Ocean View Avenue and Miramar Street have a complicated history. First, you realize that their names basically mean the same thing. (“Miramar” isn’t a proper Spanish word but a portmanteau of mira al mar: “looks to the sea”.) Ocean View and its unusual diagonal orientation came first: it was opened in 1886 on the Nob Hill tract, which copied the name of San Francisco’s posh Nob Hill (so called in 1876 because it was home to that city’s “nabobs” or wealthy citizens). Soon the street was extended out – in two unconnected portions – to meet Burlington Avenue, but in 1896 residents wanted that extension renamed Nob Hill Avenue. That didn’t last, and an 1897 city ordinance had Nob Hill Ave. changed back to Ocean View Ave. However, a different section of Ocean View had apparently grown in the meantime, and that was changed to Miramar in that exact same city ordinance. No, it doesn’t make sense to me either, and I guess city planners agreed because in 1915 they changed all of Ocean View to Miramar except for that original 1886 diagonal bit, which remains. But the burning question is: can you see the ocean from these streets? I believe so – or at least you could before all the buildings and trees and smog got in the way.
Find it on the map:
