Q. What is it supposed to be on the show?

A. The pier.

Q. Where is it supposed to be on the show?

A. Newport Beach (an establishing aerial shot of the real Balboa Pier is shown).

Q. When did we see it on the show?

A. Twice during Episode 13 (of season two), "The Father Knows Best". First, when Sandy & Rebecca scatter Max's ashes from the pier, and again when Sandy meets with a prosecutor to discuss Rebecca's possible sentence.

Q. What is it actually in real life?

A. A pier (but not in Newport).

Q. Where can I find it in real life?

A. Usually, the role of the Balboa pier goes to the Redondo Beach Pier, but this time they opted to use another pier, the Belmont Pier in Long Beach, CA.

You'll find it at the south end of 39th Place, in Long Beach, near the point where the Ocean Blvd forms a 'Y' with Livingston Drive (the street which curves northeast into the village of Belmont Shore).

As piers go, the Belmont Pier is a fairly undistinguished one, overshadowed by both the nearby Seal Beach Pier and the more distant Huntington Beach Pier. But I've heard that they are planning to make improvements on the pier, including opening a restaurant, so things may change.



Perhaps the producers chose the Belmont Pier because its unusual shape (see an aerial pic) made it easy to photograph the scattering of the ashes off the edge of the pier. Or maybe they were just already in the neighborhood, filming something at Linsday's house, the Mermaid Inn, Shoreline Village, or "The Valley" beach, all of which are located in Long Beach. (Note the oil island in the ocean just to the right of the pier in the above photo.) Here's a map link.



Below is a photo I shot of the pier in 2006. The camera position is just east of the pier, looking southwest.
(What appear to be mountains in the distance is actually Catalina Island - 26 miles away.)

Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was?

A. The unusual, hanging shape of the street lights on the pier was a dead giveaway, as was the large building at the end of Belmont Pier.