Venice California: ‘Coney Island of the Pacific’ by Jeffrey
Stanton
Reviewed by Jim
Smith
This is the year for books about
Venice history. Although the Centennial is over, the books keep on coming. One
of the best is Jeffrey Stanton’s Venice California: Coney Island of the
Pacific. An earlier edition was published in 1978. However, this is no mere
reissue. The new edition has twice as much text and many more photos, than the
first edition. In addition, it has a hard cover and a sturdy binding.
Stanton’s publication is both a
coffee table book and an effort at a serious work of history. Although there are
no footnotes, and Stanton’s opinions and interpretations often show
themselves, nonetheless, it is obvious that a great deal of research went into
the book. A case in point is his treatment of the recent neighborhood council
dispute, in which Stanton, gets his main facts right, in contrast to another
book recently reviewed in the
Beachhead.
Jeffrey Stanton is without a
doubt Venice’s most visible historian. He can still be found on Ocean
Front Walk, plying his books and postcards, as he has since the 1970s. Stanton
is also Venice’s most controversial historians, ever since, he published a
cartoonish wall map of Venice, years ago, which unfortunately depicted a mugging
in Oakwood. Outrage quickly swept the community with Stanton being condemned as
either racist or insensitive to African-Americans. Still, the map continues to
grace many homes in Venice, often with a hole where the mugging was
depicted.
While the book ambitiously
covers more than 100 years of Venice history right up to the current free speech
controversy on Ocean Front Walk, it by no means gives equal treatment to all
decades. There is hardly any mention of the World War II years in Venice, and
much less about the Beats and the political movements that began in the 60s than
these two cultural shifts deserve. Personally, I’d rather have less about
Pacific Ocean Park and more about poets Stuart Perkoff, Tony Scibella, Frank
Rios, Philomene Long, John Thomas, and even Larry Lipton. A few pages about such
seminal Venice figures as John Haag, Rick Davidson and a legion of other feisty
Venetians from the 60s forward would have rounded out the
book.
In any case, for anyone
interested in Venice history, Coney Island of the Pacific, is a bargain at $50.
It can be obtained at Small World Books on OFW, and from the author himself on
the west side of the Walk.
There’s a website: http://naid.sppsr.ucla.edu/Venice
Posted: Thu - September 1, 2005 at 08:00 AM