Venice | Lost LA | Season 3, Episode 5 | KCET

From its origins as a themed seaside resort to its international fame as a countercultural hub, Venice Beach boasts a rich, multilayered history. This episode explores Abbot Kinney’s original Venice of America development; the community of Beat poets who called Venice home; and how the commercial renaissance along Abbot Kinney Boulevard has impacted the historically African-American neighborhood of Oakwood.

00:00-01:18 Introduction
01:18-07:25 Venice Canals and Abbot Kinney
07:25-13:43 Venice as a Diverse Community
13:43-24:59 Beat Poets in Venice
24:59-26:11 Conclusion
26:11-26:40 Credits

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#LostLA #LosAngeles #history #Venice #VeniceBeach #AbbotKinney #Oakwood

[Michaela]

As someone old enough to remember the old Venice, I also have nostalgia for the way it was, cheap, begrimed, affordable, creative, scary and fun. I also remember going to a very run down falling apart house in Venice in the late 60s to find a friend who was flopping there after getting out of prison for being a mule for Mexican drugs. He had come from a very upper class family and, when we were in college together always was dressed in suits and white shirts. Then he was always laughing and making jokes. What we found was a bum-like being, laying on a dirty mat on the floor in cloths that smelled horrible. We wanted to help him, but he just waved us off. He wasn't high at the time, but just still trauma affected from prison life. He told us he had been raped many times and said other things happen to him there that he wouldn't describe. We left him, because he insisted. We told other friends who also tried to help him. But then he disappeared. We never knew what happened to him. With all the creative, fun parts of Venice, that image will always stick in my mind as part of the old Venice mystique.

[PowerofPlacebo]

I’ll put it like this! VENICE is a place for all to come! For all to share, show, & display there artistic talents! W/out judgment or ridicule!! For if you go there to do so! Then you are not only in the wrong place! But also in the wrong state of mind & soul!!

Sincerely from a Venice Beach admirer!! 🙇🏽‍♂️

[marionwilson]

The old pictures with the oil rigs are amazing

[whomanbeing]

Another great episode. I lived in Venice for 9 years, it has it's issues but I loved living there.

[natiegeller]

This is wonderful! Thank you! Great to learn more about our surroundings.

[Cre-Art]

Excellent series. I've been up and down CA but never actually visited Venice. Thanks for introducing me to Abbot Kinney, a very admirable person. That's the way I believed life should be: all of us living together and appreciating the differences, not fearing them—and I still do. Thanks very much. :)

[bspain]

This is fantastic stuff, I wish it was longer actually.

[lareinedubois]

I went there ! I live in Canada! I must be getting old, I really enjoyed history documentary

[mramachandran]

This is a wonderful video! I love how the focus is on race issues along with the history of the city. Well done!

[westho]

Born & raised in the area on the coast a few miles south of Venice, I remember all the oil derricks, post war amusment parks and down trodden beach towns from Santa Monica down to Huntington Beach in Orange County, Beach towns were nothing like today, They were mostly enviromental wastelands with tar covered sand, tacky summer cottages and bungalows from the 1920s turned into cheap monthly rentals and what today are known as homeless people, back then lived along Coast Hwy in makeshift campers & travel trailers & war surplus tents along the coast hwy & around the wetlands at Tin Can beach just south of Long Beach, Old men surf fishing or hanging out on the piers back then had a little more self dignity. Many were WW2 vets and people who came west to California with a big dream only to end up living on the each or worse ending up on skid row in downtown LA. Long Beach had POP Pacific Ocean Park a pier & roller coaster, carnival rides, concessionaires and tattoo parlors everywhere as Long Beach was a Navy Town, , By the mid 1960's. the Hippies showed up and replaced the beatniks, filling the neighborhoods in Venice or where old homes turned into dilapidated time share shacks for the lost & wayward generation looking for themselves, the Venice canals were filled with tons of trash and old tires and anything else that was useless or used up. it always smelled of oil and open sewers in that area. As kids in the late 50's & through the 60's we would ride our bicycles north on Coast Hwy from our working class neighborhood in Newport Beach all the way up to Long Beach Venice & Santa Monica to see the sights and the counter cultural attractions, , Even though our straight laced conservative John Birch/ John Wayne worshipping Society parents warned us to stay away from such places. By the late 60's and into the 70's it seemed like all of Haight Ashbury moved south to coastal LA, Orange County and Laguna Beach, The Timothy Learys, Lonnie Frisbee's, Baba Ram Dass's and Charlie Mansons of that time were everywhere pimping jesus and pandering their philosophies, drugs and STD's, free clinics popped up in every beach town to service the victims of that free love generation.. By then i was in my late teens and said farewell to that wasteland paradise and Moved to Hawaii with my surfboard and fishing pole, not long before the Islands suffered the same fate, which it did to some extent, but again it was time to move & stay one step ahead of popular culture and their early concept of the hipsters Corporate America.

[timothydunn]

Surely there is a movie somewhere in this story? Fantastic history.

[johnnyjames]

A few friends and I have had a pair of trucks from the Venice miniature railway for decades. Kinney got his initial money by popularizing the smoking of cigarettes in the USA.

[kevmichael]

Thay should rebuild Venice Beach...Make it like it was in the 20s-40s....my parents went here

[RDnAC]

Fantastic! I never knew many of those things and I have lived in this area for most of my life. I didn’t know about the oil rigs or that there were more canals that got paved over. Most people only associate Venice with Muscle Beach, The Doors and gangs so I’m glad none of that was mentioned.

[J_J_P_]

Venice is tricky place. I think most opinions are based on what you see by the beach. It's a dirty place. But, there's a lot of great restaurants and shops throughout the city.

[p_psychopathproductions]

How can you make documentary about Venice Beach and not talk about "THE DOORS"

[chrispaul]

too bad it isnt what it was once--this series is amazing tho!

[troysierra]

Venice Beach to me represented the Haight and Ashbury of San Francisco in Los Angeles in the late 60's early 70's. From the Doors to Charles Manson finding his groupies there. Let's not forget, Venice in the late 60's was an unofficial clothing optional beach. Dotted with unofficial gyms, that guys used right out of prison.

Before Silver Lake became the hub of the gay community, Venice Beach was also known as a gay hangout in the 60's counterculture.

[DerGlaetze]

Venice is now an open sewer of homeless, much like San Francisco is today. My brother in law, before he passed away, quit jogging through the streets there, because he told me that he could no longer tolerate the stench of urine.
Also, the people who do own housing are compelled to send their children to private schools, for their safety. Otherwise, your children will end up in the LAUSD, which includes Venice High. Go ahead and google search that school and you will find out for yourself. That’s why my sister in law moved out this year with her teenage son. They are much happier, now that they are gone from that madness. So, quit trying to paint a rosey picture of that place!

[MrCoconutcat]

I love your videos about Los Angeles, make as many as you can, just take one idea, and build off of that, like the doors music group the other person mentioned, or a small idea like a little boat from Los Angeles California and also chumash and tongva gabriel Indians