Abbot Kinney founded Venice in 1905, and its boardwalk remains one of the world's most theatrical public spaces. Venice was founded in 1905 by tobacco millionaire Abbot Kinney, who dredged miles of canals through the marshes of the Pacific coastline, built miniature replicas of Venetian architecture, stocked the canals with gondoliers imported from Italy, and hoped to create a cultural resort city. The canals are still there a few blocks inland, quieter now and lined with houses rather than tourist attractions.
The beachfront, which Kinney filled with a pier, a miniature railroad, and a Venetian-themed amusement area, evolved into the boardwalk you see today. By the 1950s Venice was a center of the Beat Generation — Lawrence Ferlinghetti and other poets read at the Gas House coffeehouse, and the beatnik became the dominant figure on the boardwalk. In the 1970s it became the home of Muscle Beach and the outdoor bodybuilding culture that produced Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Today the boardwalk is a permanent carnival: street performers, skateboarders, vendors, artists, bodybuilders, tourists, and residents all sharing the same strip of concrete above the sand. Walk south toward the skate park; the energy is unlike anywhere else in the city.