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Tobacco baron Abbot Kinney’s Venice of America development included casinos, a social club, an aquarium, a dance pavilion, an amusement pier, a shopping arcade and over two miles of canals surrounded by a miniature railroad, a boat house, a bath house and bathing lake, and other attractions that attracted Angelenos who arrived on the Red Car trolleys for over 30 years, but after Kinney’s death in 1920, the “Coney Island of the Pacific” began to deteriorate and many of the canals, which formerly offered gondoliers brought in from Venice Italy, were filled in to create roads in 1929. The currently existing canals were built to the south and linked up with Kinney’s Grand Canal and were called the Short Line Canals after the interurban Venice Short Line Railroad. These six canals are the only remnants of the original canal system to survive today. Kinney’s canals are Venice streets: Coral Canal is Main St., Grand Canal is Grand Ave., Altair Canal is Altair St., etc.

Universal Studios was founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle and partners as a vertically integrated company in New York to produce, distribute and exhibit motion pictures and avoid paying Edison for his processes. Laemmle bought out his partners and moved the operation to Los Angeles, forming Universal City Studios in 1915, the oldest studio in the US and the fourth oldest in continuous operation in the world. Laemmle financed all of his own productions, which occasionally caused problems, but with the signing of the character actor Lon Chaney in the 1920s (Hunchback of Notre Dame and Phantom of the Opera), the studio became a major success. Laemmle was the only studio owner who opened his studio to tourists, and the Universal Studios Tours have been a major Hollywood attraction ever since.

Solvang was founded in Santa Barbara County by a group of Danes in 1911 on 9000 acres of the Mexican land grant of Rancho San Carlos de Jonata to create a Danish colony and avoid the brutal Midwestern winters. The town features windmills and Danish Provincial architecture as well as shops with Danish and other European antiques and collectibles, arts and crafts, food, pastries, wines, etc. There is a half-size copy of the Little Mermaid statue from Copenhagen harbor atop a rock in the center of town, a museum dedicated to Hans Christian Andersen, and many other attractions.

Don Lee’s station (W6XAO) aired the first documented television news coverage (1933 Long Beach Earthquake) and the first Soap Opera (Vine Street), but since at the time television was limited to line of sight, large population areas in the San Fernando Valley were unable to receive his broadcasts, so in 1938 he purchased the 20 acres behind the Hollywood Sign from the Hollywoodland project developer and Mack Sennett (innovator of slapstick comedy and a famous silent film actor, director, producer and studio owner). Don Lee built a state-of-the-art broadcast studio and filming facilities, and at the time the world’s highest elevation transmission tower. After the end of World War II, Mount Wilson was determined to be a better location for broadcasting, and all three of the then-existing television broadcasters moved their towers. The current radio broadcast tower and the site atop Mount Lee are now operated by the City of Los Angeles.

Founded in Osaka in 593 by Prince Shotoku, Shitennoji is Japan’s oldest state administered temple. It has been destroyed by fire, typhoon, and war many times, but has been rebuild each time. The current structures are concrete with brackets and detailing molded to resemble the original wooden parts.

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