Venice, Los Angeles, California

Venice is a district in west Los Angeles, California, United States. It is best known for its canals and beaches, but it also has a somewhat Bohemian residential area as well as a colorful boardwalk. Its area codes are 310 and a recently added 424 overlay. Its ZIP Code is 90291.

History

Venice of America was founded by tobacco millionaire Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a beach resort town, 14 miles west of Los Angeles. He and his partner Francis Ryan had bought two miles of ocean front property south of Santa Monica in 1891. They built a resort town called Ocean Park on the north end of the property, which was soon annexed to Santa Monica. After Ryan died, Kinney and his new partners continued building south of Navy Street in the unincorporated territory. After the partnership dissolved in 1904, Kinney built on the marshy land on the south end of the property. His intent was to create a seaside resort like its namesake in Italy.

When Venice of America opened on July 4, 1905, Kinney had dug several miles of canals to drain the marshes for his residential area, built a 1200-foot-long pleasure pier with an auditorium, ship restaurant, and dance hall, constructed a hot salt-water plunge, and built a block-long arcaded business street with Venetian architecture. Tourists, mostly arriving by interurban trolley from Los Angeles and Santa Monica, then rode Venice's miniature railroad and gondolas to tour the town. But the biggest attraction was Venice's mile-long gently sloping beach. Cottages and housekeeping tents were available for rent.

The town grew in population, annexed adjacent housing tracts, and changed its official name of Ocean Park to Venice in 1911. The population (3119 residents in 1910) soon exceeded 10,000, and drew 50,000 to 150,000 tourists on weekends.

Attractions on the Kinney Pier became more amusement oriented by 1910, when a Venice Scenic Railway, Aquarium, Virginia Reel, Whip, Racing Derby and other rides and game booths were added. Since the business district was allotted only three, one-block-long streets, and the City Hall was more than a mile away, other competing business districts developed. Unfortunately this created a fracturious political climate. Kinney, however, governed with an iron hand and kept things in check. But when he died in November 1920, Venice became harder to politically govern. Then with the amusement pier burning six weeks later in December 1920, and Prohibition (which had begun the previous January), the town's tax revenue was severely affected.

The Kinney family rebuilt their amusement pier quickly in order to compete with Ocean Park's Pickering Pier, and the newly built Sunset Pier. When it opened it had two roller coasters, a new Racing Derby, a Noah's Ark, a Mill Chutes, and dozens of other rides. By 1925 with the addition of a third coaster, a tall Dragon Slide, Fun House, and Flying Circus aerial ride, it was the finest amusement pier on the West Coast. Several hundred thousand tourists visited on weekends and spent their hard-earned money on rides, restaurant food, and souvenirs. In 1923 Charles Lick built the Lick Pier at Navy Street in Venice, adjacent to the Ocean Park Pier at Pier Avenue in Ocean Park. Another pier was planned for Venice in 1925 at Leona Street (now Washington Street).

For the amusement of the public Kinney hired aviators to do aerial stunts over the beach. One of them, movie aviator and Venice airport owner B.H. DeLay, implemented the first lighted airport in the United States on DeLay Field (previously known as Ince Field). He also initiated the first aerial police in the nation, after a marine rescue attempt was thwarted. DeLay also performed many of the world's first aerial stunts for motion pictures in Venice.

But by 1925, Venice politics became unmanageable. Its roads, water and sewage systems badly needed repair and expansion to keep up with its growing population. When it was proposed to be annexed to Los Angeles, the board of Trustees voted to hold an election. Those for annexation and those against were nearly evenly matched, but many Los Angeles residents, who moved to Venice to vote, turned the tide. Venice became part of Los Angeles in October 1925.

Los Angeles had annexed the Disneyland of its day, and proceeded to remake Venice in its own image. They felt the town needed more streets for automobiles, not canals, and paved the bulk of them in 1929 after a protracted three-year court battle led by canal residents. They wanted to close Venice's three amusement piers, but had to wait until the first of the tidelands' leases expired in 1946.

In 1929 oil was discovered south of Washington Street on the Venice Peninsula, which was a fashionable residential area where movie stars lived. Within two years 450 oil wells covered the area and drilling waste clogged the remaining waterways. It was a short-lived boom, that provided needed income to the community, which suffered during the Depression. The wells produced oil into the 1970s.

