Newport Pier

People who complain about water quality today don't know how good they have it compared to the early days of Newport. A comparison of our two piers is illustrative. The Balboa Pier was a tourist pier. Thus, the Balboa Pier had railings so that tourists could lean against them while admiring the beautiful blue Pacific Ocean. The Newport Pier had no railings. When ships tied up to load and unload, railings would have been a nuisance. Even when ships no longer tied up to it and trains no longer came out on the tracks, the Newport Pier had no railings.

Andrew Glazer & Jasmine Lee NEWPORT BEACH -- The body of a Santa Ana teen who was caught and pulled out to sea by a powerful rip current washed ashore near the Newport Pier on Thursday after rescue workers searched the surrounding waters for nearly two hours. Armando Roman Briseno, a 17-year-old Santa Ana Valley High School student and member of the school's varsity baseball team, was pronounced dead on the scene. He had been swimming along the surf line with two friends, both of whom made it to shore safely.

The Orange County Health Care Agency posted a handful of warning signs 150 feet from the Newport Pier in both directions on Sunday. The agency announced the posting at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, after detecting heightened levels of bacteria in the water near the pier. Local officials and environmentalists have suspected for some time that a plume of treated sewage released into the ocean by the Orange County Sanitation District is depositing the bacteria in the water near the pier.

It’s been a month an a half since beachgoers at Newport Pier have seen Ski Meinschein’s red electric scooter making its way down the boardwalk, with his two scarlet macaws perched on the front. Laid up in Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian for the past month and a half, Meinschein, known as the Bird Man of Newport Beach, misses his birds and making children at the pier laugh with their tricks. A retired oil field worker from Indiana, Meinschein and his birds have been a beloved fixture at the pier for the last 30 years.

Friends and family of the late surfer Gregory Gladstone gathered in his memory during stormy weather at Newport Pier on Saturday. Gladstone died after lifeguards found him unresponsive and floating in big waves off 14th Street on Jan. 23. Fellow surfers called for help after finding his surfboard floating in the water. Authorities are awaiting a toxicology report before making a final determination on what caused Gladstone’s death. A Newport Beach resident since the early 1990s, Gladstone founded the company Gladstone Construction.

In Newport-Mesa, with the daily grind of everyday life, long commutes, heavy workloads, and the stresses of raising a family, it can seem that the rat race is inescapable — that it's impossible to take some time off for a vacation. Many find a quick and easy getaway by picking up a fishing pole, taking a stroll to the end of Balboa Pier or Newport Pier, and enjoying a beautiful sunset while casting into the ocean below. Fishing off the piers of Newport Beach means different things for different people.

Heather Thomson scrambled up the sand on the south side of the Newport Pier after a 1,000-meter swim through the chilly waters Sunday. Grabbing a flat wooden stick with her finishing number penned on it, the 16-year-old shuffled off the beach with scores of local teens who came out to audition for a spot on the 2007 Newport Beach summer lifeguards. Heather, a Newport Harbor High School Junior who holds a spot on the school's varsity swim team, did not take the competition lightly.

Friends of a local homeless man - whose story of battling alcoholism helped others deal with addiction - will be performing a paddleout ceremony off the Newport Pier on Saturday in his memory. Mark David Allen, 50, died last week in Newport Beach after decades of struggle and living on the city's streets. Allen was arrested more than 500 times in Orange County alone, and over the years allowed a Newport Beach custody officer to videotape his story in and out of jail. The officer, David J. Sperling, turned the footage into a documentary, "Drunk in Public," which has been used by rehab homes across the country.

While the waves and the surfers were both small Tuesday afternoon, a surf contest at the Newport Pier was a pretty big deal for students from Newport Elementary School's after school surfing class. For most, it was their first taste of surfing competition. They battled in 15-minute heats amid 1- to 2-foot high waves and light winds. The final had six fierce competitors, with Kealoha Gunal taking the win. Students from the Newport Harbor High School surf team volunteered to judge the contest.

