Most photos of Venice Beach taken early in its life (the development opened in 1905) are kind of grainy, so a crisp shot like this one is a rare find. We can see Hotel St. Mark where Windward Avenue terminates at the boardwalk along the beach. By circa 1912, when this photo was taken, motorcars were making it easy to go to the beach for the day, so it’s good that Windward was so wide and could accommodate what would only become an ever-increasingly difficult fight for parking.