If you’ve been on Instagram for five minutes this fall, you’ve seen it: waves body-slamming beach houses, the boardwalk snapped like a pretzel, and approximately 400 drone videos with dramatic music. The Long Beach Peninsula has officially gone viral, and not for the reasons any of us wanted.
But here’s the thing. Those clips show the Peninsula on its worst day. They don’t show the dog walks, the paddleboards, the sandy-floored beach houses, or the century of Long Beach history packed onto this skinny little strip of sand.
So consider this your local’s guide to the Long Beach Peninsula: what it is, why we love it, how to spend a day there, and the real deal on the Long Beach storm damage everyone keeps asking about.
Where Is the Long Beach Peninsula, Anyway?
Take Ocean Boulevard east and just keep driving until you feel like you’re about to fall into the water. Once you pass 54th Place, welcome. You’re on the Peninsula.
It’s a long, narrow neighborhood that runs all the way to the Alamitos Bay entrance and the jetty at 72nd Place, basically waving hello to Seal Beach. And what makes it different from literally every other Long Beach neighborhood is the water. On both sides.
- Ocean side: Peninsula Beach, facing the harbor and the breakwater
- Bay side: Peninsula Bayside Beach, on calm, glassy Alamitos Bay
And here’s the fun part: anywhere on the Peninsula, the other side is only about two blocks away. Watch sailboats and cargo ships drift across the harbor on the ocean side, walk two minutes, and suddenly you’re watching paddleboarders and kayakers float across the bay like they don’t have a care in the world. It’s two Long Beach beaches for the price of spending a chunk of time searching for one parking spot (which, trust me, you won’t want to give up).
The Peninsula Was Cool Before It Was Cool
Long before anyone was posting beach day dumps, the Long Beach Peninsula was already the place to escape. According to the City of Long Beach, some of the first summer beach homes went up here between 1902 and 1904, built for folks from Los Angeles and Pasadena who wanted a little salt air in their lives.
And no, they did not sit in traffic on the 405.
They rode the Pacific Electric Red Cars down Ocean Boulevard and across a trestle from the Peninsula toward Seal Beach. Public transit to the beach? In Southern California? Iconic. We should bring that back.
The Peninsula even has some celebrity gossip in its past. Author and activist Upton Sinclair reportedly used a Peninsula summer home as a writing retreat in the late 1920s, and Albert Einstein is said to have stopped by to visit. Just Einstein, hanging out at the beach in Long Beach. Totally normal Tuesday.
Okay, Full Disclosure: This Is My Beach
I’m not even going to pretend to be neutral here. The Long Beach Peninsula has always been our family beach.
When my sister and I were little, my dad’s idea of a beach day was: grab your boogie boards, walk out onto a stranger’s dock in Naples, jump in, and swim across to the Peninsula. That was the whole plan. No permission, no lifeguard, no backup. Just vibes. (It was a different time, people.)
My dad raced Lido 14s in Alamitos Bay, and I grew up on his sailing stories. Eventually I learned to sail myself at ABYC, the Alamitos Bay Yacht Club, which is where the real sailors are. Don’t @ me. We went to every single Christmas and Easter event there, so yes, a huge chunk of my childhood happened on this water.
Some of my favorite memories are sleepovers at my aunt and uncle’s beach house on the Peninsula. Their floor was always sandy, no matter what, and my aunt had every Nancy Drew book ever printed.
I also remember storms. More than one. So this isn’t the first time I’ve watched the ocean try to take a bite out of the Peninsula. It’s just the worst I’ve ever seen.
Later, I raised my daughter on that same bayside beach. I still go. I have friends who live there. And after all these years, it is still, hands down, my favorite beach in Long Beach.
So yeah. Watching those Long Beach storm damage videos hit a little different.
Things to Do on the Long Beach Peninsula
Let’s be clear: this is not a see-and-be-seen beach. No pier scene, no bar crawl, no fighting a stranger for towel real estate. If you want a party, go somewhere else. If you want to actually relax? Hi. You’re in the right place.
