Dogtown Ink

It’s not every neighborhood where you can mount gargoyles and cloven-hoofed figures all over your house without having the local home owners association up in arms.

This strange “gothic” divertissement next to another (the Morrison Hotel) is hardly Notre Dame de Paris, but as boardwalk kitsch goes (okay, it’s 100 feet off the boardwalk across Speedway), it’s a gargoyle giggle.

Westminster Ave
Venice, California

1987 by Frank Gehry

A mixed-use complex designed by architect Frank Gehry in the 1980’s to incorporate original structures on the site, including a former ice company warehouse. The retrofitted warehouse is now home to Edgemar Center for the Arts.

2415-2449 Main Street
Santa Monica, California

1991 by Frank Gehry

The binoculars, which one drives between to the parking garage, are by Claes Oldenburg. They house meeting rooms.

340 Main Street
Venice, California

2006 Jennifer Siegal OMD Office of Mobile Design

Venice, CA 90291

This historic stretch of Santa Monica beach — the original Muscle Beach — was the epicenter of the American fitness movement in it’s salad days. Now it’s a veritable cornucopia of sturdy exercise apparatuses and playground equipment. There are balance beams, chinning bars, rings and ropes. The padded play/workout areas are nice, too. There’s also gobs of playground equipment and mock rocks for children to play on, and you’ll generally see plenty of kids here going bonkers (under the watchful eyes of parents and teachers).

A “replica” of the historic Venice trestle sign hangs over Windward Avenue just west of Pacific. Welcomed back in 2007 to the spot where the original hung almost a century ago, the boxy letters V-E-N-I-C-E again light up the “downtown” Venice night in welcome.

It’s not every neighborhood where you can mount gargoyles and cloven-hoofed figures all over your house without having the local home owners association up in arms.

This strange “gothic” divertissement next to another (the Morrison Hotel) is hardly Notre Dame de Paris, but as boardwalk kitsch goes (okay, it’s 100 feet off the boardwalk across Speedway), it’s a gargoyle giggle.