We, Americans! We, of the Walmart ("if it's bigger, cheaper, it's gotta be better") School of Life are the only people who dreamed of taking wonders of the world and copying them in 1/10 the time of the original and build it cheaper in America so that we, Americans, wouldn't have to leave our "bubbles" in life and experience the world: cheaply, safely, and American-ly (aka, "non-foreign", "just like us", antiseptic and conflict-free). America is the capital of the self-created Wonderland. Who else but an American, Walt Disney, would've dared a Disneyland, a self-contained world of worlds past, present, and future, all a 30 minute drive from a Los Angeles suburb and (until recently) worth the price of a ticket (not an airline ticket)?
Abbot Kinney, another wealthy American, that's who. Disney was still learning how to draw Mickey Mouse when Abbot Kinney created a wonderland that was so "virtual reality" that it's become it's own wonder of the world. Kinney called it "The Venice of the Americas"; the post office reads, "Venice, California" today. When an Angeleno (like myself) talks of going to Venice, a 20-minute drive down the 10 or the 405 from most anywhere is the longest one has to travel to sample the beach and the freaks on the boardwalk, not the pigeons at the Piazza San Marco nor a villa with the view of the Doge's Palace. Abbot Kinney had other ideas.
Mural of Abbot Kinney, Creator and Founder of Venice, CA
Out of marsh and sand, he used a portion of his millions to build a replica of Venice, Italy. There was a smaller scale replica of St. Mark's Cathedral but what would a Venice be without its canals: At one time, Venice of the Americas, CA had 10 miles of canals built out of the dunes and marsh of the Ballona Wetlands. Just as in Italy, Venice of the Americas had its Grand Canal, with bridges reminiscent of the Rialto. Grand shops lined the new thoroughfares of Pacific and Windward Avenues, leading to the sea, just as the ones in newer, grungier, non-touristy, more deadly suburban sections of Venice, Italy do. Kinney spared little expense in recreating Venice in America but it was definitely an American idea of Venice he created, not the original.
It was the early 1900's when Kinney designed and constructed Venice of the Americas. Like so many of his time and place, Kinney was a strict Protestant who, while he took drinks on occasion himself, was a prohibitionist, blaming drink for the problems of poverty and "moral decay". He was not going to have his Venice serve alcohol, unlike the centuries-old lifeblood of Italy. He was also Utopian, believing that a communal society where everyone knew their place and did their job would create a socially harmonious, dry, heaven on earth where no problems would be easily solved and the residents of Venice would be fed a steady diet of opera, lectures, educational courses, and grand theater. Hey! Sounded like fun..............and it did work for a while,.....................................
but not for long.
Like a good American of his time and place, Abbot Kinney was good at making money. He was one of the major tobacco importers of the United States. When he came to California and slept in the pure(?huh!) air of southern California, his chronic asthma was cured. He bought acreage in what is now Sierra Madre and laid the framework for that city. His wife not liking the area, he went in and bought land that he developed into "Santa Monica Heights". That became the what is now Ocean Park. He, then, bought the marshland that became "Venice of the Americas". Though he tried to make his cultural utopia by the sea, it lost $16,000 the first summer it opened, not in sales of home lots but in attractions. It was then that sword swallowers, three-headed women, and burlesque queens became the cultural offerings for the native and immigrant laborers that Kinney hired to build Venice and live there. Next came the roller coasters and the games where you shoot or throw balls to win and Venice was now like every amusement park in the United States, not a Venice of the Americas, or rather it was, like the Venetian and Bellagio Hotels in Las Vegas reflect the real Italy: sociology as sideshow.
It would be very mainstream media of me if I left out a very important part of Kinney: conservationist. He bought land in Santa Monica Canyon to create the U. S.'s first legally protected forest. He conducted tests to see if eucalyptus trees would grow in southern California. He conducted the first official governmental survey of the Yosemite Valley and also of Sioux villages in the northern Plains. He was on a first-name basis with John Muir and Helen Hunt Jackson, the author of Ramona, a book that practically created Los Angeles but that's another story for another time.
Most of the Venice canals began to stink, just as Kinney's vision of Venice of the Americas did. In 1929, 2/3 of the canals were paved over. The rest were allowed to create small islands of simple two-room cottages where Venice's workers lived. For years, Venice sank deeper and deeper into a pit, both literally and economically. Some of L. A.'s earliest gangs formed in Venice and are still there today. Oil wells churned and spewed gas in the air; transients, prostitutes, and drug addicts were drawn to Venice to enact their own "Summering at the Shore"; cheap rents and cheap people were everywhere. My grandmother reminded me of the rope that divided Venice Beach: one side for whites (the side closest to Manhattan Beach); the other side (closest to Santa Monica) for everyone else.
Starting with Goldie Hawn and Matt "The Simpsons" Groening in the 1980's, celebrities and the wealthy moved into the Venice Canals. True to Venice's own nature, the gangbangers and the poor didn't all go away. They stayed almost side by side with the wealthy new neighbors. The new neighbors didn't go away. Instead, Venice is truly a creation of its own. Someday, somewhere, some 21st Century Abbot Kinney will create a Venice to emulate Venice, CA.
"Baywatch" and every other beach cop show since show the bikini'd rollerbladers and the freak vendors on the Venice Boardwalk. Los Angeles Magazine sings the praises of Rebecca's or Il Pane but the glories of Venice are the way people of different races, classes, life experiences, lifestyles, and jail records all interact and make Venice a fascinating, weird, if not safe place to hang out and live.
Here are current views of Venice: a little, teeny, tiny glimpse of Abbot Kinney's Venice of the Americas, a glimpse of Barrio Venice, and the Venice Canals, in all of their unique beauty.
By the way, don't miss Abbot Kinney Blvd., through the heart of Venice. One of a kind gelato, day spas worthy of the French Riviera (at Barrio Venice prices), Roosterfish (Venice's only gay bar and one of the last reminders of Venice being one of the earliest So Cal communities to be gay friendly), teahouses and art galleries galore, not to mention amazing architecture of various styles, especially taking old, discarded items and fashioning them into stunning buildings. Words alone cannot describe the funky glamour of Abbot Kinney Blvd. or of Venice, California. Come and find your own words!
