This street was born in 1905 as Flink Avenue, part of Swedish developer John Flink’s Coeur d’Alene Place tract. On October 23rd, 1923, Venice’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously to rename it Harding Avenue. Although no reason was stated in the press, the change was surely to memorialize U.S. President Warren Gamaliel Harding (1865-1923), who had died in San Francisco two months earlier. (As an interesting local side note, Harding was originally scheduled to visit his aunt Frances in Sawtelle on the day of his death.) Why, amongst all of Venice’s streets, was Flink chosen for the renaming? One can only guess. P.S. An entirely different Harding Avenue was laid out in May 1923, while the president was alive and well, but it wasn’t registered in time and so the trustees ordered it changed to Bryan Avenue.
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