach boardwalk where he started his career hawking belts three decades ago. "It was 1981, our first child had been born and there was a Screen Actors Guild strike that was going on for months," recalls Adler,...

Cracking down on a fad, the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday voted unanimously to ban motorized scooters on the Venice Beach bike path and boardwalk. The ban is the first of its kind in Los Angeles. Last year, the state Legislature passed a law permitting the motorized scooters on bike paths and in bike lanes unless specifically prohibited by local ordinance. Council members are studying the possibility of banning the popular scooters in other crowded city areas.

From his chair on the Venice Boardwalk, Walt Davis senses an unhappy change in the air. Maybe it is the numbing din from more and more amplified musicians, said Davis, who has drawn caricatures at the beach for five years. Maybe it is the cutthroat competition for the prime performance spaces. Maybe, he said, it is that some of the best entertainers have moved on to more lucrative spots, such as Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade. "The magic's not really there anymore," said Davis.

Los Angeles city parks commissioners sought Wednesday to defuse a furor over plans to renovate the Venice Beach boardwalk, by discharging a design firm that had been selected to hold public workshops. The Studio of Architecture's $10-million proposal had drawn fire from activists who said it would kill the tourist strip's funky charm and turn the boardwalk into another glitzy, upscale pedestrian mall.

At first glance, it might not appear to be one of Southern California's premier tourist attractions. The asphalt walkway is scarred by cracks. Bathrooms are filthy. Even the wooden benches have been stripped for firewood. Locals in Venice have been arguing for years over how best to renovate the dilapidated oceanfront boardwalk. Now a multimillion-dollar overhaul is about to begin, even as activists continue to haggle about its details.

THE screams of the happily terrified filtered down as the Giant Dipper thundered above us. We were beneath the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, where the Dipper's 75-horsepower engine (the 1924 original) was pumping away. The 83-year-old Dipper is the most popular of the boardwalk's 35 rides. But it's not the oldest. The carousel, with its intricately carved and painted horses, dates from 1911, four years after the birth of the "modern" boardwalk.

The Venice Beach boardwalk has a split personality. On the east side, merchants in stalls and shops pay rent, wages and taxes for the privilege of selling sunglasses, flip-flops, T-shirts and incense. On the west side, pretty much anything goes -- and nobody pays a dime to set up shop or put on a show. Take Shabba, the Robot Man, who one recent afternoon sported feathery white angel wings and flexed his oiled chest and biceps as he posed with grinning tourists.

HBO announced Tuesday that it has renewed "Boardwalk Empire" for a fourth season. Maybe that would have been enough to wake Nucky Thompson up from his slumber in the most recent episode? The Prohibition-era drama, from Terence Winter ("The Sopranos") and Martin Scorsese, is only a few weeks into its third season--its premiere drew 2.9 million viewers in its 9 p.m. airing, on par with its second season. “Terry Winter, Martin Scorsese and the rest of their outstanding team continue to produce a stunning show that never fails to surprise and entertain,” Michael Lombardo, president, HBO Programming, said in a statement.  “We are excited to bring this unique series back for a fourth season.” Steve Buscemi stars in the slow-burning drama as Atlantic City, N.J., politician and gangster Enoch "Nucky" Thompson, which earned him an Emmy nomination this year.  He may not have taken home the trophy, but the series nabbed four Emmy Awards, including directing for a drama series (Tim Van Patten)

Growing up in the isolated working-class enclave of Marine Park, Brooklyn, Terence Winter always dreamed of escaping to Manhattan. "Not to be a snob, but Brooklyn in the '70s wasn't the hippest place," says the 51-year-old creator and executive producer of the Prohibition-era drama "Boardwalk Empire," which returns to HBO for the start of its third season Sunday. So Winter is more surprised than anyone to find himself back in Brooklyn - and loving it. "I can't wrap my head around it," Winter confesses at his office at Steiner Studios, the waterfront production complex where much of "Boardwalk Empire" is filmed.

Click here to download TV listings for the week of Sept. 16 - 22 in PDF format This week's TV Movies SUNDAY The Prohibition-era drama "Boardwalk Empire" returns. Now, a moment of silence for the dearly departed Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt), whacked by his crime-boss mentor Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi, below) in last season's finale. (HBO, 9 p.m.) Up in smoke? Out of joint? Our stash of reefer references and pot puns is all dried up, so it's just as well that the cannabis-themed comedy-drama "Weeds" is ending its eight-season run. So long, Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker)

SANTA RITA DO SAPUCAI, Brazil - Muscular young men in red jumpsuits hunch over a set of matching stationary bicycles, sweating and panting. A few more wait to take over when the first group is too tired to go on. They keep the wheels turning nonstop, eight hours a day, seven days a week. They aren't a cycling team training for the 2016 Summer Olympics, which will take place in nearby Rio de Janeiro. They are a group of convicts riding for their freedom. The bikes are hooked up to portable batteries, which light up the humble boardwalk along this small country town's river each night.

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk plans to replace a 20-year-old steel coaster with the $5.5 million Undertow spinning coaster in summer 2013. > Photos: Undertow spinning coaster at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Undertow is being billed as Northern California's only spinning coaster after Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo removed Pandemonium, a short-lived 2008 Gerstlauer spinning coaster formerly known as Tony Hawk's Big Spin. The 50-foot-tall Undertow will reach speeds of 40 mph along a 1,400-foot-long track.

Venice beachgoers eager to speed over the boardwalk on a proposed zip line will have to wait. Originally slated to open July 1, the zip line has been delayed, thanks in part to an appeal filed earlier this month by Venice resident Gail Rogers, said Kevin Regan, assistant manager of the Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation. Greenheart Conservation Co. had planned to install a 720-foot zip-line ride along the boardwalk in time to capitalize on the busy summer foot traffic, hoping to draw up to 400 riders a day at $20 per thrill.

If you ask Ollie Tyra, 85, what sets her apart in this sleepy town on the Central Coast, she will tell you with tears that she is Andy's widow, with pride that she's her church's premier "prayer warrior." Then, with a laugh, she will tell you the real reason the big shots down at the boardwalk invite her to lunch on a regular basis: Ollie Verne Olds Tyra is the last known living human to have ridden the famous Giant Dipper roller coaster the day it was unveiled in 1924.

VENICE BOARDWALK: If one straw poll is any indication, Venice residents and enthusiasts would rather stroll along a brick boardwalk than either an asphalt or concrete one. About 100 activists turned out Saturday for a final meeting about the $10-million boardwalk and pier restoration project. When asked to vote on their preference for the boardwalk repaving, 50 people said they preferred brick, 40 voted for asphalt and eight voted for concrete.

The Venice Biennale is arguably the most prestigious and glamorous international exhibition in the world, taking place in Italy every two years. The wryly titled Venice Beach Biennial, which is taking place on boardwalk this weekend and probably won't take place again, has humbler and funkier aspirations. Running Friday through Sunday, it's a free-to-the-public, open-air art exhibition that brings together 87 artists. They include artists who usually show on the boardwalk working alongside, and sometimes in collaboration with, well-known artists (Barbara Kruger, Evan Holloway, Katie Grinnan and Nick Herman, to name a few)

Michael Pitt arrives from a film set in Seattle dressed all in black, from his hat to his unlaced black army boots, and asks to sit outside so he can smoke and be in the California sunshine - an antidote to the nonstop rain he's been working in. The actor is in the midst of a new passion project - a movie called "You Can't Win," based on a 1926 memoir by Jack Black, a freight-hopping hobo, thief and adventurer whose canny assessment of...