Is this street a nod to a shipwreck? Quite likely. First, some background: an old Torrance street called Andreo Avenue was extended into Lomita in 1953. Five years later, landowners Dan E. and Mary Frame Butcher named Doria Avenue due west of Andreo. While the origins of “Andreo” are unclear, “Doria” was surely the Butchers’ dark little joke: the Andrea Doria was an Italian ocean liner which sank on July 26th, 1956 after colliding with another passenger ship, the Stockholm, off the coast of Nantucket. This maritime disaster, which killed 51 passengers and crew but left 1,660 survivors, was one of the biggest news stories of the 1950s.
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