Since it opened 120 years ago this year Venice Los Angeles has always attracted visitors, both from the region and, later, from the wider world. Conceived as a Disneyland – before Disneyland existed or had even been conceived – it was a crucial developmental stage between the early amusement parks, like Coney Island, and the huge adventure parks of the mouse kingdom.

The original development of Venice of America was ahead of its time in that it was always planned as mixed-use: both amusement park AND residential neighborhood (similar to projects that Disney is building today). It’s a great example of Los Angeles’ seemingly perennial ability to inspire its residents to reimagine the world, to reinvent it and create a new reality.

Whether you’re visiting Venice LA from elsewhere in the U.S. or abroad, or you’re a resident of Southern California, there are more than enough things to do in the three-square mile neighborhood to spend a day there, Venice is much more than its beach or famous boardwalk. In this guide I’ll give you a rundown of the fascinating history of Venice LA, and then make some recommendations for things to do, historic sites to visit and some places to eat and drink there.

Early History

For untold millennia the Los Angeles River emptied into the Pacific where Venice is now. The meandering waterway created a quite different landscape to the one we see on the Westside today (and very different to what many people imagine to be the natural state of Los Angeles). Extensive forests covered the wide plain, made up of sycamore, oak and willow trees, which were also watered by several natural springs that arose in the Hollywood Hills and ran down to the river.

There were many Tongva villages in the area, and these early inhabitants of the region would have played and fished in the river and its estuary. The first Europeans to visit described the Tongva as having an almost idyllic lifestyle. However that world was brought to an abrupt and violent end when the Spanish arrived and colonized the area at the end of the eighteenth century. This marked the end of the Tongva way of life and the landscape began to change, as the Spanish gradually cleared the land to make way for large scale cattle ranching and crop agriculture.

In 1821, the same year that Mexico got its independence from Spain, two important ranchers of the period, Augustin Machado and Felipe Talamantes, were given permission to graze their cattle on the land by the river’s estuary, which was named Rancho La Ballona. In 1839 they were granted the rancho in perpetuity by the Mexican Government.

By that time big changes were afoot that, for once, hadn’t been created by man, but by nature. In 1825 dramatic storms had caused the Los Angeles River to burst its banks where it turned west, south of the Hollywood Hills and Elysian Park, so that it flowed straight down to what’s now Long Beach, the course that it follows to this day. This meant that the old watercourse gradually dried out and the forests and marshland began to disappear. Over the years the old estuary became a tidal saltwater lagoon, stretching for miles into what’s now LA’s Westside.

Descendants of Machado and Talamantes owned parcels of land in the Ballona until the end of the nineteenth century. By that point Los Angeles was growing rapidly and Santa Monica had become a seaside resort town for Angelenos and visitors, meaning that there was increased interest in what was by then what we would now call a tidal wetland (then it was simply a swamp).

Today we recognize the huge ecological value of this kind of eco-system. In those days, not so much. Even more ironically it was a well-known early environmentalist, Abbot Kinney, who ultimately came up with the plan – and financing – to destroy much of those pristine wetlands.

Abbot Kinney

Abbot Kinney was born in New Jersey, in 1850, as the scion of a wealthy and influential family. He came to Los Angeles in 1880, while on a round-the-world trip, and decided to visit a health resort in the San Gabriel mountains. Apparently, his asthma was cured overnight, and so he stayed.

In 1884 he married here, having met the daughter of a California Supreme Court judge and fallen in love with her seven months earlier. Sure enough they were soon blessed with a child in record time, just two months after the wedding.

Through purchasing a ranch in the mountains near Pasadena, which he named Kinnaloa, he became interested in matters of conservation, and he was instrumental in establishing what later became the Angeles National Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains. That in itself is a significant legacy, as the state park encompasses over a thousand square miles of virgin forest (it’s about the same size as Switzerland). I’ve often hiked there and it’s a wonderful natural asset for Angelenos wanting to escape the city.

Kinney Becomes Real Estate Developer

Kinney wasn’t done though, and in the 1890’s his attention turned to the fast-growing Southern California resort town of Santa Monica, where he would take the waters in the summer. Real estate development was one of the principal drivers of economic growth here at the time and he successfully developed several tracts in the area.

Subsequently he and his fellow investors purchased a substantial portion of the old Rancho Ballona. However, the practical difficulties of building housing in a marsh led to major disagreements amongst the investors. Eventually these issues were resolved, in 1898, with a good old-fashioned coin-toss. Kinney called it right, and with that won full ownership of the land from his partners. Over the next few years he would put his grand plan into action.

Venice of America Opens

Venice of America had its grand opening on July 4, 1905. Tens of thousands of people came from across the region to see it, and before long Venice was drawing between 50-100,000 visitors every weekend. It was a phenomenal success.

