View of Venice Grand Canal in 1930

Venice Has Come a Long Way Inspite of Its History of Exploitation and Abuse

1930s: Oil was discovered on the Venice Peninsula. Within a year, 148 oil wells were producing over 40,000 barrels of oil daily. Jobs were created, but environmental destruction was wide spread and polluting the surrounding residential area and beaches.  The Oakwood neighborhood of Venice, which lies inland a few blocks from the tourist areas, is one of the few historically African-American areas of the West Side (although since about 1980 Latinos have comprised the overwhelming majority of the residents). During the age of restrictive covenants that enforced racial segregation, Oakwood was set aside as a settlement area for blacks, who came by the hundreds to Venice to work in the oil fields during the 1930s and 1940s. © westland.net &  © wikipedia.org

1950s: The city of Los Angeles had neglected Venice so long that it had become the "Slum by the Sea" by the 1950s. With the exception of new police and fire stations in 1930, the city spent little on improvements since annexation. They didn't pave Trolley way (Pacific Avenue) until 1954 when county and state funds became available. Cheap rents for run-down bungalow housing attracted predominately European immigrants (including a substantial number of Jewish refugees from Hitler's death camps), and young counter-cultural artists, poets and writers. The "Beat Generation" hung out at the Gas House on Ocean Front Walk and at Venice West Cafe on Dudley where they held poetry readings and smoked dope. Police raids were frequent as they tried to rid the community of "undesirables." 

1960s: In 1961 the city in their misguided attempt at improving the community instituted a building code enforcement plan to bring all buildings up to city code. Many homes, built 50 years earlier, rested on sand with no foundations. But the city's real intent was to tear down all of Venice's 1600 structures and get rid of the recalcitrant hippie population. Banks wouldn't make loans for improvements, and owners had to pay for demolition. By 1965, one third of Venice's buildings, mostly in the historic district along the beach, were reduced to rubble before the city was stopped in court. Ironically Venice's slums in the (then) black-populated Oakwood section survived because it was last on the city's agenda, and the NAACP and the Peace and Freedom Party organized to protect the poor. The city's dream of building high rise hotels and apartments like Miami Beach was thwarted. Venice looked like it was bombed during World War 2 as little was rebuilt during the next decade.                                        

1970s:  During the 70's Venice was marked for slow growth as political groups with the help of the newly created California Coastal Commission managed to mount opposition to any project that would alter the character of the community. They felt that the poor had just as much right to live in Venice as the rich people who were buying property to develop. They realized that rapidly rising property values were on a collision course with the community's entrenched low-income population. The Venice Town Council's goal was to delay or at least scale down any project that might affect surrounding property values and the rents landlords charged. They preferred empty ugly lots and a general slum look if need be, anything but upscale development. However, what they didn't foresee was Venice's rebirth as a major tourist destination. 

1980s: Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, gunfire was heard in Oakwood on a nearly nightly basis due to the rivalry between the gangs after the Shorelines were run out of the Mar Vista Gardens housing project by the Culver City Boyz gang…As with many areas, though, gentrification caused by the Southern California real estate boom of the 2000s and gang injunctions have resulted in a significant decrease in gang activity, and the LAPD Pacific Division considers the Shorelines to be in rapid decline. © wikipedia.org

1990s:  Low-income housing advocates feared that the demise of project-based Section 8 housing would be catastrophic. L.A. had 30 landlords buy out of Section 8 mortgages. "Venice is one of the last places in the country where low-income people can live by the beach," said Larry Gross of the Coalition for Economic Survival in L.A. "We’re just barely holding on to HUD-assisted housing there. But soon it will all be over and become condo conversions. In general it’s a bleak picture. The policies that have been enacted and the direction we’re heading seem to spell disaster for low-income people."  People displaced from public housing and Section 8 added even more strain to the already tight affordable-housing markets. And their displacement from gentrifiable areas doubly helped the gentrifiers. Not only were Section 8 and public-housing units cleared for market rate units, but the removal of the undesirable poor residents instantly made the neighborhood "better" and more attractive to wealthy residents.  The racial element of the dismantling of public housing was impossible to ignore. Public housing activists charged that, with the vast majority of public housing residents being black and Latino, their high concentration in valuable areas was too much for city officials and developers to bear. As public housing disappeared, these minority residents scattered.   © LIP Magazine

Discovery of Oil in Venice by Paul Tanck (Excerpt from article found, appropriately, at: www.betsysellsvenice.com )
I´m sure by now, we all must have seen the few photos of the Venice peninsula in its forest of oil wells heyday…When I first came to Venice there was only one oil well that I was aware of, and it wasn´t even on the peninsula. It was right off the Ocean Front Walk, just south of Westminster Avenue. So out of place and ugly, right there on the sand, the famous south wall of the then nude beach. I remember a couple of towers rising above the cinder block walls, and I always wondered what different world existed within those confines.  And then sitting at the Sidewalk Café on a windy afternoon, the breeze would instantly remind me of what went on there, the stench of the oil industry. The acrid fumes billowed off the ocean from the well, swamping that inland section downwind. The smell was sometimes noxious.  That´s because oil was being pumped out of 11 wells located there, not the allowed number, (which according to the lease was) one.

