Venice Beach Bodybuilders Fear Google Is Kicking Sand at Them
Monica Almeida/The New York Times
A painting for sale on the boardwalk in the Venice section of Los Angeles, where Google has set up offices and may lease more space. More Photos »
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and IAN LOVETT
LOS ANGELES — This city’s boardwalk community of Venice has long celebrated its seediness, accepting — embracing, really — the kind of sensory assaults that would faze more conventional places: beachfront bodybuilders, ragamuffin street vendors, tattoo artists, Hare Krishna chanters, skateboarders, drug dealers, gangs, homeless encampments, rowdy tourists, film crews and, more recently, a colony of medical marijuana dispensaries.
But Venice might have met its match in what many see as its most unsettling threat yet: Google.
“As soon as I walked in, they said: ‘You heard about Google? Why don’t you have your staff look into this?’ ” former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who began his professional career as a bodybuilder here 44 years ago, said after he emerged from a throng of worried muscle-bound admirers at Gold’s Gym. “It’s this conspiracy theory: ‘Google is coming! They are going to take over and wipe out our bodybuilding.’ ”
In November, Google moved an army of sales and technology employees into 100,000 square feet in two Venice buildings. It is negotiating leases on another 100,000 square feet, according to real estate agents. That includes the 31,000-square-foot expanse that is Gold’s Gym, the very bodybuilding symbol of Venice, if not the universe, where Mr. Schwarzenegger stopped by the other morning.