![]() ![]() His interactive educational site covers the history of Venice Beach, California. Visit Don Westland’s website more on Venice History.Check out Venice of America page on Wikipedia.Check out Abbot Kinney’s page on Wikipedia.next door to James beach and the Canal Club, 60 North Venice Blvd. The Abbot Kinney mural by Rip Cronk is located on North Venice Blvd. And, why not take a selfie with Abbot Kinney himself and #VeniceBeachFun. Santa Monica: Designing a Pedestrian UtopiaĬheck out the best bars/restaurants in Venice, California and have a toast to our founder Abbot Kinney.Downtown: Gateway to the City of Angels.Venice: Life On The Edge – Tour guided by Venice skate legend Eric Tuma.Venice: Abbot Kinney’s Impossible Dream – Tour guided by Venice Paparazzi’s Edizen Stowell.Listen to a preview of the tour! Download the tour! With Kinney’s words, we will trace Venice’s wild origins, from its beginning as a devoted copy of the Italian original, to its modern incarnation where you’ll see that more than just a glimmer of Kinney’s dream lives on. And before the tours ends, you’ll discover the fate of Abbot Kinney’s vision for a city of canals as we walk through a waterfront American neighborhood unlike any other. Along the way, Edizen conjures Kinney’s imported singing gondoliers, the town’s popular miniature steam train, and the wildest roller coaster on the West Coast. You’ll see how what is today a car-packed traffic circle was once Kinney’s Grand Lagoon. Together, you’ll walk beneath the beautiful colonnades and Italian decor that still remains, and learn about Abbot Kinney’s network of tunnels below. What's happening in Venice Cheap Venice Hotelsįind the lowest prices on hotels for your stay at Venice First Fridays at Veniceīusinesses open their doors late on Abbot Kinney Blvd.On this Detour, longtime Venice photographer Edizen Stowell takes you back to 1904 to introduce you to Abbot Kinney himself - played by renowned character actor and resident Venetian, Orson Bean. It seems the police were persuaded to turn a blind eye to this arrangement, and this old saloon became the conduit through whereby the liquor came into Venice all through Prohibition. So after stocking his bar downstairs Menotti would run case lots of liquor across the street to the hotels. It's said that the local powers-that-be had an interest in seeing those hotels were stocked first-cabin, meaning with liquor. The north side of Windward Avenue was one solid wall of hotels, from Pacific Avenue to the Boardwalk, on the comer of which stood Kinney's cornerstone, the Saint Mark's Hotel. Menotti's people would bring the liquor through the tunnel and stock the downstairs speakeasy. Abbot Kinney's entire downtown Venice was serviced by those tunnels. From the base of the pier there was a big steam and utilities tunnel which ran through the basement of Menotti's Buffet. Caesar Menotti had liquor ships, mostly coming down from Vancouver, Canada, which would stand off beyond that three-mile limit and send small boats loaded with liquor underneath that pier. During the Prohibition years the territorial waters of the United States only extended three miles. ![]() Abbot Kinney established the Venice of America in 1904 to be a replica of Venice, Italy and be a cultural center of Southern California. ![]() In those days there was a huge pier here at the end of Windward Avenue called the Abbot Kinney Pier, much bigger than the Santa Monica Pier is today. The "connected" guy of Venice, Caesar Menotti, supplied the hotels of Venice with liquor during Prohibition through the secret tunnel network ![]()
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