About 1 p.m. Oct. 27, I took my 9-year-old daughter to Blackies by Newport Pier. I had surfed that morning and it was fun, so I wanted her to get a chance to surf before the tide drained out too far. The waves were small, and I had already been out, so I stood on the beach by the water to watch her as I often do. Well, not five minutes into her session, the board pearled on a wave and shot about 10 feet in the air. She was in shallow water and...

Robert “Russell” Brown (12/27/47- 8/20/11) It is with the deepest sense of loss that we announce Russell's passing. Born in Bryn Mawr, Pa. to Muriel & Russell Brown, the family moved to Los Angeles when Russell was 3. They would travel south to Newport to vacation, finally moving to the area in 1964. Early on Russell expressed his entrepreneurial skills. He was off collecting tees at the golf course to resell, mowing lawns, and at 15 he made his first surfboard. In 1967, Russell Surfboards was opened and remained a local mainstay.

NEWPORT BEACH — There was some downright bawdy history being bantered about last week inside the Harborside Restaurant and Grand Ballroom in the Balboa Pavillion. And it was brought to you by some of the people who know Balboa the best: men and women in their 60s and 70s, World War II and Korean War veterans who lived in Newport Beach long before reality TV and "The OC" became popular. Held to honor the late Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert Gardner, some of them took the stage during an open microphone session, fondly remembering the man who presided over his courtroom with an iron fist while still finding time to mete out justice in between body surfing.

NEWPORT BEACH — The body of a 22-year-old was found Wednesday after he went missing for nearly an hour in the waters off of Newport Beach. The Alpine resident's body was pulled from the water south of Newport Pier after a massive search. Authorities said he'd been struggling to swim after a wave threw him off his bodyboard about 1:09 p.m. and he appeared to have drowned. "He wasn't doing well," said Paul Matheis, division chief for the Newport Beach Fire Department.

The Newport Beach lifeguards will hold the 25th annual Summer Blood Drive on Wednesday at the base of Newport Pier. Although the lifeguards have already held one blood drive this summer, due to a severe shortage reported by the American Red Cross, they will be at it again. Every year, the lifeguards provide as much as 200 units of blood, which can save up to 500 people in need of transfusions. From 1 to 7 p.m., locals can head to the Newport Beach lifeguard headquarters at the beginning of the pier off 21st street on the Balboa Peninsula.

NEWPORT BEACH — The big waves are back. Surf was up Tuesday on the Balboa Peninsula and in West Newport, where 6- to 7-foot waves have surfers out in full force, said Jim Turner, the lifeguard battalion chief. It's the best surf since the Fourth of July weekend. "We've got hundreds of surfers out there right now," he said. "They're taking advantage of the great conditions." Every good "surfable spot," he said, has had dozens of surfers since this morning, especially The Point, which is at 17th and 19th streets on the Peninsula.

Newport Harbor Yacht Club member Chris Segerblom, who won the Governor's Cup in 2007 and the recent High School Dinghy Nationals, will be among the locals competing in the 44th annual Governor's Cup International Junior Match Racing Championship regatta scheduled July 20 through 25 in the waters off the Newport Pier. The event will feature top match racers from all over the world. Segerblom will be the helmsman for one Newport Harbor Yacht Club entry after earning an automatic berth by virtue of winning the inaugural Match Race Clinic & Regatta in May at the Balboa Yacht Club.

It was 1962 world champion surfer Ilima Kalama who gave a name to the documentary on Newport Beach’s early surf scene that a local husband and wife have been making in their garage for the past two years. Rick and Ann Chatillon tracked down Kalama, a veteran of Newport’s early 22nd Street surfer scene, on a golf course in Maui to ask him about surfing around Newport Pier in the 1950s and ’60s. Like many of the early Newport Beach surfers whom the Chatillons interviewed for their new film, which will make its debut at the Newport Beach Film Festival next week, Kalama still surfs some 50 years later.