{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/xk84j0cs7d/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Stephen Pouliot, 5/23/22"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["Stephen Pouliot is a founding member of the Venice Heritage Foundation. Pouliot is an LGBTQIA+ community member and amateur Venice historian with a significant collection of photographs and ephemera."]}},{"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_016"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Beach"]}},{"label":{"en":["Access Ss"]},"value":{"en":["access_public"]}}],"summary":{"en":["Stephen Pouliot is a founding member of the Venice Heritage Foundation. Pouliot is an LGBTQIA+ community member and amateur Venice historian with a significant collection of photographs and ephemera."]},"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/000/242/864/small/Stephen_Pouliot.mp4_1718852301.jpg?1718852305","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129357/file/242864","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Stephen__Pouliot.mp4"]},"duration":792.0,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/242/864/small/Stephen_Pouliot.mp4_1718852301.jpg?1718852305","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129357/file/242864/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129357/file/242864/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-veniceheritagemuseum.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/242/864/original/Stephen__Pouliot.mp4?1718852290","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":792.0,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129357/file/242864","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129357/file/242864/transcript/68042","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Stephen Pouliot Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129357/file/242864/transcript/68042/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"00:00:08:17 - 00:00:11:12\nThat's P-O-U-L-I-O-T.\n\n00:00:11:12 - 00:00:16:07\nIt's French Canadian,\rand it means a pulley to lift a sail.\n\n00:00:16:07 - 00:00:20:12\nMy family, was based in, Quebec,\n\n00:00:20:12 - 00:00:21:19\nSaint Lawrence Seaway.\n\n00:00:21:19 - 00:00:27:12\nAnd they built ships and migrated\reventually into the United States.\n\n00:00:27:12 - 00:00:28:20\nBut that's what Pouliot means.\n\n00:00:28:20 - 00:00:31:02\nYou can look it up in\rthe French dictionary.\n\n00:00:31:02 - 00:00:35:02\nApril 1st, April Fool's Day, 1945.\n\n00:00:35:02 - 00:00:36:17\nMy mother was a dancer.\n\n00:00:36:17 - 00:00:39:21\nI was three weeks late,\rand she said, to hell with it.\n\n00:00:39:21 - 00:00:43:16\nAnd she went out\rdancing on the 31st of March.\n\n00:00:43:16 - 00:00:48:04\nAnd I was born at 6:30 on April 1st.\n\n00:00:48:04 - 00:00:51:02\nI grew up in the frozen,\n\n00:00:51:02 - 00:00:55:15\nuh... acres of Minnesota,\rLake Minnetonka.\n\n00:00:55:15 - 00:00:58:13\n\rAnd my family, would drive out,\n\n00:00:58:13 - 00:01:04:02\nmake the long trek out by car\rto visit, my father's good friend,\n\n00:01:04:02 - 00:01:07:20\nJerry Burke, who played with \rthe Lawrence Welk Orchestra.\n\n00:01:07:20 - 00:01:10:06\nSo that was our anchor.\n\n00:01:10:06 - 00:01:12:03\nJerry Burke was his name.\n\n00:01:12:03 - 00:01:15:07\nAnd Jerry was our,\n\n00:01:15:07 - 00:01:19:20\nour, our guide to the\rwonders of Southern California.