The city of Los Angeles had neglected Venice so long that it had become the "Slum by the Sea" by the 1950s. With the exception of new police and fire stations in 1930, the city spent little on improvements since annexation. The city did not pave Trolleyway (Pacific Avenue) until 1954 when county and state funds became available. Cheap rents for run-down bungalow housing attracted predominantly European immigrants (including a substantial number of Jewish refugees from Hitler's death camps), and young counter-cultural artists, poets and writers. The "Beat Generation" hung out at the Gas House on Ocean Front Walk and at Venice West Cafe on Dudley where they held poetry readings and smoked marijuana. Police raids were frequent as they tried to rid the community of "undesirables."

In 1961 the city in their misguided attempt at improving the community instituted a building code enforcement plan to bring all buildings up to city code. Many homes, built 50 years earlier, rested on sand with no foundations. But the city's real intent was to tear down all of Venice's 1600 structures and get rid of the recalcitrant hippie population. Banks would not make loans for improvements, and owners had to pay for demolition. By 1965, one third of Venice's buildings, mostly in the historic district along the beach, were reduced to rubble before the city was stopped in court. Ironically, Venice's slums in the (then-) black-populated Oakwood section survived because it was last on the city's agenda, and the NAACP and the Peace and Freedom Party organized to protect the poor. The city's dream of building highrise hotels and apartments like Miami Beach was thwarted. Little was rebuilt during the next decade.

Venice and neighboring Santa Monica were hosts for a decade to the Pacific Ocean Park (POP), an amusement and pleasure-pier built atop the old Lick Pier and Ocean Park Pier by CBS and the Los Angeles Turf Club (Santa Anita). It opened in July 1958. They kept the pier's old roller coaster, huge airplane ride, and carousel, but converted its theaters and smaller pier buildings into sea-themed rides and space-themed attractions designed by Hollywood special-effects people. Visitors could travel in space on the Flight to Mars ride, tour the world in Around the World in 80 Turns, go beneath the sea in the Diving Bells or at Neptune's Kingdom, take a fantasy excursion into the Tales of the Arabian Nights on the Flying Carpet ride, visit a pirate world at Davy Jones' Locker, or visit a tropical paradise and its volcano by riding a train on Mystery Island. There were also thrill rides like the Whirlpool (rotor whose floor dropped out), the Flying Fish wild mouse coaster, an auto ride, gondola ride, double Ferris wheel, safari ride, and an area of children's rides called Fun Forset. Sea lion shows were performed at the Sea Circus.

Since attendance at the seaside park was too low to operate during the winter, and there was competition from Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, and Marineland, it was sold after two seasons to a succession of owners, who let the park deteriorate. And since Santa Monica was redeveloping the surrounding area for high-rise apartments and condos, they made it difficult for patrons to reach the park. They forced it into bankruptcy in 1967. After the park suffered a series of arson fires beginning in 1970, its rotting structure was demolished by 1974. Another aging attraction in the 1960s was the Aragon Ballroom that had been the longtime home of The Lawrence Welk Show & the Spade Cooley Show, and later the Cheetah Club where rock bands like the Doors, Blue Cheer & many other top bands of the time, performed. It burned in the 1970 fire. The district around POP is known as Dogtown, which was home to pioneering skateboarders the Z-Boys, as profiled in the documentary film, Dogtown and Z-Boys.

Producer Roger Corman owned a production facility, the Concorde/New Horizons Studio, on Main Street for many years, in which a large number of his films were shot. This facility was torn down to build lofts.

Attractions and neighborhoods

Venice is today one of the most vibrant and eclectic areas of Southern California and it continues a tradition of progressive social change involving prominent Westsiders. The Venice Family Clinic is the largest free clinic in the country.

Venice is an unusually pedestrian-oriented area for Los Angeles: many of its houses actually have their principal entries from pedestrian-only streets, and have house numbers on these footpaths. (Automobile access is by alleys in the rear.) However, like much of Los Angeles, Venice is also well-known for traffic congestion. It lies 2 miles away from the nearest freeway, and its unusually dense network of narrow streets was not planned for the demands of modern traffic. Mindful of the tourist nature of much of the district's vehicle traffic, though, its residents have successfully fought numerous attempts to extend the Marina Freeway (CA-90) into southern Venice.

