Venice Beach wasn’t always the hippie-stoner-backpacker-whateverdude area it is today. Not long after the turn of the century, Abbott Kinney built it as a pleasure destination where refined Angelinos could take the streetcar all the way to the seaside and partake of all manner of diversions. And, if one got terribly carried away, one might even dip ones toes in the ocean . . . but only of you were daring enough to flash some ankle. (At the back of this photo, you can see the masts of Baron Long’s Ship Café, which is featured in an earlier photo in this album.)