Balboa Pavilion

The Balboa Pavilion is the most photographed building in Newport Beach: a white Victorian harbour structure with a cupola and a wraparound deck, perched at the water's edge on the Balboa Peninsula. It serves as the departure point for harbour cruises, whale-watching trips (winter and spring) and the Catalina Flyer ferry across to Avalon.

At night the pavilion is outlined in white lights and reflects in the harbour, an image that has been on Newport Beach postcards for a century. Beside it sits the small Balboa Fun Zone — a 1936 ferris wheel and a few arcade games — and the dock for the tiny Balboa Island ferry, which has been running on the same route since 1919.

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The pavilion was built in 1906 as a railway terminus and Victorian bathhouse for tourists arriving on the Pacific Electric Red Car line from Los Angeles. It claims to be one of California's last surviving examples of Victorian harbour architecture. Big Band swing dances filled the upper-floor ballroom through the 1930s and 1940s — Glenn Miller, Count Basie and Benny Goodman all played here.

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