From 1965, three years after the citizens of Venice vigorously objected to this proposed oil well right on the beach, until 1990, both the City of Los Angeles and the oil companies, who consecutively occupied the site (Socony Mobil, Stinnett and Damson) were in gross violation of the original contract. The unsightly oil derrick was camouflaged as a lighthouse and the area adjacent to the Venice Pavilion was landscaped.  From June 1966, the oil companies pumped 2000 barrels per day from the site for 25 years, with little or no interference from the residents and without ever paying a dime back to Venice.

Under the Coastal Tidelands Trust, it was obligatory upon the City of Los Angeles to divert royalties from oil exploitation (in this case, 16% of the gross) back into the area that was being exploited. The purpose of this obligation was to ensure that the areas being exploited would benefit. To this end, the Parks and Recreation Department assured the local citizens that the Venice Del Rey area would become the "epitome" of recreational and home improvement. Unfortunately the reverse was the case, as it so often is. Venice properties depreciated and stagnated for at least the next two decades while, at the same time, developers and speculators were afforded the perfect opportunity to cash in on some prime real estate which has, since, rapidly appreciated in value, becoming some of the most desirable in Los Angeles!    © Paul Tanck

"There is an ongoing demand for interesting and iconic images," said Chris Ahearn, the president of the Reuters media group. He said the agency had always bought newsworthy pictures from individuals and part-time contributors known as stringers. "This is looking out and saying, 'What if everybody in the world were my stringers?' " Mr. Ahearn said.  The project is among the most ambitious efforts in what has become known as citizen journalism, attempts by bloggers, start-up local news sites and by global news organizations like CNN and the BBC to see if readers can also become reporters. Many news organizations turned to photographs taken by amateurs to supplement coverage of events like the London subway bombing and the Asian tsunami. Yahoo's news division has already used images that were originally posted on Flickr, the company's photo-sharing site. For example, it created a slide show of images from Thailand after the coup there in September.
 
Camera phone videos are increasingly making news themselves. Michael Richards, the actor who played Kramer on "Seinfeld," was recorded last month responding to hecklers in a nightclub with racially charged epithets. The video was posted on TMZ, the celebrity news site. The Yahoo-Reuters project will create a systematic way to incorporate images covering a wider range of topics into news coverage. Starting tomorrow, users will be able to upload photos and videos to a section of Yahoo called You Witness News (news.yahoo.com/page/youwitnessnews). All of
the submissions will appear on Flickr or a similar site for video. Editors at both Reuters and Yahoo will review the submissions and select some to place on pages with relevant news articles, just as professional photographs and video clips are woven into their news sites today. "People don't say, 'I want to see user-generated content,' " said Lloyd Braun, who runs Yahoo's media group. "They want to see Michael Richards in the club. If that happens to be from a cellphone, they are happy with a cellphone. If it's from a professional photographer, they are happy for that, too."  

Possible Homeless Centers Identified
L.A. County reviews 14 drop-in sites to find 5 that could become full-service shelters.
By Cara Mia DiMassa and Richard Winton   Times Staff Writers      April 6, 2006

Los Angeles County officials are trying to determine whether any of 14 small drop-in centers for homeless people can be converted to the five regional facilities being established as the county attempts to move services for transients out of downtown.  The facilities are in communities across Los Angeles County, including Pasadena, Long Beach, North Hollywood, El Monte, Santa Monica, Venice, West Covina and Glendale. While the use of existing centers might be more politically palatable to local communities, officials acknowledged that the facilities would have to be dramatically expanded to house both shelter beds and a variety of social services.

"We know we are going to deal with the NIMBYism," said Orlando Ward, director of public affairs for the Midnight Mission and a member of the advisory panel that drafted the county plan. "The poison pill is the community input process. Especially when a neighborhood is not very excited about the whole plan, let alone stabilization centers."    

"We will all take our fair share of responsibility," said Los Angeles Councilman Bill Rosendahl, whose district includes the potential Venice site. "With Santa Monica and Los Angeles, we do have a substantial number of homeless…. It would be great if we could locate one that would work for the Westside."   In approving the plan, the Board of Supervisors vowed that the five centers would be built "in cooperation with" local government but expressly rejected a proposal by Supervisor Don Knabe to give cities veto power over the projects.  Some officials involved in the county plan remain optimistic that they can find five sites acceptable to the surrounding communities.   "We are not talking about building a new building," said Joel Roberts, chairman of the county committee and the chief executive of People Assisting the Homeless. "Personally, I don't think it's as hard as people say it is."    more

(Apparently they’re still tryin’ and talkin’ but so far, nothing has been done in Venice since this article appeared in the Los Angeles Times in April, 2006. Bill Rosendahl’s latest words on the subject as of 12/07/06 “Homelessness is a decades-old problem and demands immediate action. The magnitude of this social crisis is truly shameful. We must do more. Our brothers and sisters should not be without a basic necessity of life - shelter.”  DUH!  (Editor)