{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/0c4sj1c018/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["William McNally, 6/29/2022"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["William McNally (aka Sweet William) is an amateur historian and author of \"Venice of America: The American Dream Come True\" (1976)."]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["6/29/22 at 12:00 PM"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["Name of interviewee, date; The Venice Heritage Museum Oral Histories Project; Venice Heritage Museum, Los Angeles, CA."]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © 2024 Venice Heritage Museum"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["MP4"]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["OH_056"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Beach"]}},{"label":{"en":["Access Ss"]},"value":{"en":["access_public"]}}],"summary":{"en":["William McNally (aka Sweet William) is an amateur historian and author of \"Venice of America: The American Dream Come True\" (1976)."]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © 2024 Venice Heritage Museum"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/224/829/small/William_McNally.jpg?1713990060","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119609/file/224829","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - William_McNally.mp4"]},"duration":555.79733,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/224/829/small/William_McNally.jpg?1713990060","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119609/file/224829/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119609/file/224829/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-veniceheritagemuseum.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/224/829/original/William_McNally.mp4?1713562626","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":555.79733,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119609/file/224829","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119609/file/224829/transcript/67704","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Bill McNally Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119609/file/224829/transcript/67704/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"00:00:05:02 - 00:00:07:09\n \r\rWilliam McNally,\n\n00:00:07:11 - 00:00:09:05\nEvanson.\n\n00:00:09:05 - 00:00:13:23\nI have two names because I had two fathers.\n\n00:00:14:01 - 00:00:16:04\nBorn in 1939.\n\n00:00:16:04 - 00:00:21:21\nShortly after I moved to Los Angeles in 1961.\n\n00:00:21:23 - 00:00:25:20\nI had decided\n\n00:00:25:22 - 00:00:27:05\nthat the New Frontier\n\n00:00:27:05 - 00:00:31:01\nwas for me,\rand I was leaving San Bernardino, where\n\n00:00:31:01 - 00:00:35:08\nI was a railroad switch man\rand moving my seniority to L.A.,\n\n00:00:35:10 - 00:00:40:11\nso I could be part of President Kennedy's\rNew Frontier Movement,\n\n00:00:40:13 - 00:00:44:07\nand decided after Kennedy gave his peace\n\n00:00:44:07 - 00:00:49:02\nspeech in ‘63 to join the Peace Corps\rand to go abroad\n\n00:00:49:04 - 00:00:53:02\nto help with this effort of\n\n00:00:53:04 - 00:00:55:14\na peaceful revolution in South America\n\n00:00:55:14 - 00:01:02:00\nwith the Kennedy's Alliance for Progress\rProgram, which had billions of dollars.\n\n00:01:02:02 - 00:01:06:01\nBasically, there's this whole push for peace.\n\n00:01:06:03 - 00:01:08:17\n‘63, ’64, then Kennedy gets killed.