The Queen Mary has been docked across the harbor since 1967, and Pine Avenue runs inland as the city's original main street.
What Downtown Long Beach looks like
Downtown Long Beach sits between the Los Angeles River and Ocean Boulevard, with Pine Avenue running north from the water as the city's original main street. The went up on Pine Avenue in 1922 and 1923, and its rooftop still has the bank's own sign. A few blocks east, the on Long Beach Boulevard went up in 1934, part of the Art Deco rebuilding that followed the 1933 earthquake. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
Pine Avenue was lined with department stores and jewelry shops into the 1970s before the strip went largely dead by the late 1980s. A bar called Mum's opened at 144 Pine Avenue in 1988 and was one of the first businesses to bring nightlife back to downtown.
Across the harbor from downtown, the RMS has been moored since the city bought the ship in 1967. It opened to the public in 1971 as a hotel and museum, reached from downtown by the .
The Pine Avenue Pier opened on the waterfront in front of downtown in 1893 and was rebuilt bigger in 1904. The grander Rainbow Pier replaced it in 1931 and lasted until the 1960s, when land reclamation filled in that stretch of shoreline and built the ground that now holds the Long Beach Convention Center, the Aquarium of the Pacific and Shoreline Drive.
South of Ocean Boulevard, an amusement zone called the ran from 1902 until the city tore it down in 1979. A carousel installed there in 1911 drew Buster Keaton, who filmed a scene at it for his 1921 short The High Sign. A 1999 approval led to a new shopping and restaurant complex, also called the , on the same waterfront.
Films shot in Downtown Long Beach
Lethal Weapon opens with a woman's fatal fall from the on Ocean Boulevard, the same circular building where the Mustang Eleanor is stolen in both versions of Gone in 60 Seconds.
Iron Man, 2008
The opening fight between Iron Man and Iron Monger begins on the westbound side of Shoreline Drive, just west of the Queensway underpass. The real California Bank and Trust tower plays the fictional Roxxon Corporation. The CBS series CSI Miami later used downtown's own streets to play Downtown Miami, with Shoreline Drive standing in for South Beach, including a stunt explosion filmed on the beach behind the apartment tower.
Chaplin, 1992
Chaplin sends its title character home to America aboard the at her dry dock, with a Manhattan skyline added afterward. The Poseidon Adventure also filmed aboard the ship, using cameras mounted on gyros to simulate its rocking in the storm scenes, while sets for other parts of the ship were built at the Fox studio lot. In Pearl Harbor, the 's old first class lounge becomes a New York nightclub for a scene between pilots and nurses. A nighttime cruise around the ship stands in for New York Harbor in the scene right after it.
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, 2004
Brick Tamland punts Baxter the dog off the in Anchorman. A freeway chase in Lethal Weapon 4 used the same bridge for an insert shot set in Las Vegas, with Long Beach City Hall visible behind it.
What Downtown Long Beach can double for
Downtown Long Beach can stand in for Downtown Miami and South Beach, in CSI: Miami and Beverly Hills, along a stretch of Pine Avenue in Bowfinger (1999).
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