Once known as the 'slum by the sea', Venice Beach has undergone a reinvention
A friend from New York turned to me in horror the other day. "You live in Venice Beach?" I nodded, confused. He continued with a sneer: "Venice is great – if you're interested in determining the greatest junkie capital of the world, or finding the city in which a homeless woman is most likely to squat and piss next to your parked car."
Before I moved here, I too had images of Venice as a place composed of stagnant canals filled with needles, Muscle Beach populated by steroid-pumped Schwarzneggers, and perma-tanned stoned hippies rollerblading along the boardwalk. Doubtless, Venice's edgy legacy owes something to its chequered history – hippie locale of the 60s, junkie-central in the 70s, gun crime in the 80s, and the arrival of the crackheads in the 90s.
Every area of Los Angeles has something...
A friend from New York turned to me in horror the other day. "You live in Venice Beach?" I nodded, confused. He continued with a sneer: "Venice is great – if you're interested in determining the greatest junkie capital of the world, or finding the city in which a homeless woman is most likely to squat and piss next to your parked car."
Before I moved here, I too had images of Venice as a place composed of stagnant canals filled with needles, Muscle Beach populated by steroid-pumped Schwarzneggers, and perma-tanned stoned hippies rollerblading along the boardwalk. Doubtless, Venice's edgy legacy owes something to its chequered history – hippie locale of the 60s, junkie-central in the 70s, gun crime in the 80s, and the arrival of the crackheads in the 90s.
Every area of Los Angeles has something...
- 1/31/2010
- by Ruth Fowler
- The Guardian - Film News
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