\n\n00:01:19:20 - 00:01:22:08\nI first was...uhmmm...\n\n00:01:22:08 - 00:01:25:12\nexposed to Venice in the 1950s.\n\n00:01:25:12 - 00:01:26:15\nIt was one of the trips.\n\n00:01:26:15 - 00:01:31:05\nAnd Jerry said, let's go to Venice.\n\n00:01:31:05 - 00:01:34:12\nHe said, your eyes will be opened.\n\n00:01:34:12 - 00:01:35:19\nAnd so it was the ‘50s.\n\n00:01:35:19 - 00:01:38:15\nAnd this is when the\rbeatniks were living here.\n\n00:01:38:15 - 00:01:42:02\nThe canals had gone\rinto disrepair already.\n\n00:01:42:02 - 00:01:47:10\nBut he took us on a tour,\rand it was something that impressed me.\n\n00:01:47:10 - 00:01:50:05\nI had to be, you know, probably ten,\n\n00:01:50:05 - 00:01:51:17\n12 years old.\n\n00:01:51:17 - 00:01:53:14\nAnd, uhmmm...\n\n00:01:53:14 - 00:01:56:10\nI remember the surfers\rwith their long hair.\n\n00:01:56:10 - 00:02:00:14\nIt was like seeing a\rdifferent brand of people.\n\n00:02:00:14 - 00:02:02:15\nAnd so it impressed me.\n\n00:02:02:15 - 00:02:09:12\nWe went to send a postcard\rin the post office, and there were people\n\n00:02:09:12 - 00:02:14:21\nwith guitars in the\rpost office, around their necks.\n\n00:02:14:21 - 00:02:18:19\nThere were surfers that were wearing,\n\n00:02:18:19 - 00:02:23:06\nshorts that we didn't know\rhow they were kept up...\n\n00:02:23:06 - 00:02:24:01\n(laughs)\n\n00:02:24:01 - 00:02:26:23\nAnd long hair and\n\n00:02:26:23 - 00:02:32:01\neverything that we were told\rreally not to do in Minnesota.\n\n00:02:32:01 - 00:02:36:17\nLike keep your hair cut\rand wear this and, and that.\n\n00:02:36:17 - 00:02:42:14\nUhmmm... It just seemed\rlike a flowering of... uh... liberty.\n\n00:02:42:14 - 00:02:46:08\nAnd, uh...  I was,\n\n00:02:46:08 - 00:02:50:07\nyou know, taken by it\rand never forgot Venice.\n\n00:02:50:07 - 00:02:54:07\nI started studying,\rI discovered there was a Venice, Florida,\n\n00:02:54:07 - 00:02:56:10\nand then later, as I started\n\n00:02:56:10 - 00:02:59:20\ntraveling, Venice, California,\n\n00:02:59:20 - 00:03:03:19\nI discovered, was a town.\n\n00:03:03:19 - 00:03:06:03\nIt was a destination.\n\n00:03:06:03 - 00:03:12:00\nPeople knew about Venice, California,\rfrom all over the world.\n\n00:03:12:00 - 00:03:16:00\nAnd, I went to Marquette University,\n\n00:03:16:00 - 00:03:19:11\nJesuit University\rand, and studied journalism.\n\n00:03:19:11 - 00:03:23:15\nAnd then I segued to the\rUniversity of Southern California\n\n00:03:23:15 - 00:03:28:03\nto get my Masters in film.\n\n00:03:28:03 - 00:03:30:00\nAnd I would come out here\n\n00:03:30:00 - 00:03:34:01\non the weekends, and park on Cabrillo.\n\n00:03:34:01 - 00:03:37:02\nAnd, I, I was coming out.\rIt was this ‘70s.\n\n00:03:37:02 - 00:03:40:02\nI was a, I was gay, but it was very hard\n\n00:03:40:02 - 00:03:43:10\nin those times to be, you know, out.\n\n00:03:43:10 - 00:03:46:14\nAnd but there was a gay beach in Venice\n\n00:03:46:14 - 00:03:49:11\nand I would park on Cabrillo\n\n00:03:49:11 - 00:03:54:18\nnext to a two story Victorian\rthat was in bad repair.\n\n00:03:54:18 - 00:04:00:01\nAnd I would walk two blocks to the\rgay beach and have a great time.\n\n00:04:00:01 - 00:04:05:06\nVenice was about people.\rI lived in the Hollywood Hills.\n\n00:04:05:06 - 00:04:09:18\nI had a place in the Hollywood Hills,\rwhich I loved, but everything was enclosed.