from the Beachhead Archives: A TRIP THROUGH OAKWOOD
By Beth Miller
(exerted from Beachhead of July,
1988)
Last December I was put in touch
with Regina Hyman by a long-time Venice resident and friend who inspired me to
move here a couple of years ago. I wanted to get to know all parts of the
community, the way I once knew Berkeley.
It is hard for me to write about Oakwood,
as it is hard for me to write about the homeless, because of my fear that
anything I say will be interpreted as the arrogant musings of a middle-class
radical. Still, I was fascinated by Oakwood because of all the scary cliches (I
have two friends who live on Brooks who never notice any drug traffic.) People
talk about gangs and crime and
drugs.
In the 1920’s a small
Black (now called “Negro”) community that was centered north of
Electric Avenue between Westminster and San Juan Avenues, mainly employees of
Abbot Kinney, was established in Venice and grew with its expansion. So there
is a historic Negro section of Venice, the most striking monument of which may
be the Abbot Kinney residence itself. It was moved from its original site on
an acre of land to its present location at 1310 Sixth Avenue in the block
adjoining the public library in the late twenties. Kinney bequeathed this house
to Irvin Tabor, his long-time trusted chauffeur and personal assistant. Mr.and
Mrs. Tabor lived at that address for over forty years,and the house is still a
lovely and gracious residence. In short, I had a particular interest and was
grateful to Regina for showing me Oakwood from her point of
view.
One sunny winter afternoon, I
picked up Regina Hyman at her building near Broadway and Sixth. As we drove
around, John Haag, another long-time Venice resident, at the wheel, we passed
what is known as “the Reverend Holmes’ Church” several times,
the First Baptist Church. We also passed the Friendship Baptist Church, located
across from the Oakwood Wesley House on Broadway ( a place where help is offered
to the homeless in the form of food and shelter). In addition to the Reverend
Holmes’ church (the church Regina attends), the Body of Christ Church, the
Second Community Baptist Church,and the Bethel Church of God and Christ. Quite
a few churches for such a small
area.
We pass up and down streets with
small houses, many owner-occupied for many years, many of the owners Black.
Regina identifies the apartment buildings which are or were Black-owned and
informs me of the history of the government buildings put up by HUD in 1971 for
low-income residents.
When Regina first
came to Oakwood a decade ago, roosters crowed every morning, an acoustical treat
she had never experienced in New York City. One of her neighbors used to keep
chickens in his back yard. Another old gentleman on Seventh and Vernon fixes
cars and teaches young man from the area how to fix cars too. Indeed on his
block, I counted thirteen Hispanic boys working on cars. The pleasant house has
fruit trees standing on the corner, you think you’re in a small
town.
The small town is gradually
disappearing as a small town. the place where a nursery school used to be is
now one of many sites under construction. A sign on the structure of the future
apartment building says ”Beverly Hills Construction
Company.”
I see the spot where
the only grocery store in the Oakwood area used to be, fallen to a zoning
change. Now people have to walk quite a distance to buy a carton of milk or a
package of cigarettes. I notice buildings recently repainted and some apartment
buildings rehabbed. Regina points out a fancy building where a one-bedroom
apartment costs $900, just a few doors away from a dilapidated house. Venetian
diversity prevails in Oakwood.
She also
delights in showing me some of the newer esthetic oddities in the district, such
as the unusual building on San Juan Avenue near the corner of Sixth, created by
a German artist as both a dwelling place and studio. He hired unemployed
neighbors to work on the construction, but sculptures in the front yard are his
own work.
Sunset is a pleasant, quiet
street with many single-family houses. One big apartment building has greetings
of the season in Spanish spray-painted in white snowy stuff on all the windows
facing the street.The building seems clean and well-kept-up.There are people
looking out the windows smiling. I find it radiates a happy atmosphere. In any
case, it seems to me that the Hispanic ethnicity of Oakwood is on the rise,
certainly it is visible in the small commerce, such as shoe repair and small
appliance repair shops on Lincoln and food wagons on Rose. But there was a
Black community here before there was a Hispanic
one.
Abbot Kinney employed Blacks on
the staff of the Kinney Amusement Company and a small Negro ghetto, centered
north of Electric Avenue between Westminster and San Juan Avenues, began in the
1920s.
Kinney for years retained
Arthur Reese,one of the earliest Negro settlers in Venice, as his interior
decorator. It was Reese who decorated the famous Venice Dance Pavilion as an
indoor garden and designed the huge revolving ball with bits of mirror on its
surface, the kind of ball you see in movies of the period, with colored
spotlights turning the ball into a magical predecessor of rock-n’-roll
high-tech light shows.
Two hours pass
and we still haven’t exhausted the subject of community spirit or visited
Melvin Haywood, the man who tutors children for free at the old Venice Library
on California and Electric. I promise to return to chat with
him.
We drive west on Rose Avenue,
which is recently being referred to as the ”Rose Corridor,” and
notice the increase on the chicness scale as you approach Main Street. There
are a bunch of Latinos buying tacos at the Isla Bonita across from the Rose
Cafe, and it seems to me that there really are two Venices in sight here.
The contrast between rich and poor is
no less apparent in Venice than in Rio de Janiero. As I regard the street from
the Rose Cafe, the mixture of people passing by reminds me of crowds in Ipanema.
You can sit and have a beer at a cafe and watch the rich tourists mingling with
boutique shoppers, bohemians, and the homeless. We lament that certain groups
have been trying to move the Venice Free Clinic and Saint Joseph’s away
from Rose because, in their view, these establishments “attract a bad
element” to Venice. I don’t know exactly what the bad element is
that they’re referring to, perhaps the transients. As most Venice
residents know, for many years the Venice Free Clinic has been doing an
admirable job despite severe space limitations, as has Saint
Joseph’s.
Still, we are all aware
that there are real estate investors, agents, and developers who have vested
interests in the gentrification and “development” of our
city.
For the operators and
entrepreneurs, the historical preservation of Venice and of the community spirit
of Oakwood are minor considerations in their pursuit of personal
fortunes.
Posted: Fri - July 1, 2005 at 09:08 AM