Stroll the Seaside Walk Boardwalk
The wooden boardwalk on the ocean side dates back to the 1920s, and the City calls it a historical treasure to residents. Locals use it for exactly what you’d hope: walking the dog, cruising on bikes, staring at the ocean, and pretending they don’t have 47 unread emails.
Loop Around on Bayside Walk
Over on the Alamitos Bay side, Bayside Walk hugs the water. Connect it with Seaside Walk and you get a waterfront loop around part of the Peninsula. Ocean views on the way out, bay views on the way back. You’re welcome.
Pick Your Long Beach Beach
- Peninsula Beach (ocean side): Wide sand, big harbor views with sailboats, cargo ships and the oil islands, and some of the best sunset-watching in Long Beach. (No surf here, thanks to the breakwater. Save the surfboard for Huntington Beach.)
- Peninsula Bayside Beach (bay side): Even calmer, glassy water made for paddleboards, kayaks, little kids, and waving at Duffy boats.
Go to the End of the Line
At the very tip of the Peninsula, near the jetty at 72nd Place, boats glide in and out of the Alamitos Bay entrance. Keep your eyes on the water, because dolphins and sea lions love a surprise cameo.
Where to Eat On (and Near) the Peninsula
The Peninsula is mostly homes and sand, but you won’t starve.
Second Street in Belmont Shore: Just a few minutes away, with plenty of spots for coffee, brunch or a post-beach bite.
Andrade’s Cafe by the Bay (76½ 62nd Place): The Peninsula’s one little cafe, serving coffee and Mexican dishes from morning into the evening. Fair warning: this space has changed hands more times than I can count, so check that it’s open before you go. There’s also a liquor store on the same street for your beach-day snacks and drinks.
Grill ‘Em All (5411 E Ocean Blvd): My pick, hands down. Right at the start of the Peninsula on Bay Shore Beach, near 54th Place. Heavy metal burgers, loaded fries and cold beer, steps from the sand. The original food truck won Food Network’s first Great Food Truck Race, and it shows.
So… What Actually Happened? The Long Beach Storm Damage, Explained
Let’s address the elephant on the beach. Long Beach is not exactly known for monster waves. Our breakwater has seen to that for decades. So why does the Peninsula keep ending up in everyone’s feed?
One word: sand.
The ocean naturally drags sand along this stretch of coastline, which is why the city regularly moves sand back onto Peninsula Beach. That beach is the neighborhood’s bodyguard. When it’s nice and wide, waves run out of steam before they reach anyone’s patio. When it shrinks? There’s not a lot standing between the Pacific and someone’s living room.
Then this fall showed up and said, hold my beer. The Peninsula got hit twice in just a few weeks:
- Hurricane Marie caused serious erosion and damage in September. The city declared a local emergency on September 22 as crews braced for more storms and an El Niño winter.
- Tropical Storm Rachel came next, pushing powerful surf across parts of the Peninsula, damaging oceanfront homes, and ripping out big sections of the Seaside Walk boardwalk and the protective bulkhead.
At the worst of it, 13 homes were red-tagged as unsafe and another building got a yellow tag. Waves even scooped sand out from under some structures. It’s a humbling reminder of just how exposed this skinny strip of land really is when its beach goes missing.
I Walked the Whole Long Beach Peninsula. Here’s What It Actually Looks Like.
Videos are one thing. So I laced up and walked the entire length of the Peninsula to see it for myself.
First, the good news: the Seaside Walk boardwalk is still mostly intact. The big exception is the stretch between about 62nd Place and 67th Place, which is fenced off. If you pull up an aerial view of the Peninsula, you’ll see why. That’s where the beach was the skinniest, so it’s where the houses and apartment buildings took the hardest hits.
I talked with Mike, who oversees the city’s work strengthening that section of the boardwalk, and he confirmed what we’ve been hearing: the city is dredging the Alamitos Bay channel and using that sand to build the beach back.
