Tiki Central / Locating Tiki / Pacific Ocean Park, Venice, CA (other)
Post #482005 by JOHN-O on Mon, Sep 7, 2009 8:54 PM
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JOHN-O
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Mon, Sep 7, 2009 8:54 PM
It's too bad most of the links in the older posts are dead. Here's a current YouTube video that has a nice overview of POP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ7yugaQF-0 The UCLA link has since moved to this new location: http://www.westland.net/venicehistory/articles/pop.htm All of the source material was taken from a book "Venice California, Coney Island of the Pacific" written by Jeffrey Stanton. This encyclopedic book contains an entire chapter devoted to POP. The 1987 first edition has been out-of-print for some time. I actually ran into Stanton at an unrelated video screening a few years ago saying I've been looking for a copy. He answered "No one cares about my book" but proceeded to pull an updated 2005 copy out of his backpack. It's since been made available via this seller: http://www.hennesseyingalls.com/hennessey/product.asp?pf_id=PAAAAAHMLOIBCPCL Or this site: http://www.westland.net/venicehistory/articles/bookstore.html This is an amazing book covering the history of piers that existed in both Venice and Santa Monica from the turn of the century through the 1970's. There's also a website devoted to POP memories (which is not reliable for always being up). POP was built on top of the original Ocean Park Pier in 1957. If anyone wants to see what the pier (and carnival) were like prior to POP, it was featured in a 1950 film noir "Quicksand" starring Mickey Rooney. This movie also shows the fishing pier (which is now the existing SM Pier at the end of Colorado Ave). It's a great time machine back to the early days of Samo. I live a few blocks away from where POP used to stand. It's hard to believe this massive amusement park used to exist since there is no evidence it was ever there. In its place are luxury condos and bare sand. I understand some metal pilings still exist beneath the surface of the water. Who knows, maybe some of the original Tikis of Mystery Island lie at the bottom of the ocean, waiting for Tiki archaeologists to discover them using scuba gear. My mother claims she and my father took my sister and me to POP back in 1966. I have no memory of this and they never bothered to take any pictures. She also claims we visited Danny Balsz's THE TIKIS (BOT pg 107) in Monterey Park since we lived in nearby Rosemead but I can't remember this either. :( [ Edited by: JOHN-O 2009-09-09 21:45 ] |