Abbot Kinney, the man who conceived the huge “Venice of America” project on what we now know as simply “Venice Beach,” also built a vast amusement pier, which he opened in 1905. It featured an auditorium, dance pavilion, fun house, roller coaster, tea garden, aquarium, roller rink and a bowling alley (among other attractions.) Unfortunately, it all came to an end just before Christmas of 1920 when a fire broke out and consumed the whole thing. But before that, someone went up in an airplane and took this marvelous shot of the pier. Equally interesting is seeing how beyond the canals development, the land was pretty much empty. That’s certainly not the case anymore!
As we can see from this May 2022 satellite photo, every square inch of that land is now filled in.
Looking at the second photo, I can actually see the two commercial buildings just east of the intersection of Venice and Abbot Kinney Boulevards where I rented a space that my band used as a rehearsal and recording studio from 1993 to 2015, when Snapchat bought it. I think the only thing that remains from the earlier photo is the canal that lies a couple blocks west of our studio. It could almost be an entirely different planet.