\n\n00:04:09:18 - 00:04:12:21\nYou, you know, you walked,\rbut you didn't really meet people here.\n\n00:04:12:21 - 00:04:17:00\nYou were thrown into a,\n\n00:04:17:00 - 00:04:21:15\na mass of humanity that\ryou couldn't define.\n\n00:04:21:15 - 00:04:26:12\nAnd, as a writer and a journalist,\rI was interested in that.\n\n00:04:26:12 - 00:04:31:04\nAnd also as a filmmaker,\rI think it was, it stimulated me.\n\n00:04:31:04 - 00:04:34:07\nEverything was possible in those days.\n\n00:04:34:07 - 00:04:37:15\nYou know, sex, drugs, rock and roll.\n\n00:04:37:15 - 00:04:39:10\nIt was all happening in Venice.\n\n00:04:39:10 - 00:04:45:20\nVenice was the place \rto be free, to express yourself.\n\n00:04:45:20 - 00:04:47:21\nWere there cops?  I’m sure there were.\n\n00:04:47:21 - 00:04:50:08\nI was never harassed.\n\n00:04:50:08 - 00:04:52:10\nI was always welcomed.\n\n00:04:52:10 - 00:04:56:07\nAnd I remember the first time I didn't go\rback to Minnesota for Christmas.\n\n00:04:56:07 - 00:05:00:00\nI woke up on Christmas morning,\n\n00:05:00:00 - 00:05:03:13\nand I walked down to the boardwalk.\n\n00:05:03:13 - 00:05:08:16\nAnd I said to myself, I am free.\n\n00:05:08:16 - 00:05:11:05\nThis is my gift.\n\n00:05:11:05 - 00:05:13:19\nThere were other gay men and women\n\n00:05:13:19 - 00:05:15:10\nwho came to Venice.\n\n00:05:15:10 - 00:05:18:03\nAnd, uh... uhmmm...\n\n00:05:18:03 - 00:05:24:05\nThis is a long story made short.\n\n00:05:24:05 - 00:05:29:18\nUhmmm... 38 years ago,\rI was restoring the house in Venice\n\n00:05:29:18 - 00:05:33:02\nthat I will tell you about in a bit.\n\n00:05:33:02 - 00:05:35:06\nBut, uhmmm...\n\n00:05:35:06 - 00:05:38:16\nI was taking a break\rfrom restoring the house.\n\n00:05:38:16 - 00:05:43:05\nCame down to take a swim,\rand there was a,\n\n00:05:43:05 - 00:05:44:23\na Frisbee game going on.\n\n00:05:44:23 - 00:05:48:08\nAnd I looked up and standing against,\n\n00:05:48:08 - 00:05:51:10\na palm tree looking at the ocean,\n\n00:05:51:10 - 00:05:55:04\nwas a young guy\n\n00:05:55:04 - 00:05:59:01\nwith just in jeans, \rwearing no shirt, and I said to myself,\n\n00:05:59:01 - 00:06:02:09\nthat's the most beautiful back\rI have ever seen.\n\n00:06:02:09 - 00:06:04:18\nI hope he doesn't turn around.\n\n00:06:04:18 - 00:06:09:13\nOf course, at that moment he turns around\rand he was drop dead handsome.\n\n00:06:09:13 - 00:06:13:04\nAnd I said, great game of Frisbee, right?\n\n00:06:13:04 - 00:06:16:08\nAnd, so, I nodded and turned\n\n00:06:16:08 - 00:06:20:15\nand headed back and,\n\n00:06:20:15 - 00:06:23:19\nthen I said, turn around.\n\n00:06:23:19 - 00:06:30:03\nI turned around and he was\rstanding on the boardwalk like this.\n\n00:06:30:03 - 00:06:32:03\nAnd we met.\n\n00:06:32:03 - 00:06:34:13\nAnd he was from Spain.\n\n00:06:34:13 - 00:06:38:03\nAnd, we've been together for 38 years.\n\n00:06:38:03 - 00:06:41:04\nIt happened in Venice.\n\n00:06:41:04 - 00:06:44:19\nThis, you know, you wonder about life\n\n00:06:44:19 - 00:06:47:23\nwhen you're my, my age about, you know,\n\n00:06:47:23 - 00:06:51:05\nthese the things that happen.\n\n00:06:51:05 - 00:06:54:03\nI used to park my car on Cabrillo.\n\n00:06:54:03 - 00:06:59:01\nAnd so one afternoon,\rI, you know, drove to Cabrillo Park\n\n00:06:59:01 - 00:07:03:14\nand there was somebody\rpounding a for sale sign\n\n00:07:03:14 - 00:07:07:03\ninto the two story\rVictorian with a dome on it\n\n00:07:07:03 - 00:07:11:21\nthat I always admired, but it was sort of,\ryou know, in rough shape.