In 1938, the former Waterloo Avenue was given a semi-homophonic new name: Waterview Street. While the change made sense – an oceanside street called “Waterview” is a no-brainer – it did break up its cute pairing with nearby Napoleon Street. But why “Napoleon” and “Waterloo” in the first place? Well, they were assigned those names in 1911 by Venice city ordinance – Venice was then its own municipality and had jurisdiction over Playa del Rey – so I guess some civil engineer was just being clever. The streets were originally named (in 1902) Fraser Avenue and Elliott Avenue, respectively, and they honored two Playa del Rey investors: British-born, New York-based mining magnate Charles Duncan Fraser (1857-1917) and John M. Elliott (1844-1929), president of the First National Bank of Los Angeles. The various changes likely had to do with city policies against duplicate street names. L.A., for instance, already had a Waterloo Street.
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