Why call it Venice? Well, Kinney had travelled to Europe in his youth, on a grand walking tour, and had fallen in love with the old-world charm of Venice, Italy. La Serenissima was also built on a marsh, so it’s not as crazy an idea as you might think.

However, Kinney gave full range to his imagination with this new-world version of the European classic. There were gondolas, whose gondoliers would serenade passers-by in Italian, a miniature railway to transport visitors around the resort, a racecourse, a huge amusement park and a full-size entertainment pier (like today’s Santa Monica Pier).

The architectural style of the larger, brick, buildings was drawn from Venice Italy’s Moorish and Renaissance influences and with the canals and gondoliers it would have had the feel of a Disneyland-type Venice.

The original waterways covered an area much larger than the present Canal Historic District. Ironically the present-day district wasn’t part of the initial development, it was constructed around 1910, as the Venice Canal Subdivision.

Also, as a purely residential part of the masterplan, the houses in the Subdivision weren’t designed in the Venetian style, meaning it doesn’t look the slightest bit like it’s Italian namesake, unlike the rest of the development.

Having noted the ecological destruction that resulted from creating Venice, it’s only fair to point out that the development itself would be considered sustainable, in many ways, by today’s standards. Visitors would arrive by train or streetcar from downtown and use the miniature railway, pedestrian paths or gondolas to get around. Residents could keep their own boats for transport.

Cars were few and far between in LA in those days and there was no place for them in the masterplan.

Venice and Hollywood

In February 1914 a young actor called Charles Chaplin, who’d only just arrived in Los Angeles a few weeks earlier, came to the racetrack to shoot a movie called Kid Auto Races at Venice. The five-minute one-reeler was improvised in front of a crowd of actual race spectators.

It was the very first appearance of the iconic Tramp character on celluloid and the film was a huge success, Almost immediately the producers were being contacted by their theatrical distributors, demanding more Chaplin movies, and he’d become the first global megastar.

Venice LA in the 1920’s

Kinney died in 1920 and then, a few months later, the pier was destroyed in a fire. His son immediately rebuilt it though and other entrepreneurs, like Charles Lick, built their own amusement piers nearby, so these twin disasters were far from terminal for his project.

Indeed, Venice LA had its busiest years in the mid 1920’s, but by that time there were major issues developing, with the canals already needing repairs, and the water and sewage systems starting to fall apart, necessitating costly remediation work. Because of this, in 1926, the residents voted to merge with the city of Los Angeles to get the financial assistance necessary to deal with these, and other, issues.

Changes to the Neighborhood

By that point Los Angeles, which had been no less than fourteen miles away when Venice opened, had reached the sea and the car was becoming king in California. There was a battle between business owners and homeowners about what to do with the canals, which were badly in need of renovation work by that point, and the fact that there was no roads or car parking.

Ultimately, in 1929, most of the canals were filled and replaced by streets, leaving just the six canals that we have today. 

As if to remove all evidence of this crime many canal names were changed when transformed into streets. Aldebaran Canal became Market Street, Coral Canal turned into Main Street and Venus Canal was renamed San Juan Avenue. Only Grand Canal retained its former name, becoming Grand Avenue.

I’ve often wondered if a young filmmaker called George Lucas knew some of this hidden history when he named the planet that is Alderaan, in Star Wars. The streets where the Pacific Electric streetcars ran became, appropriately, Pacific and Electric Streets.

Nevertheless, Venice LA’s watery memory lived on and it’s hard to believe that someone like Walt Disney wouldn’t have visited in the years after he arrived in Los Angeles, in 1926, drawing inspiration from it, while planning Disneyland (which opened in 1955).

I Made a Quick GIF Overlay of the Original Venice Canals vs Google Maps
byu/IHatePho inLosAngeles

Oilrush in Venice

Just as the era of the entertainment park that Venice had originally been was ending a new boom was starting: a black goldrush. In 1929 a large oilfield was discovered beneath it, and within a few years there were nearly five hundred oil wells covering the neighborhood.

Hydrocarbon extraction continued for decades, but by the 1960’s most of the oil had been drained and nearly all of the wells have now been capped.

Venice Counterculture in 1960’s and 70’s

During the 1960’s Venice became an important center of the counter-culture, as it was transforming from the Beat generation of the previous decade to the anti-Vietnam War Hippie movement of the era. Mainly that was because the city neglected the area and therefore rents were very cheap. In fact to this day Venice LA has one of the highest residential percentages of Vietnam Veterans in LA County.

It does also have one of the highest percentages for divorced and never-married men and women – so perhaps a good place to hang out if you’re single?

Venice Los Angeles Today

It can sometimes feel like LA has two equivalents to New York’s Times Square: Hollywood and Highland and Venice Boardwalk. The boardwalk is very popular with visitors, but the neighborhood reaches three miles inland and one of its biggest attractions (for Angelenos), Abbot Kinney, is a couple of miles from the beach. The remaining canals are also several blocks from the boardwalk, and make for a beautiful walk.