\n\n00:07:11:21 - 00:07:16:18\nBut, it was my landmark\ronce I parked there, you know.\n\n00:07:16:18 - 00:07:20:10\nSo, I eventually investigated.\n\n00:07:20:10 - 00:07:25:02\nI was, now I had a career,\ra bit of a career is making some money.\n\n00:07:25:03 - 00:07:29:14\nAnd I made an offer on the house,\rand I got the house.\n\n00:07:29:14 - 00:07:33:01\nAnd all my friends said, you are crazy.\n\n00:07:33:01 - 00:07:34:20\nYou just made the worst investment.\n\n00:07:34:20 - 00:07:36:21\nYou'll regret this for your life.\n\n00:07:36:21 - 00:07:41:21\nThe house was in such disrepair,\n\n00:07:41:21 - 00:07:46:07\na, a hippie, couple lived there\n\n00:07:46:07 - 00:07:50:05\nand every surface\rwas painted a phosphorescent color.\n\n00:07:50:05 - 00:07:53:23\nIt took two years just to get down to the\n\n00:07:53:23 - 00:07:58:09\nthe wood, but it was like\rrevealing this secret and,\n\n00:07:58:09 - 00:08:02:13\nuhmmm... uh, finally, uh...\n\n00:08:02:13 - 00:08:04:16\nthe house was finished,\n\n00:08:04:16 - 00:08:09:00\nand I, I moved in and, I said,\n\n00:08:09:00 - 00:08:13:16\nthis house can't\rbe torn down after all this.\n\n00:08:13:16 - 00:08:17:23\nAnd so, I applied for historic recognition,\n\n00:08:17:23 - 00:08:21:17\nand indeed, it's\rnow called the Venice of America House.\n\n00:08:21:17 - 00:08:24:09\nIt's a National Historic Landmark.\n\n00:08:24:09 - 00:08:27:04\nAnd Los Angeles also considered it\n\n00:08:27:04 - 00:08:29:23\na historic monument.\n\n00:08:29:23 - 00:08:33:23\nThe act of restoring my...\n\n00:08:33:23 - 00:08:36:19\ntwo story Victorian set off\n\n00:08:36:19 - 00:08:42:12\nsomething because people started to come\rlook at the house and all of a sudden\n\n00:08:42:12 - 00:08:47:11\nCabrillo Avenue, the cottages\rstarted to be repaired, painted.\n\n00:08:47:11 - 00:08:52:00\nSo I like to think that the house\rwas some sort of trigger,\n\n00:08:52:00 - 00:08:56:00\nan incentive for people.\n\n00:08:56:00 - 00:09:01:08\nAnd then, of course,\rslowly things changed.\n\n00:09:01:08 - 00:09:04:13\nOn the business front,\n\n00:09:04:13 - 00:09:07:21\nWest Washington Boulevard\rbecame Abbot Kinney Boulevard.\n\n00:09:07:21 - 00:09:11:14\nThere was a, there started\rto be a sense of history.\n\n00:09:11:14 - 00:09:15:01\nPeople discovered this history.\n\n00:09:15:01 - 00:09:17:23\nThere were more people\rwho were trying to save the cottages.\n\n00:09:17:23 - 00:09:21:10\nThis is in the ‘70s, you know, early ’80s.\n\n00:09:21:10 - 00:09:22:19\nUhmmm...\n\n00:09:22:19 - 00:09:25:06\nAnd then slowly, Venice\n\n00:09:25:06 - 00:09:29:03\nbecame the place to live.\n\n00:09:29:03 - 00:09:31:15\nPrices went up.\n\n00:09:31:15 - 00:09:34:20\nAbbot Kinney became,\rthank you, Esquire magazine,\n\n00:09:34:20 - 00:09:39:04\nthe coolest street in the United States.\n\n00:09:39:04 - 00:09:43:00\nFriday, first Friday of every month\n\n00:09:43:00 - 00:09:45:12\nwas a gathering of people of,\n\n00:09:45:12 - 00:09:50:00\nyou know, again,\rof all types from every place,\n\n00:09:50:00 - 00:09:53:04\na celebration of life, and...\n\n00:09:53:04 - 00:09:55:09\nthat's what it has been\n\n00:09:55:09 - 00:09:59:22\nin different forms, but, but a celebration.\n\n00:09:59:22 - 00:10:03:14\nThe degrees, the shades...\n\n00:10:03:14 - 00:10:06:05\nyou know, have been\rdifferent through the years.