It looks like it might be a good idea to update this topic and move a couple pf miles south to the new Muscle Beach in Venice, Ca.
This location also has a very interesting history which may be of interest to some of you GetBiggers, but I'll be needing a lot of help to fill in the historical blanks between the 1950's through the present.
So let me start this off by doing my best to recall how the beach scene from Santa Monica to Venice was back in them good old days and how it gradually evolved into the circus as we know it today.
Here goes ....
Back before I arrived on the scene, Venice wads a small beach town with CANALS, some of which are still there today. It was the part of Los Angeles where many old time movie stars resided and even Charlie Chaplain had a home right on the beach where he hosted many elaborate parties. And it's still there but it's now used to sell tourist crap, hot dogs, hamburgers, and lemonade.
When I arrived in the 1950's Muscle Beach was still in Santa Monica. My first visit was during an overcast midweek morning and a sole bodybuilder by the name of Doug STROHL was in the pit lifting heavy rusted dumbbells and complaining about the weather.
A few years later I realized that the sun rarely shone on Muscle Beach before 11:30 AM and I think it's still the same today, but back then there was no such thing as smog, nor traffic, nor parking meters, nor lots of other stuff that causes us to complain so avidly today.
But even early in the morning you could hear the Merry Go Round music coming from the Santa Monica Pier less than a 100 yards north of this "pit" with the rusty dumbbells and barbells and rickety wooden benches.
So you always had the Merry Go Round music playing in the background while you did three or four sets of eight to twelve reps for every body-part while inhaling the salt air coming from the lapping waves less than 40 yards away.
During these early week-day mornings, it was a quiet and relaxing workout environment that has been seldom seen since them good old days.
But on the weekends, all hell broke loose and Muscle Beach became one of the major hectic area within the Los Angeles basin.
It turned into a 'circus' with circus-type individuals doing circus type stuff and decent built guys and gals stood on shoulders as high as they could go while thousands of city-folk crowded around to get a better look at all the crazy stuff that was happening here on Muscle Beach.
On most weekends it got so crowded that it felt good to get away and head on south down the beach by way of the electric tram that started a the Santa Monica Pier and ended at a somewhat deserted spot called Venice Beach roughly two miles down the coast.
More to follow ....