Venice, California, officially begins its centennial celebration tomorrow, marking a century of the boom-bust-rebalance cycles that have created the global city of Los Angeles out of a desert. In this case, Venice -- now known for the daily street performance sideshow of its boardwalk -- was imagined out of marshland and swamp by the sea where real estate developer Abbot Kinney launched his Italian Venice-of-America of canals, Byzantine and Renaissance architecture, a flotilla of gondolas, and a Pacific-style Coney Island on July 4, 1905.
Twenty years later, "Kinney's Folly" began its slow decline as the lofty World's Fair spirit and the street-level realities of brothels, winos, and greed tangled fiercely. LA took over, many canals were filled in, and others deteriorated from pollution from nearby oilfields. Not to worry, though, another dream was imagining itself down the road in another marshland -- Howard Hughes and his airfield. In the 1950s, Venice revived with a steady in-flow of American culture, starting with Lawrence Welk's show from the Aragon ballroom, a settling in of the Beat Generation, and later rockers like Alice Cooper and Jim Morrison.
Today the Venice canals have been restored, the community is delightfully one of the funkiest in the world -- a West Coast "East Village" blending wealthy movie stars, famous architects, bohemian artists, and boombox-carrying dreadlocked skateboarders, cart-pushing burned-out addicts, scantily clad tank-and-flipflop students, and insatiable google-eyed tourists. In Southern California, where there is little balance among the extremes, Venice offers an anchor for everyone.
Favorite haunts:
- The boardwalk -- Ocean Front Walk between Rose Avenue on the north and Washington Blvd. on the south. Worth a day at the beach -- murals, street performers, Muscle Beach, tatoo parlors, knockoff and T-shirt stalls, open-air sideshow.
- Abbot Kinney Blvd. -- casually chic "South Beach" before its waves of high rises. Electic art, home design and vintage furniture boutiques, upscale clothing and jewelry studios.
- Venice Canals -- take your own tour of history and contemporary Southern California architecture and gardens.
A centennial celebration highlight -- Surfer Contest, Saturday July 9, Windward Avenue and Venice Beach, starts 6:30 a.m. and goes all day.