\n\n00:10:06:05 - 00:10:09:20\nAnd then I started\rinvestigating the history.\n\n00:10:09:20 - 00:10:12:13\nI didn't know about Abbot Kinney.\n\n00:10:12:13 - 00:10:15:04\nI started investigating the history\rthey’re weren’t books.\n\n00:10:15:04 - 00:10:21:06\nBut slowly, uh... I found out what\n\n00:10:21:06 - 00:10:27:13\nVenice of America had been in 1904.\n\n00:10:27:13 - 00:10:31:03\nOne of the most stellar projects\n\n00:10:31:03 - 00:10:34:12\nin California, if not the United States.\n\n00:10:34:12 - 00:10:37:10\nI mean, to, uhmmm...\n\n00:10:37:10 - 00:10:39:03\nto build a place...\n\n00:10:39:03 - 00:10:43:06\nthat was one of the\rcrown jewels of Europe\n\n00:10:43:06 - 00:10:47:11\non the beach of, you know,\rthe Southern California beach.\n\n00:10:47:11 - 00:10:50:23\nIs just this wild gods crazy?\n\n00:10:50:23 - 00:10:56:17\nBut of course, Kinney had been to the,\rI believe, the Columbia Exposition\n\n00:10:56:17 - 00:10:59:21\nand he influenced,\n\n00:10:59:21 - 00:11:03:19\nand of course, you've heard\rthe story about the flip of the coin.\n\n00:11:03:19 - 00:11:04:23\nWe'll tell that story.\n\n00:11:04:23 - 00:11:09:03\nWell, the, Kinney owned property,\rOcean Park and so forth.\n\n00:11:09:03 - 00:11:12:08\nAnd then his partner passed,\rand he did not get along\n\n00:11:12:08 - 00:11:15:13\nwith the new partners.\n\n00:11:15:13 - 00:11:20:21\nso he said, instead of going to court,\rwe've got this long stretch of land,\n\n00:11:20:21 - 00:11:24:19\nOcean Park, which was for\rthe wealthy, living on the beach.\n\n00:11:24:19 - 00:11:30:21\nAnd then there was the southern, end,\rwhich was sand and lagoons and so forth.\n\n00:11:30:21 - 00:11:33:08\nAnd he said, let's just take\rcare of this with a flip of the coin.\n\n00:11:33:08 - 00:11:38:13\nSo they did it.  They agreed to it,\rand he won the toss, and he said,\n\n00:11:38:13 - 00:11:41:21\nI'll take the sand dunes and the lagoons.\n\n00:11:41:21 - 00:11:44:16\nAnd everybody was startled.\n\n00:11:44:16 - 00:11:47:21\nBut he had this vision.\n\n00:11:47:21 - 00:11:52:05\nAnd I think the soul of that vision\n\n00:11:52:05 - 00:11:54:09\nis what...\n\n00:11:54:09 - 00:11:56:10\nthis is probably too metaphysical, but,\n\n00:11:56:10 - 00:12:01:15\nI think truly it is that soul of that\rvision that has penetrated\n\n00:12:01:15 - 00:12:06:13\nthis little corner of the world\rfor all these years.\n\n00:12:06:13 - 00:12:08:23\nWhat is that?\n\n00:12:08:23 - 00:12:10:20\nIt is...\n\n00:12:10:20 - 00:12:13:05\nCome here...\n\n00:12:13:05 - 00:12:15:09\nand give it a try.\n\n00:12:15:09 - 00:12:17:11\nWhat is your dream?\n\n00:12:17:11 - 00:12:20:18\nWe're not going to push you away.\n\n00:12:20:18 - 00:12:23:03\nWe might say go out and take a swim.\n\n00:12:23:03 - 00:12:27:17\nRefresh yourself,\rbut come back and give it another try.\n\n00:12:27:17 - 00:12:31:03\nIf you are an artist,\rif you are an inventor,\n\n00:12:31:03 - 00:12:35:22\nif you want to raise a family,\n\n00:12:35:22 - 00:12:40:03\nyou know, that's close by and, and, and...\n\n00:12:40:03 - 00:12:46:00\nand can walk the sands together.\n\n00:12:46:00 - 00:12:53:08\nI think that still exists, you know, and,\n\n00:12:53:08 - 00:13:00:01\nevery day I walk out on my\rfront porch and I say, thank you.\n\n00:13:00:01 - 00:13:01:20\nI'm in Venice.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129357/file/242864#t=0.0,792.0"}]}]}]}