My hometown

[pjthompson]

Here's a fascinating short documentary on my hometown, Venice, California. I grew up in the Oakwood section, the slum, before it became gentrified and precious. It was a great multicultural way to grow up and I’m immensely grateful for it. I miss it.

If you watch it, the tracking shot from A Touch of Evil was filmed about two blocks north of where my roommates and I lived in the 80s. And there's a still shot of a ghetto child crouching near some railroad tracks in the Oakwood. I grew up about 3 blocks north of there.

I never felt "danger" until I left there.

https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/episodes/venice

Comments

[sartorias]

Fascinating! I lived there for a few years, not far from Rose in what was inappropriately called Ghost Town, when I worked at MGM (I used to ride my bike to the studio), and of course as a kid was driven through there every Saturday when we went to Topanga Canyon to visit my half-sister. The glimpse of POP up one of the streets . . . the murals . . . we didn't like the beaches because of the huge tar smears that would attach to our feet and were so hard to scrape off. But Venice itself was cool.

[pjthompson]

Oh yes, I remember that tar! I grew up on 4th between Rose and Sunset, right around the corner from the Pioneer French bakery, and on the backside of the Edgemar Dairy.

[sartorias]

Just a few blocks from where I lived!

[pjthompson]

It's a small world all right!

[rimturse]

Looks like a very interesting place. :)

[pjthompson]

It was. Alas, it's been taken over by the hipsters and money folks now.