Venice Beach

Venice Beach is understood to include the beach, the promenade that runs parallel to the beach ("Ocean Front Walk" or just "the boardwalk"), Muscle Beach, the tennis courts, Skate Dancing plaza, the numerous beach volleyball courts, the bike trail and the businesses and residences that have their addresses on Ocean Front Walk. It is a great magnet for tourists, even from other parts of Los Angeles, and is well-known for its eclectic, counter-culture atmosphere.

Along the southern portion of the beach, at the end of Washington Boulevard, is the Venice Fishing Pier. A 1,310-foot concrete structure, it first opened in 1964, but was closed in 1983 due to El Niño storm damage, only reopening in the mid-1990s. On December 21, 2005, the pier again suffered damage when waves from an unusually big northern swell caused the part of the pier upon which the restrooms was located to fall into the ocean. The pier remained closed until May 25, 2006, when it was reopened after an engineering study concluded the pier was structurally sound.

The Venice Breakwater is an acclaimed local surf spot in Venice, located north of the Venice Pier and Lifeguard Headquarters, and south of the Santa Monica Pier. This spot is sheltered on the north by an artificial barrier, the breakwater, consisting of an extending sand bar, piping, and large rocks at its end.

This spot is comprised of differing breaks depending on swell intensity, swell direction, tide and time of the day. However, with intense swells such as those of the winter of 2005/2006, Breakwater boasts a clean right.

Downtown Venice

The areas along Abbot Kinney and Grand Boulevards and Main Street form the traditional downtown of Venice. During the 1920s and 1930s, the area's nightlife was quite active, with thousands of Angelenos arriving every night by streetcar. (Before he burst onto the national scene, Benny Goodman had a brief residence as a bandleader in Venice.) Nightlife boomed again in the late 1960s as the area became a center of hippie culture. Since the late 1990s, downtown Venice has been especially popular, with many bars, nightclubs, art galleries, and edgy apparel shops occupying both its older brick and Art Deco storefronts and hyper-modern glass facades.

Oakwood

The Oakwood neighborhood of Venice (aka "Ghost Town" for decades before gentrification; also referred to as the "Oakwood Pentagon") which lies inland a few blocks from the tourist areas, is one of the few historically African American areas of in West Los Angeles, although Latinos have comprised the overwhelming majority of the residents. During the age of restrictive covenants that enforced racial segregation, Oakwood was set aside as a settlement area for blacks, who came by the hundreds to Venice to work in the oil fields during the 1930s and 1940s. After the construction of the 405 freeway passed through predominantly Mexican American and immigrant communities, they moved further west and into Oakwood. There were also third generation white families that had owned homes in Oakwood since before the Great Depression, with stories of collecting their nickels and dimes to pay the mortgage. Many white elderly residents have lost their homes and been forced into convalescence homes, or into living homeless in cars on vacant lots, while new, affluent residents have built prominent, modern homes in the area.

A housing project, Lincoln Place, was built nearby by the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles to accommodate GI's returning from the war and in need of affordable housing. It later came to house working class families of many ethnicities, including a large contingent of African American residents. Lincoln Place is currently in the midst of an extensive legal battle between tenants (past and present), and the owner, AIMCO. The developer, which acquired the property in 2003, plans to demolish it and build a mixed-use condominium and retail structure on the site. The only remaining tenants at this time are elderly.

Since the late 1960s, Oakwood has been notorious for crime, particularly associated with the drug trade controlled by the Venice Shoreline Crip gangs and Latino Venice 13 gang. During the 1980s and 1990s, gunfire was heard in Oakwood on a nearly nightly basis due to the rivalry between the gangs after the Shorelines spread out from the Mar Vista Gardens housing project by the Culver City Boyz gang. The squeeze of gentrification and incoming 'artistic types', both representing a moneyed lifestyle not known prior in the ghost-town ghetto, briefly increased the territorial fighting for control of capitalistic drug trade therein; still, drugs were most often sold to mobile affluents driving in from other areas.