\n\n00:01:08:17 - 00:01:12:12\nBut that really didn't\rchange the desire for peace,\n\n00:01:12:14 - 00:01:15:23\neconomically speaking,\rwhere the poor were being crushed.\n\n00:01:16:01 - 00:01:20:20\nAnd Kennedy had made these desires to\n\n00:01:20:22 - 00:01:21:23\nchange things,\n\n00:01:21:23 - 00:01:24:18\nchanged the type of way\rthe government did business\n\n00:01:24:18 - 00:01:29:02\nwith its defense industry and so forth.\n\n00:01:29:03 - 00:01:32:14\nSo when I came back from the Peace Corps,\rI wanted to stay in this work\n\n00:01:32:14 - 00:01:38:02\nthat I'd been trained in which was to\r “this was about when?”  ‘64 I went in\n\n00:01:38:02 - 00:01:41:22\n‘66 I came out  “ok so ‘66, ’67 is what you are talking about?”  \rRight. \n\n00:01:41:22 - 00:01:43:16\nSo I get a job,\n\n00:01:43:16 - 00:01:46:20\nI wanted to be a Peace Corps training\rand I did a Peace Corps\n\n00:01:46:20 - 00:01:53:12\ntraining thing in University of Missouri, in the summer of ‘66.\n\n00:01:53:14 - 00:01:55:14\nBut the UCLA team didn't want me,\n\n00:01:55:14 - 00:01:59:00\nso I took another job,\rwhich was with Extension Division,\n\n00:01:59:00 - 00:02:04:04\nto create classes and conferences\rfor businessmen.\n\n00:02:04:06 - 00:02:06:15\nNow, this was not at all what I wanted,\n\n00:02:06:15 - 00:02:10:00\nbut it was a job that was\n\n00:02:10:02 - 00:02:11:19\nleading into adult education,\n\n00:02:11:19 - 00:02:15:06\nwhich was really where community action\ris going to end up,\n\n00:02:15:06 - 00:02:17:13\nit's going to be with adults.\n\n00:02:17:13 - 00:02:21:00\nSo the University of California\rstarted a statewide program\n\n00:02:21:00 - 00:02:23:18\nat its six University of California campuses,\n\n00:02:23:18 - 00:02:26:02\nI think there's ten now, maybe eleven.\n\n00:02:26:02 - 00:02:28:15\nAnd in that they decided\n\n00:02:28:15 - 00:02:32:00\nto have action on each campus.\n\n00:02:32:04 - 00:02:36:16\nAnd I got the job to lead the point\rat UCLA.\n\n00:02:36:21 - 00:02:39:15\nWe made the argument that it would be better\rif UCLA is going to get in bed\n\n00:02:39:15 - 00:02:40:09\nwith somebody,\n\n00:02:40:09 - 00:02:44:14\nthat we get in bed with somebody close by,\rsomebody who where students live.\n\n00:02:44:16 - 00:02:50:08\nAnd it was a multiracial community\rbecause it was a poverty community.\n\n00:02:50:10 - 00:02:51:22\nWhy was it a poverty community?\n\n00:02:51:22 - 00:02:56:22\nIt had been a city,\rbut the city got raped and destroyed.\n\n00:02:57:00 - 00:02:59:13\nAnd so it was nothing but a slum.\n\n00:02:59:13 - 00:03:02:09\nThe landlords\rdidn't put any money into the property.\n\n00:03:02:09 - 00:03:07:07\nAnd poor blacks lived in Oakwood,\rwhich was kind of like a safe zone,\n\n00:03:07:12 - 00:03:11:15\nsenior Jewish citizens lived here.\n\n00:03:11:16 - 00:03:18:09\nAnd the short answer to why so many lived\rhere is they were socialist Jews\n\n00:03:18:11 - 00:03:21:03\nfrom Europe, that was the Venice\rJewish community.\n\n00:03:21:03 - 00:03:22:12\nMan they had lots of synagogues.\n\n00:03:22:12 - 00:03:24:13\nI think at one point\rthey may have had five.\n\n00:03:24:13 - 00:03:27:07\nI decided that Venice was a perfect\n\n00:03:27:07 - 00:03:30:07\nexample of the melting pot of America.\n\n00:03:30:08 - 00:03:33:09\nAnd at the time\rwhat we had was a poverty place,\n\n00:03:33:09 - 00:03:36:14\nwe had no money,\rwe had no action, we had no reputation.\n\n00:03:36:16 - 00:03:39:15\nAnd these stories and books\n\n00:03:39:15 - 00:03:44:09\nthat started to get published\rin the seventies then led to what became\n\n00:03:44:11 - 00:03:49:21\nthis image of Venice, as a worldwide\rdiverse culture.