Venice Beach History: From Resort Town to Gentrification

Introduction

Originally founded in 1905 by tobacco businessman Abbot Kinney, Venice, California, was an independent city until 1925, when it merged with Los Angeles. Today it is known for its beach boardwalk and circus-like atmosphere, and in the past decade Venice has undergone a process of gentrification like many other cities across the United States (Abcarian). Yet Venice Beach was for years a center of the arts. In the 1960s it was ground zero for the counter-culture movement, with musicians like Jim Morrison and The Doors getting their start there. It was home to late R&B musician Teena Marie, now forever memorialized in a Venice mural (Argonaut).

Venice Beach was also home to Muscle Beach, boardwalk roller skating, diversity, and cultural foods. It was home to the Oakwood African American community, whose members helped dig the canals of Venice but were not permitted to settle along them. Instead, they were placed inland on the one square mile of roads known as Oakwood — a neighborhood today threatened by the expansion of Silicon Valley and the influx of new residents (Carroll). Venice Beach was a popular resort destination that drew tourists from around the world — people who came for the beach sunsets, the shops, the tattoo parlors, and the artists selling their work right on the streets. It was a place full of culture, history, life, and stories.

Today it has gone the way of many other cities with storied pasts: it is entering a new phase of existence — a new stage of life disconnected from its past, one that has more to do with avocado toast, Millennials, and the gentrified tastes of those spilling over from Silicon Valley than with hippies, dancing, roller skating, or the doors of perception. This paper describes the history of Venice Beach and how it has changed over time.

The Beginning: Abbot Kinney's Vision

The canals of the Venice of America were originally dug to drain the area of marshes that kept the land uninhabitable. Abbot Kinney, who founded the city, constructed a large pier more than a thousand feet long that included a ship-style restaurant, an auditorium, and a dance hall. Venetian architecture studded the business street, and tourists traveled by miniature railcar or gondola down the various lanes of the Venice-inspired city.

Kinney died in 1920 and the pier was destroyed by fire around that same time. Prohibition had also come into effect, threatening the city's revenues — but the Kinney family restored the pier and constructed new amusements, including roller coasters, a racing derby, a fun house, and much more. It was a top-notch year-round attraction for tourists (Stanton). It was generally a destination of innocent fun that fit squarely within the culture of pre-1960s America. Americans were broadly jubilant throughout the 1920s, depressed throughout the 1930s, energized by the 1940s, and exultant during the 1950s.

Works Cited

Abcarian, Robin. "They discover, they gentrify, they ruin: How 'progress' is wrecking Los Angeles neighborhoods." LA Times, 2017. https://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-abcarian-venice-density-20170719-story.html

Argonaut. "Teena Marie Mural." Argonaut, 2012.

Carroll, Rory. "LA's black enclave buffeted by police pressure and tech-driven gentrification." The Guardian, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/01/venice-gentrification-oakwood-african-american-california

Horowitz, D. Betty Friedan and the Making of The Feminine Mystique. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998.

Maynard, John Arthur. Venice West: The Beat Generation in Southern California. Rutgers University Press, 1993.

Stanton, Jeffrey. Venice, California: Coney Island of the Pacific. Donahue Publishing, 2005.