The Ocean Side: Bracing for Round Three
Ocean side is in full prep mode. Giant CAT bulldozers are piling up tall walls of sand. (Honestly, they do this every year, but this year it hits different.) Homeowners have stacked sandbags at the foot of their houses, and a lot of the damaged homes are boarded up.
A couple of guys on bikes stopped to chat and told me the word on the boardwalk is that another storm is expected in November. So yeah, everyone’s getting ready.
But here’s what the videos don’t show you: it’s still the Peninsula. You can walk down there. You can stroll with your dog. When I got there, someone was out running on the ocean-side beach like it was any other beach day.
Wait… What Are Those Things Sticking Out of the Sand?
Okay, this is the part that got me. With so much sand gone, you can now see what look like the remains of old piers or structures running out toward the ocean. I have been going to this beach my entire life, and I have NEVER seen these before.
So I went digging (figuratively). Here’s what makes sense:
- The Peninsula used to have wharves. A huge 1939 tropical storm known as the Lash of St. Francis slammed the Peninsula, washing 10 homes off their foundations and out to sea. Historical photos from the Long Beach Public Library show Peninsula homes and wharves wrecked by that storm. Old photos of the Peninsula also show piers reaching from the beach into the ocean.
- Then the whole beach got buried. In the 1940s, the Peninsula got about 3 million cubic yards of sand from dredging in Alamitos Bay, according to the city. That’s the last time the beach got a makeover that big, and it covered up a lot of history.
- Stuff that’s been buried for decades is showing up now. The city says the storms exposed parts of the bulkhead that had been buried for years (the bulkhead is about 22 feet tall, and for 70-plus years only the top of it was visible). A coastal engineering inspection in September also found rocks that had been hidden under the sand.
So what you’re likely seeing are pieces of the Peninsula’s past that have been tucked under the sand for generations. I haven’t been able to confirm exactly what each one was, so if you’re a longtime Peninsula resident (or your grandparents were) and you know, please tell me in the comments. I need to know.
The Bay Side: Business as Usual
Cross over to the bay side and it’s a totally different world. Crews are piling sand walls there too, just not nearly as high. Otherwise? Life as usual. People strolling, walking their dogs, paddleboarding, and cruising by on Duffy boats like nothing ever happened.
Which, honestly, is the most Long Beach thing ever.
What’s Next for the Long Beach Peninsula? (Hint: Sand. So Much Sand.)
Good news first: the city has shifted out of panic mode and into recovery mode.
Crews have been making emergency repairs to the boardwalk and bulkhead and shoring up the most vulnerable spots. Permanent repairs are expected to cost millions. Yes, with an M.
But the biggest fix is almost hilariously simple: give the beach its sand back.
Enter the Alamitos Bay Entrance Channel Dredging Project, which is basically a two-for-one deal:
- It clears built-up sediment from the Alamitos Bay entrance so boats can get in and out without drama.
- Instead of hauling that sand off somewhere, it puts the clean stuff right back on Peninsula Beach.
The goal is a wider, sturdier beach between roughly 62nd Place and the jetty at 72nd Place. That means more room for your towel and a bigger buffer between the ocean and the neighborhood. After the storms, the city fast-tracked the roughly $11.4 million project.
So rebuilding the Long Beach Peninsula isn’t just about swapping out broken boards. It’s about rebuilding the beach itself.
Visiting the Long Beach Peninsula Right Now: Don’t Be That Person
You can absolutely still enjoy the Peninsula. Just be a decent human about it.
- Respect the closures. Parts of the neighborhood are an active recovery zone. If there’s a fence, barrier, or work zone, it is not a suggestion.
- Stay off the damaged boardwalk and bulkhead. No photo is worth falling through a busted boardwalk. I promise.
- Remember people live here. Some residents are dealing with serious damage to their homes right now. Keep it chill and skip the disaster selfies in front of someone’s red-tagged house. Seriously.