\n\n00:03:49:23 - 00:03:51:23\nAnd in fact, when we\n\n00:03:51:23 - 00:03:55:10\nwere organizing the Venice City,\n\n00:03:55:12 - 00:03:57:20\nthe Venice Town Council,\n\n00:03:57:20 - 00:04:00:03\nthat was one of the things\rthat we were trying\n\n00:04:00:03 - 00:04:03:10\nto point out, that we had the blacks,\n\n00:04:03:12 - 00:04:08:16\nwe had the rich down in the Marina,\rwe had the beachfront hippies.\n\n00:04:08:18 - 00:04:11:03\nSo this a diverse community.\n\n00:04:11:03 - 00:04:16:04\nSo I got I got to\rI got to make the argument that\n\n00:04:16:06 - 00:04:21:06\nVenice's reputation today as this\rand I take it up to Snapchat\n\n00:04:21:10 - 00:04:24:10\nbecause I stopped thinking about Venice\rafter Snapchat.\n\n00:04:24:10 - 00:04:27:22\nBut up to that point,\rVenice was ... is considered.\n\n00:04:28:01 - 00:04:31:13\nI mean, I can't tell you how many ads\rfeature Venice.\n\n00:04:31:15 - 00:04:33:18\nWell, I mean, think about that.\n\n00:04:33:18 - 00:04:35:18\nThis is a community\n\n00:04:35:20 - 00:04:37:06\nthat car\n\n00:04:37:06 - 00:04:40:06\nmanufacturers\rall kinds of manufacturers of stuff\n\n00:04:40:10 - 00:04:44:18\ncome here, to put their product,\rwhat, at, you know, at Windward.\n\n00:04:44:19 - 00:04:50:02\nHey, hey, here we are\rselling bubblegum or cars or something.\n\n00:04:50:04 - 00:04:53:04\nSo I kind of think that all comes from\n\n00:04:53:04 - 00:04:56:03\nthat ‘70’s, ‘80’s, ‘90’s  push\n\n00:04:56:03 - 00:05:00:17\nto make Venice a respectable place, a\rknowledgeable place, and a diverse place.\n\n00:05:00:18 - 00:05:04:23\nThe Venice circus to me really operated\rdown there by Small World Books\n\n00:05:05:01 - 00:05:08:12\nand, and, and the restaurant,\rbecause that's kind of like\n\n00:05:08:12 - 00:05:12:05\nhad some of the oldest relics\rof the Kinney days.\n\n00:05:12:07 - 00:05:15:12\nThere was an old gas pump,\rand these were buildings\n\n00:05:15:12 - 00:05:19:02\nthat had actually been used by the Beats\n\n00:05:19:04 - 00:05:24:15\nwho came in in the early sixties.\n\n00:05:24:17 - 00:05:26:22\nAnd my God, you'd have\n\n00:05:26:22 - 00:05:30:19\nsinging groups, guitar players,\n\n00:05:30:21 - 00:05:31:16\ncomedians.\n\n00:05:31:16 - 00:05:35:19\nYou had all those, there was\ra guy who would tie himself up in a in a\n\n00:05:35:21 - 00:05:38:19\nin a what do you call it, a straightjacket.\n\n00:05:38:19 - 00:05:43:00\nAnd then he lay down\ron the goddamn ground, writhing\n\n00:05:43:02 - 00:05:45:07\nas he tried to get out of it.\n\n00:05:45:07 - 00:05:47:02\nAnd, you know, people were all in a row.\n\n00:05:47:02 - 00:05:51:13\nSo to me it was a real circus\rbecause I grew up in circuses as a kid.\n\n00:05:51:15 - 00:05:56:13\nI lived at Miami Beach, and that's\rwhere Ringling Brothers did their winter\n\n00:05:56:15 - 00:05:57:10\nthings.\n\n00:05:57:10 - 00:05:59:21\nMy parents even told me\rthat they found me at the circus,\n\n00:05:59:21 - 00:06:03:00\nI really wasn't born,\rso circuses were always big with me.\n\n00:06:03:00 - 00:06:08:22\nSo spread around as much as I could,\rstories that had Venice or California.\n\n00:06:09:00 - 00:06:12:05\nBut Venice was the most diverse\rplace in America.\n\n00:06:12:10 - 00:06:15:06\nVenice was the the American dream.\n\n00:06:15:06 - 00:06:19:07\nI even wrote a book called\r“The American Dream Come True”.\n\n00:06:19:09 - 00:06:23:18\nSo there was a lot of enthusiasm\rfor Venice's spirit.\n\n00:06:23:20 - 00:06:24:13\nIn fact oh, my God.