Venice Beach

Episodes

Places worth stopping at

With the app in your pocket, you get a note about each one as you walk by.

• The canals7›

  • Grand Canal at Venice Boulevard: where the canals stop

    The canals end here. Everything north was filled in 1929–30 — Lion Canal is now Windward, Venus Canal is San Juan. You're standing at the edge of what survived.

  • Carroll Canal

    Look for the arched footbridge at Grand Canal Court — one of only two arches in the canals. The Holiday Boat Parade has started near here since 1983.

  • Eastern Canal & the arched Linnie Court bridge

    Nobody knows who dug Eastern Canal: it isn't on the 1905 map. The arched Linnie Court bridge over it is the other of the canals' two arches.

  • Linnie Canal

    Look down at the sidewalk: in 1992 surveyors still found the contractor's stamp 'A. Stutzer' here. Any still there on your walk?

  • Howland Canal

    These southern canals weren't Kinney's — first called the New Amsterdam Canals. Watch for herons and egrets; the water is about 5 ft deep mid-channel.

  • Sherman Canal & the Dell Avenue entrance

    The bank you see won a test here: two materials were tried at Sherman and Dell, and the Loffel block held. Its 55° slope lets birds and kids climb out.

  • Grand Canal

    Sea water feeds the canals through tidegates at Washington Boulevard — they open at low tide. The canals have been on the National Register since 1982.

• Kinney's Venice4›

  • Windward Circle: the lost lagoon

    This traffic circle was Kinney's lagoon. The 6-ft aluminium torso in the middle is Robert Graham's 'Venice Torso', installed in 2007.

  • The VENICE sign

    A 2007 replica of Kinney's 1905 sign. The Chamber of Commerce keeps it lit — you can adopt a bulb.

  • Windward Avenue arcades

    Look at the capitals: faces on Kinney's Venetian columns. The arcades once ran from the beach to the lagoon; these few survivors are a city monument.

  • Old City Hall & jail: Beyond Baroque and SPARC

    Venice's 1906 city hall, from when it was its own city. Now Beyond Baroque — where Exene Cervenka and John Doe met and formed X. Books Fri–Sat 12–18.

• Murals & public art6›

  • Abbot Kinney mural

    Rip Cronk's four-storey Abbot Kinney. Tobacco money built this town: Kinney got the marshy half of the land (by a coin toss, says legend) and opened Venice on 4 July 1905.

  • Murals at the foot of Windward

    Two big walls: Rip Cronk's 'Venice Kinesis' and Jonas Never's 'Touch of Venice', which restages 'Touch of Evil' — filmed on this street in 1958.

  • 'Declaration' by Mark di Suvero

    Two crossing V's of raw steel, just over 60 ft tall and 25 tons — Mark di Suvero's 'Declaration', here since 2001.

  • Venice Art Walls

    Painted legally since 2000, open weekends 10–17 only. The walls are all that remains of the 1961 Venice Pavilion, whose pit was a graffiti hotbed.

  • 'Morning Shot': the Jim Morrison mural

    Rip Cronk's 1991 Jim Morrison, repainted in 2012. The Doors started on a beach here in 1965, though Manzarek put the meeting just north, in Santa Monica.

  • Ballerina Clown

    Jonathan Borofsky's ballerina-and-clown in one figure. Its knee used to kick until tenants complained of the noise.

• Beach & pier3›

  • Venice Breakwater

    A surf spot built for a pier: Kinney's 1905 breakwater shielded his 1,600-ft pier and its galleon-shaped Ship Café. The pier burned in 1920.

  • Venice Fishing Pier

    Walk out about 1,300 ft on the 1960s pier: closed by storm damage, decay and a 2018 fire, and restored each time.

  • The rainbow lifeguard tower

    Painted for Venice Pride in 2017, and the county voted to keep the colours. The stretch is named for Bill Rosendahl.

• Muscle Beach & the courts3›

  • Venice Beach Skatepark

    Bowls shaped like empty pools — the skating the Z-Boys invented in the 1970s. Their shop was up Main Street, in Santa Monica.

  • Muscle Beach Venice

    Arnold, Lou Ferrigno and Franco Columbu trained here. A day pass is $10; closed on rainy days and city holidays.

  • Venice Beach courts: basketball & paddle tennis

    Some of the best streetball anywhere — this is the court of 'White Men Can't Jump' (1992). The 11 caged paddle-tennis courts are as famous.

• Houses & buildings3›

  • The Binoculars Building

    Drive between the lenses: cars enter the garage under Oldenburg and van Bruggen's binoculars, part of Frank Gehry's 1991 building for Chiat/Day.

  • Venice of America House

    A Late Victorian house of 1906, on the National Register. Cabrillo Avenue in front was one of Kinney's canals until 1929.

  • The walk streets: Marco, Amoroso & Nowita Places

    No cars: front doors face the footpath and the cars live in the alleys behind. The streets were too narrow for city sweepers, so they got a smaller one.

• Abbot Kinney1›

  • Abbot Kinney Boulevard

    Kinney's name only since 1990 — it was West Washington Blvd. The Eames Office stood at no. 901 from 1943 to 1988: the plywood chair and 'Powers of Ten' came from there.

• Synagogues2›

  • Pacific Jewish Center: the 'Shul on the Beach'

    The 'Shul on the Beach': a 1925 power station turned synagogue, the last of the boardwalk synagogues of the 1920s.

  • Mishkon Tephilo

    One of the two Venice synagogues still standing from the 1920s era — a city monument at 206 Main Street.

Walks

Start a walk in the app and put your phone away. It tells you when you reach each stop.

• Walk

  The canals loop

  7 stops · 1.4 km · 1 hr

  Round all six canals from the end of Grand Canal at Venice Boulevard, crossing the two arched footbridges and Dell Avenue's car bridges, and back up Grand Canal.

• Walk

  Ocean Front Walk: pier to Rose

  12 stops · 4.8 km · 1 hr 40

  The length of the boardwalk from the end of the Venice Pier to Rose Avenue: breakwater, Muscle Beach, the courts, Morrison, the art walls, the skatepark, the Shul on the Beach, ending under the…

• Walk

  Abbot Kinney & inland Venice

  5 stops · 2.5 km · 1 hr 20

  From the Binoculars on Main Street down Abbot Kinney Boulevard, a detour to a 1906 house on a filled-in canal, then out along Venice Boulevard to the old city hall and the walk streets.

• Walk

  Kinney's 1905 town

  8 stops · 1.3 km · 40 min

  From the founder's mural near the canals, over the buried lagoon at Windward Circle, under the VENICE sign and along the arcades to the beach where his pier stood.

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