A photo of the "old" Pier Avenue School prior to its destruction by earthquake in 1933. The school was rebuilt starting in 1934 as a W.P.A. project becoming Pier Avenue Junior High School and later purchased by the city to become the Community Center. It is rumored that the bricks used in the "old" buiding had not been allowed to cure and thereby sucked the lime out of the beach sand mortar making the building especially susceptible to the earthquake. It is also said that many of the old bricks were cleaned and used for the walkways of the present poured concrete structure. The remaining bricks were sold for $1.50 a truckload and became the foundations and walls for many of the homes built that year.