\n\n00:06:24:13 - 00:06:28:19\nI can't tell you how many spirit\rdiscussions, stories,\n\n00:06:28:21 - 00:06:29:21\nthe spirit of Venice,\n\n00:06:29:21 - 00:06:33:11\nthe spirit  “Well what's your perspective\ron what the Spirit of Venice was then\n\n00:06:33:11 - 00:06:34:04\nand what it is?”\n\n00:06:34:04 - 00:06:38:11\nIt was acceptance of all\rand the thing that Abbot Kinney did\n\n00:06:38:13 - 00:06:42:11\nwas more remarkable\rthan most people realize.\n\n00:06:42:13 - 00:06:51:22\nHe created a city\rwhose sole purpose was entertainment.\n\n00:06:52:00 - 00:06:52:21\nThat's it.\n\n00:06:52:21 - 00:06:56:12\nI mean,\rthere's not another city in America.\n\n00:06:56:14 - 00:06:59:01\nConey Island wasn't the city.\n\n00:06:59:01 - 00:07:02:00\nConey Island was a development\rwithin the city of Brooklyn\n\n00:07:02:00 - 00:07:03:23\nor the borough of Brooklyn.\n\n00:07:03:23 - 00:07:07:19\nBut here, Abbot Kinney in 1911\n\n00:07:08:00 - 00:07:10:19\nsaid, here is a city\n\n00:07:10:19 - 00:07:14:05\nthat's committed\rand dedicated to entertainment.\n\n00:07:14:08 - 00:07:17:21\nWell,\rI think everybody kind of saluted that.\n\n00:07:17:21 - 00:07:20:02\nAnd Kinney became kind of like a hero.\n\n00:07:20:02 - 00:07:25:06\nWithout question, Abbot Kinney was the was the principal\n\n00:07:25:08 - 00:07:27:16\nmotivation,\n\n00:07:27:16 - 00:07:30:06\nhow he lived his life.\n\n00:07:30:06 - 00:07:34:03\nKind of like the more\ryou learned about him then kind of\n\n00:07:34:03 - 00:07:37:03\nthe more you said to yourself,\rwell, I could I could do that.\n\n00:07:37:03 - 00:07:39:04\n“So you say to emulate that?”\n\n00:07:39:04 - 00:07:43:07\nI didn't let anything hold me back.\n\n00:07:43:09 - 00:07:45:23\nWhere as before I might have said,\roh, well, that's too risky\n\n00:07:45:23 - 00:07:48:01\nor, or what would people think?\n\n00:07:48:01 - 00:07:51:09\nOr, kind of like I just got past\rall that and realized\n\n00:07:51:09 - 00:07:55:23\nthat we can set an agenda,\rthat we, the people, can live by.\n\n00:07:56:01 - 00:07:57:03\nSo I kind of\n\n00:07:57:03 - 00:08:00:12\ngot a lot of reinforcement\n\n00:08:00:13 - 00:08:02:15\nthat the people were smarter\n\n00:08:02:15 - 00:08:06:07\nthan their bosses will admit.\n\n00:08:06:09 - 00:08:07:18\nAnd I saw that time and again.\n\n00:08:07:18 - 00:08:10:17\nI guess the bike path is the best example.\n\n00:08:10:17 - 00:08:14:07\nWe had the top planner come down and say\rit should go in the middle of the beach.\n\n00:08:14:09 - 00:08:17:02\nAnd then we had the citizens\rtell our guy, no, no, no, no, no.\n\n00:08:17:02 - 00:08:19:06\nWe want to just slow.\n\n00:08:19:06 - 00:08:25:19\nWe want next to the,\rso the people have intelligence and\n\n00:08:25:20 - 00:08:28:20\nI guess, I guess that's one of the big\rthings I came out of it with.\n\n00:08:29:02 - 00:08:32:09\nI, I would rather trust\rthe people than the government.\n\n00:08:32:10 - 00:08:33:03\nNow you say, wow.\n\n00:08:33:03 - 00:08:36:19\nWell, wait, we got to have experts do\rtraffic controls and everything.\n\n00:08:36:21 - 00:08:38:23\nBut you know, the people,\n\n00:08:39:01 - 00:08:40:05\nmy example, my\n\n00:08:40:05 - 00:08:44:16\nexperience as an activist\rin every community I worked in\n\n00:08:44:18 - 00:08:48:10\nfrom Indians in South America to  \n\n00:08:48:12 - 00:08:51:10\nto Compton, to Pico Union,\n\n00:08:51:10 - 00:08:54:23\nto Venice, the people can handle it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119609/file/224829#t=0.0,555.79733"}]}]}]}