The two gangs are currently still respecting a cease fire agreement established during the 90's, though both are still the common enemy of the Culver City gang. As with many Los Angeles areas, gentrification caused by the real estate boom of the last ten years has changed the face of Oakwood considerably, with the neighborhood undergoing significant revitalization since the 90's. New residents have also put new pressure on police and local politicians, resulting in a significant decrease in gang activity over the past decade.

East Venice

East Venice is a racially and ethnically mixed, residential neighborhood of Venice that is separated from Oakwood and Milwood (the area south of Oakwood) by Lincoln Boulevard, extending east to the border with Mar Vista. near Venice High School. Aside from the commercial strip on Lincoln (including the Venice Boys and Girls Club and the Venice United Methodist Church), the area almost entirely consists of small homes and apartments as well as Penmar Park and (bordering Santa Monica) Penmar Golf Course. The existing population (primarily composed of non-Latino whites, Latinos, and Asians, with small numbers of other groups) is being supplemented by new arrivals whom have moved in with gentrification.

Notable residents and businesses

Venice has always been known as a hangout for the creative and the artistic. Prominent residents of Venice include actresses Julia Roberts and Anjelica Huston, actors Nicolas Cage, Tim Meadows, Robert Hegyes, Michael T. Weiss, and musicians Perry Farrell, Joshua Kadison, John Lydon (who owns a sizeable amount of rental property in Venice), John Frusciante, Fiona Apple, and Jim Morrison of the Doors. Actor Robert Downey Jr. kept an apartment on the boardwalk during the 1990s. Architect Frank Gehry is a longtime resident who has bought a huge vacant lot on Harding Avenue in Venice where he plans to build his new personal residence. Harding Avenue is also where the Lennon Sisters of Lawrence Welk fame grew up. Arnold Schwarzenegger's acting career began after becoming a regular bodybuilder at Venice's famous Gold's Gym, whose present facility claims to be "The Mecca of Bodybuilding." Restauranteur Wolfgang Puck has owned and operated noted eateries in the area since the 1990s. Other notables include actors Viggo Mortensen, Rutger Hauer, Bryan Callen, and Elijah Wood, and film directors Henry Jaglom and Paul Mazursky. For many years, pro wrestlers Hulk Hogan and Sting were announced as residing in Venice Beach as well. Standup comedians and street performers have proliferated in Venice, Wavy Gravy and Swami X being two of the more recent hippie busker alumni. Political contributions have been sent from homes in Venice from the actor Dennis Hopper and Simpsons' creator Matt Groening. Harry Perry, the world's most famous street entertainer, is one of the boardwalk's key performers. Photographer Helen K. Garber maintains a studio on Ocean Front Walk. Graffiti/Street Artist and painter Jean-Michel Basquiat lived in Venice in the 80's. Immature, an R&B group from the 90's used to perform on the boardwalk prior to becoming famous.

Venice is today a vibrant area of Southern California and it continues a tradition of progressive social change involving prominent Westsiders. The Venice Family Clinic is the largest free clinic in the country. The Venice Community Housing Corporation, a nonprofit dedicated to perserving the economic, racial and social diversity of Venice and the surrounding area, provides affordable housing, economic and community development opportunities and needed social services to low income residents. Women in Recovery, Inc., a non-profit organization offering a live-in, 12-step program of rehabilitation for women in need, was founded by a longtime resident of Venice, Sister Ada Geraghty. Geraghty and her organization on Coeur D' Alene Avenue annually honor those who've made a difference in helping women overcome substance abuse problems. The 2006 honoree for Women in Recovery was Christopher Lawford; past honorees have included Jamie Lee Curtis, Angela Lansbury, and Anthony Hopkins.

Los Angeles County Lifeguards

Venice Beach is the headquarters of the Los Angeles County Lifeguard Division of the Fire Department. It is located at 2300 Ocean Front Walk. It is the nation's largest ocean lifeguard organizations with over 100 full-time and 600 part-time or seasonal lifeguards. The headquarter building used to be the City of Los Angeles Lifeguard Headquarters until they were merged into the County System in 1975. The department is commonly referred to by Angelenos as Baywatch Lifeguards.

