The Ocean Park neighborhood was originally known as South Santa Monica. The “new” name was coined in June 1893 with the incorporation of the Y.M.C.A. Ocean Park Company by Abbot Kinney and Francis G. Ryan (see Brooks Ave. for a little about him). The two men donated five acres, plus five more donated by others, for a seaside resort for the YMCA “and other religious organizations”. It opened that August. Within a year, upon the completion of the resort’s bathhouse and auditorium, locals had dropped the “Y.M.C.A.” from the name and were just calling it “Ocean Park”. In May 1895, the Southern California Railway (a subsidiary of the Santa Fe) caved in to demands to rebrand its South Santa Monica station as Ocean Park and that was that. But it wasn’t until 1902, thanks to the efforts of developer Alexander R. Fraser, that Ocean Park was reborn as a secular playland. Those days may be gone but the name lives on. Speaking of names, Ocean Park Blvd. was originally called Dwight Ave. (after George A. Hart‘s brother) at the coast and Central Ave. inland. It took on its current identity in 1926.
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