Thursday, January 22, 2009

LA's Italian Canals

In 1905, most of the LA beaches were mere empty strips of sand and marshland. That same year, millionaire Abbot Kinny bought a sizable swath of oceanfront property, dug out several miles of canals and called it “Venice.” Kinny wanted the canals to resemble those of Venice Italy. The California bungalows build along the waterfront didn't exactly bear a resemblance to Venetian architecture, but the canals and bridges did. However, some of the commercial buildings held a basic Venetian theme, especially those on the corner of Pacific and Windward Avenue.

The B&W photo was taken in 1909.

Street Camping

4 comments:

Hilda said...

Fascinating information and archival photo. And I love how this colorful house looks! Very charming especially with those rowboats in front of it.

magiceye said...

makes for a very pretty picture!

abc said...

Another nice now and then theme. Top one pretty and bottom one peculiar. Great!

-K- said...

This is the most idiosyncratic part of town. Coincidentally, I just posted a night-time photo of this area yesterday.