Growing Up Venice: Parallel Universes

Venice California is unlike anywhere else in the world. Historian Donna Lewis Friess Ph.D. grew up on the ocean front in Venice in the midst of Californias 1940s oil boom. Her next door neighbor a working oil pump-house complete with derrick was a constant in her life. Determined to bring a lost piece of Los Angeles history to life and sequestered by the 2020 Worldwide Pandemic and following lock-down Donna offers this vibrant story of a remarkably idiosyncratic place in America. While honoring the Indigenous People who once lived on its shores this history begins with her great grandparents late 1880s arrival in Venice Beach travels through Abbot Kinneys magical Venice-of-America years continues across time to its evolution as an artists Mecca and concludes with the newer Venice ethos as Silicon Beach.