Muscle Beach
California
Just south of the Santa Monica Pier, Muscle Beach was born in the Depression, when the city built an outdoor fitness area on the sand. The Works Progress Administration installed equipment in nineteen thirty-four, and acrobats between vaudeville bookings started showing up to practice. Within a few years a low wooden platform became the most famous workout spot in America.
By the nineteen forties the name Muscle Beach had stuck, and figures like Jack LaLanne were drawing big weekend crowds. The original site was eventually closed, but the culture it started, the idea that fitness was a spectator sport and a way of life, had already traveled a few miles south to Venice Beach, where it still lives today.