The Los Angeles County Lifeguards safeguard 31 miles of beach and 70 miles of coastline, from San Pedro in the south, to Malibu in the north. Lifeguards also provide Paramedic and rescue boat services to Catalina Island, with operations out of Avalon and the Isthmus.

Lifeguard Division employs 120 full-time and 600 seasonal lifeguards, operating out of three Sectional Headquarters, located in Hermosa, Santa Monica, and Zuma beach. Each of these headquarters staffs a 24-hour EMT-D response unit, and are part of the 911 system. In addition to providing for beach safety, Los Angeles County Lifeguards have specialized training for Baywatch rescue boat operations, underwater rescue and recovery, swiftwater rescue, cliff rescue, marine mammal rescue and marine firefighting.

Education

Primary and secondary schools

Venice is served by many Los Angeles Unified School District schools. The neighborhood is served by Coeur d'Alene Avenue Elementary School and Westminster Avenue Elementary School. Students go on to Mark Twain Middle School. High school students attend Venice High School, which is actually in the neighborhood of Mar Vista.

Saint Mark Elementary School is a private school in the area. Venice hosts numerous organizations including Venice Arts: In Neighborhoods which offers free quality art education to youth.

Public libraries

Los Angeles Public Library operates the Venice - Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch.

Venice in the media

Dozens of movies and hundreds of television shows have used locations in Venice, including its beach, its pleasure piers, the canals and colonades, the boardwalk, the high school, even a particular hamburger stand. For a complete list of movies shot in Venice, see: Venice California History Site - Movie Making in Venice. Various Venice venues are visible in this list of selected media:

Venice on Film

• 1914- Kid Auto Races at Venice (Charlie Chaplin)
• 1923- The Balloonatic (Buster Keaton) The Balloonatic at the Internet Movie Database
• 1927- Sugar Daddies (Laurel and Hardy)
• 1928- The Circus (Charlie Chaplin)
• 1928- The Cameraman (Buster Keaton) The Cameraman at the Internet Movie Database
• 1933- Fish Hooky - Our Gang Comedies (Little Rascals) Fish Hooky at the Internet Movie Database
• 1935- Dante's Inferno (Spencer Tracy, Claire Trevor)
• 1950- Quicksand, (Mickey Rooney, Jeanne Cagney, Peter Lorre)
• 1958- Touch of Evil (Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles director) - Venice is used for lonely Mexican town.
• 1961- Night Tide (Dennis Hopper, Linda Lawson, written and directed by Curtis Harrington) - Shot entirely in Venice and shows the deteriorated nature of the area in the 1950s.
• 1964- Inside Daisy Clover (Robert Redford, Natalie Wood, Christopher Plummer)
• 1966- The Wild Angels (Peter Fonda, Nancy Sinatra, Bruce Dern)
• 1966- Blood Bath (William Campbell, Sid Haig)
• 1968- I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (Peter Sellers) I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! at the Internet Movie Database
• 1972- Cisco Pike (Kris Kristofferson, Gene Hackman, Karen Black) - Kristofferson, playing a small-time drug dealer living on Ocean Front walk, gets involved with a crooked cop, played by Hackman. Climax on the beach.
• 1976- Mother, Jugs and Speed (Bill Cosby,Rachel Welch, Harvey Keitel ) Mother, Jugs and Speed! at the Internet Movie Database Dark comedy about the Fishbine Ambulance Company, dealing with social issues of the day, great cameos of Venice, located at 425 Rose Ave., now the Venice Ranch Market.

