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Episode 5: Venice Beach ’81: Renters, Radicals & Stolen Telephone Poles
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Episode 5: Venice Beach ’81: Renters, Radicals & Stolen Telephone Poles
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In 1981, Venice Beach wasn’t a brand — it was a battleground.
In this episode, we dive into a remarkable broadcast from KPFK’s Up From the Ash Grove, capturing Venice, Los Angeles in the middle of a fight over who gets to live by the sea. Long before tech money and million-dollar bungalows, renters, artists, and local organizers were battling City Hall, building their own park from scavenged materials — including a few “acquired” telephone poles — and getting arrested to defend their community.
Featuring Ed Pearl, activist Carol Berman, and musician Uncle Bill Crawford, this sonic time capsule reveals a Venice that was gritty, defiant, and fiercely protective of its freedom — a place once described as “the backyard nobody wanted.”
From bulldozers and jailhouse art spaces to blues songs and civil disobedience, this is the story of Venice Beach before gentrification — told by the people who lived it.