This photo is undated, but I’d say it’s from the 1920s—mostly because everybody is dressed up in hats and coats and suits while at the beach. Something big was happening that day on those bleachers rigged up in front of the Venice Pier on Venice Beach. My guess is that it’s a swimsuit beauty pageant, but being the 1920s, there would have been more swimsuit to see than skin. In the background to the left we can see the word “SHIP” strung up high in the air between two masts. That was the famous Ship Café—famous because it wasn’t hard to get illicit booze during Prohibition at the place built in the shape of a Spanish galleon.