• 1978- Grease (John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John) - Venice High is the setting for Rydell High.
• 1979- Roller Boogie (Linda Blair)
• 1980- Xanadu (movie) (Olivia Newton-John)
• 1985- The Falcon and the Snowman (Sean Penn, Timothy Hutton)
• 1986- Roller Blade (movie) (Skate or Die! Venice Beach skaters.)
• 1991- The Doors
• 1992- White Men Can't Jump (Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson) - The pickup games were set at the public courts, but filmed in a doubled location in a Venice beachside parking lot.
• 1993- Falling Down (Michael Douglas) - Final scenes are on Venice Pier, closed at the time but since repaired.
• 1993- GIFT (Perry Farrell)
• 1993- Point of No Return (Bridget Fonda) - Lead character moves into an apartment on Venice Beach.
• 1994- Monkey Trouble
• 1994- Speed (Keanu Reeves) - The first bus explosion occurs in Venice (in front of The Firehouse at Main and Rose), as referenced later on in the film.
• 1995- Strange Days
• 1995- The Net (Sandra Bullock)
• 1997- Romy and Michele's High School Reunion - Romy (Mira Sorvino) and Michele (Lisa Kudrow) live in a Venice boardwalk apartment, whence they journey back to their hometown.
• 1998- American History X
• 1998- The Big Lebowski - The Dude, a.k.a. Jeffrey Lebowski, lives in Venice, as can be seen from the address listed on the check he signs at the beginning of the movie.
• 2000- Bounce - Buddy (Ben Affleck) stays at an Ocean Front Walk property overlooking volleyball courts.
• 2001- Dogtown and Z-Boys
• 2003- Hollywood Homicide - Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett chase Kurupt through the neighborhoods of Venice, with some nice aerial shots of the canals and the bridges. Various other scenes include Venice.
• 2004- 2Pac: Resurrection - 2pac does an interview with MTV's Tabitha Soren, while they are walking down the Venice boardwalk.
• 2004- Million Dollar Baby - The lead character works at the On The Waterfront Cafe, runs along the water on the beach and the Venice Pier can be seen in two scenes. Also, the church Clint Eastwood's character attends is St. Mark Catholic Church in Venice.
• 2005- Lords of Dogtown
• 2006- Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny
• 2007- Because I Said So
• 2007- Wild Hogs

Television

• CHiPs
• Simon and Simon
• Baywatch (shot at various beaches around Los Angeles)
• Pacific Blue
• The A-Team
• Huff
• Freakazoid (An episode with Vorn the Unspeakable featured Venice Beach as a haven for weirdos, and many jokes were made about the residents' strangeness)
• Three's Company (The opening titles for the first three seasons of the show were taped here.)
• Gilmore Girls Jess comes to live with his father. His father owns a hotdog stand there.
• Just Legal was based in Venice and starred Don Johnson as a lawyer.
• Rob & Big In one episode, Rob Dyrdek and Big Black visit the crowded Venice Beach for "Go Skateboarding Day" where they meet a skateboarding dog and his owner.
• One On One (Season 5 only)
• 24 Season 6
• Alias It is revealed in the fifth season that Sydney Bristow resides in Venice.
• X-Files Season 7 - Episode 151 - X-COPS: The city name used was 'Willow Park' but this entire episode was filmed in Venice, CA, primarily on the avenues of Sunset, Rose, 4th and Electric.
• Yo MTV Raps!!!(1989)-The whole episode is shot in Venice co-hosted by N.W.A.

Books

• Bradbury, Ray. Death is a Lonely Business Knopf 1985, ISBN 0-394-54702-0 . Hard boiled detective mystery taking place in Venice circa 1949.
• Garber, Helen K.. Venice Beach, California Carnivale, Xlibris 2005, ISBN 1-4134-9108-1 . Photographs of the surreal life on Ocean Front Walk. Official Commemorative Book of the Venice Centennial (1905 - 2005).
• Stanton, Jeffrey. 'Venice California: Coney Island of the Pacific' Donahue Publishing 2005, ISBN 0-9619849-3-7 . Comprehensive history of the beach town and its amusement piers including Pacific Ocean Park with 367 historic photographs. (Available from Venice History Site - see below)

Video games

• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, Venice Beach is a playable level.
• Tony Hawk's Underground, Venice beach is an unlockable level which is an exact replica of the level in THPS2, but without the goals.
• Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, Venice Beach is parodied as Verona Beach
• True Crime: Streets of L.A., You can drive and fight on the streets of Venice along the beach.
• NBA Street, Venice Beach is a playable level.
• LA Rush, You can drive through the streets of Venice and along the beach.
• Thrasher: Skate and Destroy Venice Beach is a playable level.

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