The cheap rents are unfortunately long gone, and most of Venice is pretty upscale now, but it’s still well worth visiting – if you know where to go and what to do.

Our Recommendations

Most visitors to Venice LA head to the boardwalk, and there are a number of things to check out there – Muscle Beach, the skateboard park and hard courts (the official 3×3 basketball games will be played here when the Olympics come to town in 2028) – but there are plenty of other nooks and crannies to explore, if you venture off the beaten track.

1. SANTA MONICA & VENICE BIKE TOUR

Every day at 10 am we have a bike tour of Santa Monica and Venice. It starts in downtown SaMo and takes the beach cycle path down to Venice, where we visit the canals and Abbot Kinney, before returning to the bike shop via Main Street.

We might be biased, but it really is a fantastic way to experience and learn about the neighborhood (and we have the reviews to prove it :-). Tickets are $75 pp, including bike rental. More information here.

2. MUSCLE BEACH AND VENICE BOARDWALK

The original Muscle Beach opened in 1934, just south of the Santa Monica Pier. In many ways it’s the birthplace of the personal fitness movement. From when it opened until well into the 1950’s it was more about acrobatics than what we would consider as pumping weights. Acrobatics were a popular entertainment in nightclubs and circuses, whereas weight training and bodybuilding were considered a freakish, even dangerously unhealthy, activity.

In 1952 a small training area opened a little north of today’s Muscle Beach in Venice LA. Then in 1959 the original Muscle Beach in Santa Monica closed. Muscle Beach arguably reached the peak of its fame in the 1960’s and 70’s, when people like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno (who played the Hulk on Television) and Stanley Tookie Williams (co-founder of the Crips Gang) were training there regularly. The reason Schwarzenegger particularly liked working out at Muscle Beach is that professional weightlifting is a spectator sport, and the setting of the gym by the boardwalk allowed for crowds to gather to watch the weightlifters put on a show every day.

The present gym opened in 1989 and was given the name Muscle Beach Venice, to distinguish it from the original. Day passes are $10-15 per person.

Near Muscle Beach is the famous Venice Sign. There’s a great mural on the same street, of the classic movie Touch of Evil (with Orson Welles and Charlton Heston). The famous opening tracking shot was filmed on the streets here, hence the location of the mural.

Right behind the boardwalk, on N Venice Boulevard is James Beach, a great local restaurant that turns into a nightclub after 11 pm. Further into the heart of Venice is Baja Cantina, on Washington Boulevard, a nice neighborhood bar with free chips and salsa and a good in-house Thai restaurant.

3. ABBOT KINNEY BOULEVARD

Renamed in honor of Venice Los Angeles’ founder in 1990 Abbot Kinney is close to a must-see when visiting the area. It has been described as “the coolest street in America” and it definitely has a laidback Westside charm all of its own.

Its collection of independent shops, bars and restaurants is really good too, giving it a much more authentic feel than many other shopping districts. Some say Gjelina has the best coffee on the Westside and Salt & Straw have some wonderful ice-cream.

Not far from Abbot Kinney on Venice Boulevard is 26 Beach Restaurant, which is a great spot for brunch.

4. VENICE CANAL HISTORIC DISTRICT

The only reason these canals still exist is because no one could agree on who should foot the bill for filling them, the owners or the City of Los Angeles! Still, thank God they did survive, its one of the most beautiful spots in Los Angeles. Who would have thought that waterfront property could be so valuable?

Although it seems incredible that the streets in the area are in such bad condition, it kind of adds to Venice LA’s charm that it isn’t pristine, like Beverly Hills.

5. BINOCULARS BUILDING

One of the famous architect Frank Gehry’s earliest designs that actually made it into bricks and mortar (or more accurately concrete, steel and glass). Designed for a marketing company and opening in 1991, it’s now occupied by Google. Gehry later went on to design the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown.

The binoculars themselves are a separate artwork, which flanks the parking entrance, and would seem to signify the ability of the company to look far ahead into the future, and see emerging trends.

6. MAIN STREET, SANTA MONICA

Clearly not in Venice LA itself, but neighboring Santa Monica, Main Street is nevertheless only about ten minutes walk north of Abbot Kinney Boulevard, so more than close enough for an inclusion on this list.

Like Abbot Kinney there are a lot of independent shops and nice bars and restaurants and it’s a must see and do, if you have time to explore the area (pound for pound it’s probably the best part of Santa Monica to explore and have fun).

This map is interactive. To open in Google Maps click the icon in the top right corner.

If you have any feedback on Venice: LA’s Seaside Neighborhood please email us or reach out on social media, we’d love to hear from you.

– By Damien Blackshaw (Twitter)