Sulky Hulks : Weightlifters Feel Let Down by Revamped Muscle Beach in Venice

Bodybuilders at the world-famous patch of Venice known as Muscle Beach are bent out of shape.

After more than a year of renovation, the outdoor gym celebrated its reopening this week with a party for politicians and weightlifters. There was jazz, free food, and a chance to pump pecs and show big guns for the media (that’s Muscle Beach lingo for flexing and flaunting massive upper-body musculature).

There was even the incongruous sight of a city councilwoman revealing a bit of bicep for the cameras.

But through it all, many of the intended beneficiaries of the project sulked in the background.

“They (cheated) us,” complained Paul Genick, three times the runner-up Mr. Venice. “The leg equipment sucks. The back equipment sucks. We’re missing barbells. It looks pretty, but it doesn’t work. It’s just for the bureaucrats and the tourists.”

During its heyday, the workout area attracted such hunks as the late Vic Tanny, Franco Columbo and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“The pit,” as it was dubbed before an official City Council decree made it Muscle Beach in 1987, is one of Southern California’s most popular tourist attractions. But by last summer the equipment was outmoded, the building was dingy, and the best bodies were leaving for nearby gyms.

Crews began demolishing the facility in June, 1990. The city spent $530,000 to double its size. Workers constructed a brand-new gym and erected concrete bleachers and a 30-foot sculpture. City officials hope the $125,000 sculpture, which is supposed to look like an arm holding a weight, will become to Venice what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris.

Maybe.

“It is very boding for me!” declared Steve Craft, explaining that the word is slang for foreboding , and is complimentary.

But others at the inaugural party on Tuesday said the sculpture was ridiculous. Not the least of its sins was that it cast a shadow over the workout area, making tanning impossible. “That . . . thing blocks the sun totally,” said Jerry Werling, a weightlifter in a red tank top and gold chains who boasted of once breaking the world record in bench-pressing.

The architecture of the gym itself features concrete barbells on its sides. Charles Chu, a consultant with the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks, designed the building after conferring with a committee of bodybuilders. Chu said the building is supposed to convey “the concept of their body beautiful,” and that its sloping front represents “the energy from the sky and the heavens coming down through the roof. The floor of the gym is a pool of water. You can imagine the waves of water creating energy for the weightlifters.”

The point, Chu said, is to inspire “whoever’s in contact with the equipment to absorb the energies into their bodies.”

Some bodybuilders don’t get it. “I feel like I’m in a swimming pool,” sighed one.

But the worst complaints concern weightlifting equipment. The benches, already rusting and bent, are not sturdy. There’s no chin-up bar, nor enough barbells, users of the gym say. After taking a look Tuesday, Chu agreed. Officials said that the contractor may have substituted cheap equipment for what was promised. They are looking into the matter.

In the past, membership at Muscle Beach ranged from 300 to 500; today, it is just 120, a number that Darlene Galindo, recreation director for the facility, attributes to the fact that the gym just reopened.

But some old-time members are leaving for other gyms. “I go to Gold’s Gym. You can’t get a total workout here. A lot of members feel the same way,” said Joe Mack, a former fixture who is known as the mayor of Muscle Beach.

Councilwoman Ruth Galanter didn’t let any of the huffing spoil her party Tuesday. “The purpose of the facility is to help everybody have a good time, keep out of trouble, and build up your muscles,” Galanter told a sparse audience--mostly tourists and government officials--during the ceremony.

After she cut the ribbon--it took about eight tries with pruning shears--Galanter posed for photos with the bodybuilders.

“Could you hold your muscle up?” a photographer yelled at a hunk standing next to the councilwoman. The man pumped his pecs. Nobody asked her to, but Galanter flexed her biceps for the camera, too.

Galanter said that the reopening of Venice Beach has inspired her to recommence her regular weight-training routine at home. But the real hunks standing nearby were not convinced. “I don’t care what they say, man,” Werling said. “All these bureaucrats, man, don’t know nothing about working out.”