welcome to ghost Town
THE VENICE BEACH YOU HAVEN’T HEARD ABOUT
Before Dogtown, there was Ghost Town, home for the workforce that built Venice.
Restrictive covenants and redlining, backed by the Ku Klux Klan, shaped this diverse community, which sacrificed space for a park and the First Baptist Church, a spiritual beacon since the ‘50s.
Fast forward to the ‘90s, where the area was ground zero for gang wars between the Shoreline Crips and the Venice 13. If Families survived the violence, they were torn apart by LAPD harassment and the gang injunctions that followed.
Then came the latte-sipping, dog-walking gentrifiers, and the dawn of the new battle.
In Ghostown, you will find Oakwood Park; the home of VBFC’s grassroots youth program and the center of the VBFC story.The park is like Bruegel painting, a myriad of narratives rippling with kaleidoscopic detail and life. Retired Shoreline Crips, leftovers from the gang wars of the 90’s play backgammon in at haze of weed at one end of the park while Nannies push prams full of white babies across the lumpy grass at the other while the parents lunch on Abbot Kinney Blvd nearby.
Black Lives Matter banners hang from the shuttered windows of the First Baptist Church, a final and seemingly futile protest against the corrupt sale of the property to the billionaire Penske family, who want to convert it into a single-family home.
The VBFC youth train on the patchy and unplayable grass while the gentrifiers dogs, the new symbols of privilege, defecate on the field and with alarming frequency, bite the kids.
The coaches argue in vain with the entitled owners who ignore their pleas, oblivious to the area's history and the signs that explicitly say"NO DOGS".
VENICE
HIGH
Venice High School, a factory of adolescent uncertainty.
Home of the Wolf Pack, the girls' soccer team, this famous institutions halls are teeming with students from all walks of life.
Venice High is a microcosm of the ever-changing landscape. Here, the struggles of long-standing residents intersect with the aspirations of newcomers, creating a tension-rich tapestry of stories and experiences.
ESTADIO DE DOGTOWN
The boardwalk is a beautiful mess, a circus of lost souls. The smell of piss and cheap booze mingles in the sea breeze. Right next to the homeless are the selfie-snapping tourists, the surfers, the skaters, and thieves.
And at the end of each day, the sunset over the ocean is like a fifty-cent postcard, a moment of pure magic in the madness.
Every Sunday, VBFC hosts its world-famous pickup game on the Venice Boardwalk, Locals call the court the Estadio De Dogtown and the game is as important to the adult community of VBFC as OAKWOOD is to its youth.