Venice Ca

For 34 years, the rape and murder of 80-year-old Alice Lewis remained a mystery. There wasn't even a suspect. But five months ago, a routine traffic stop in Los Angeles yielded DNA evidence that police said opened the door for solving the cold case and arresting the alleged killer. This week, Dennis Vasquez, 50, was arrested in the 1975 strangulation of the woman at her Meier Street home in Mar Vista. Because he would have been only 16 at the time of the crime, Vasquez appeared Friday in Juvenile Court in Inglewood.

A three-story Abbot Kinney Boulevard work-live space is about as cool as real estate gets in red-hot Venice. This brand-new, three-unit complex of artists' lofts -- an Elaine Carhartt painted-tile mural depicting the area's favorite pastimes spans the facade -- offers a street-level work studio with living quarters above it. The lofts are geared to those who want to incorporate the neighborhood's trendy cafes, art galleries, clubs and clothing boutiques into their domestic lives.

Even as gentrification swept Venice in the last decade and the district's once notorious gang activity dropped, the Venice Shoreline Crips kept a stubborn hold over the Oakwood Recreation Center, authorities say. According to authorities, the gang exerted a brazen influence over the facility, turning outsiders away and using it as an outpost for drug sales -- particularly within the last several years. On some occasions, the basketball court saw more drug deals than free throws, they said.

The show at Beyond Baroque will go on, thanks to an L.A. City Council vote Friday extending its lease in a city-owned building. Just hours before the Venice literary arts center's lease was to expire, the council voted 11 to 0 to extend it for 25 years.

One person was killed and three injured when an SUV plowed into a crowd on a Venice sidewalk Sunday afternoon in front of St. Mark Catholic Church. The driver, who had just attended Mass, told witnesses and police that she accidentally stepped on the accelerator when her daughter, a passenger, suffered a seizure. Witnesses described a scene of pandemonium as the silver Nissan drove up onto a sidewalk filled with churchgoers, pinning a man against a flower bed and striking several women.

In nearly 24 years in Venice, Ty Allison has been threatened with a knife and assaulted by vagrants. Almost daily, he calls police to report that homeless people are using crack and methadone in his driveway. Ana Petrova cleans up human feces every morning in the alley behind Peter's Marina Motors, the business she and her husband have operated on Lincoln Boulevard for 40 years.

About four years ago, members of the Presidents Row Neighborhood Assn. of Venice decided they wanted more streetlights. Like many places in Los Angeles, their neighborhood had never been fully rigged for lights. That was annoying on several fronts, particularly to those who walked their dogs at night or grew weary of waiting for lost pizza deliverers.

Beachy Keen If you can say one thing about Abbot Kinney Boulevard, it's that it's certainly one of a kind. The strip of 1920s beach cottages is home to stores with an idiosyncratic bent. Our favorites include Urbanic Paper Boutique, where you'll find thick, colorful sheets of writing paper and address books. Check out Tumbleweed & Dandelion, which has rustic benches and peeling shutters for sale, all the better to decorate your country cottage.

Tours of artists' studios and significant architecture, an art auction, a food fair and live entertainment are among the offerings this week at the annual Venice Art Walk. The events include art and architecture tours -- one of "green" homes and the other of private homes and art collections on the Marina Peninsula -- on Saturday. On Sunday, about 60 artists open their studios for tours, while attendees can patronize a daylong food fair at Westminster School, 1010 Abbot Kinney Blvd.

Venice of the 1960s was a raw and sometimes violent place, home to drunks, a couple of greasy spoons and plentiful cheap lodging. It appealed to the down and out, elderly Jews who were longtime residents and a cluster of artists who appreciated an enclave they could afford to call home. "It was no man's land ... with no place to go and nothin' to do," said Billy Al Bengston, 72, a Venice-based artist who found himself part of the '60s California Pop Art movement.