- Head to the bay side. Bayside Beach and Bayside Walk are calm, easy, and a great way to enjoy the neighborhood while the ocean side gets its glow-up.
- Parking is tight. It’s a residential neighborhood, so read the signs before you ditch your car. Nobody wants a ticket ruining a perfectly good beach day.
The Long Beach Peninsula Is So Much More Than the Storm Videos
It’s easy to scroll past those clips and think it’s just fancy beach houses getting pummeled by waves. But that’s not the Peninsula I know.
This is public beach. It’s a nearly 100-year-old boardwalk. It’s morning dog walks, paddleboards slipping into Alamitos Bay, bikes rolling down Seaside Walk, and lazy afternoons watching boats cruise through the channel. It’s kids swimming over from Naples and Nancy Drew books on a sandy floor. It’s more than a century of Long Beach history, and it belongs to all of us.
What happens next will shape this little stretch of Long Beach coastline for decades. And hopefully, very soon, the biggest decision you’ll have to make on the Peninsula will be the easy one:
Ocean side or bay side? (Bay side. The answer is bay side.)
Long Beach Peninsula FAQs
Where is the Long Beach Peninsula?
At the far east end of Long Beach, past Belmont Shore. Take Ocean Boulevard east past 54th Place and you’re there. The Peninsula runs to the jetty at 72nd Place, right next to Seal Beach, with the ocean on one side and Alamitos Bay on the other.
Can you still visit the Long Beach Peninsula after the storms?
Yes. Most of the Seaside Walk boardwalk is open, and you can still walk, run and stroll with your dog. The stretch between about 62nd Place and 67th Place is fenced off while crews make repairs, so respect the closures. The bay side is mostly business as usual.
What caused the Long Beach storm damage on the Peninsula?
Two storms in just a few weeks. Hurricane Marie hit in September and stripped away much of the beach, then Tropical Storm Rachel sent powerful waves into oceanfront homes and tore out sections of the boardwalk and bulkhead. With the protective sand gone, the waves had nothing to slow them down.
Doesn’t the breakwater protect Long Beach?
Mostly, yes. That’s why Long Beach has no surf. But there’s an opening at the east end of the breakwater, near the Alamitos Bay jetty. When big southerly swells line up with that gap, they hit the Peninsula head-on. The homes between roughly 62nd and 69th Places are the most exposed.
Is there surf on the Long Beach Peninsula?
Nope. Thanks to the breakwater, the ocean side is calm harbor water most of the year. If you want waves, head to Seal Beach.
What is the city doing to fix the Peninsula?
Crews are repairing the boardwalk and bulkhead, piling up sand berms, and moving forward with the roughly $11.4 million Alamitos Bay Entrance Channel Dredging Project. It will move about 415,000 cubic yards of sand from the bay entrance onto Peninsula Beach to widen it and rebuild the buffer between the ocean and the homes. The city’s goal is to finish by the end of November.
How old is the Peninsula boardwalk?
Seaside Walk was built in the 1920s and runs about 3,600 feet along the ocean side. It’s said to be the last wooden boardwalk in Los Angeles County.
Which side of the Peninsula is better for kids?
The bay side. Peninsula Bayside Beach on Alamitos Bay has calm, glassy water that’s perfect for little kids, paddleboards and kayaks.
Where do you park at the Long Beach Peninsula?
There are two city parking lots, one at Bayshore Park and one at Alamitos Park, at either end of the Peninsula. Street parking is limited because it’s a residential neighborhood, so read the signs.
Where can you eat on the Long Beach Peninsula?
Andrade’s Cafe by the Bay on 62nd Place is the Peninsula’s only cafe (call ahead, since that spot changes hands a lot). For a sure thing, Grill ‘Em All on Bay Shore Beach at the start of the Peninsula serves heavy metal burgers steps from the sand. Second Street in Belmont Shore is a few minutes away.
