Ocean Beach, San Diego, California

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The Ocean Beach Pier at sunset
The Ocean Beach Pier at sunset

Coordinates: 32°45′3.18″N -117°15′6.13″E / 32.7508833, -116.7482972 Ocean Beach (also known as O.B.) is a beachfront neighborhood of San Diego, California.

Contents

[edit] Geography

Ocean Beach is located in San Diego on the Southern California coast. It is approximately 7 miles from Downtown San Diego. O.B. is south of Mission Bay and Mission Beach and west of downtown on the Pacific Ocean at the western terminus of Interstate 8. The OB community is generally bounded on the north by the San Diego River, on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the east by Froude Street and West Point Loma Boulevard, and on the south by Adair Street-- but no two maps share the same lines, and interpretations of these neighborhood lines vary from OBecian to OBecian.

[edit] Community

Earlier names for O.B. include Mussel Beach, Mussel Beds, Medanos (Spanish for 'dunes'), Palmer's Place/Ranch, and Palmiro's.

The main street of business is Newport Avenue which has antique stores, restaurants, coffee houses, bars, bike and surf shops, and an international youth hostel [1]. In the area immediately surrounding Newport Avenue, Ocean Beach has three schools (Ocean Beach Elementary, Sacred Heart Academy, and Warren-Walker), multiple churches, a public library, a U.S. Post Office, an independent supermarket, a vegetarian Food Co-op, and multiple other amenities.

Local organizations include the Ocean Beach Town Council[2], the Ocean Beach Mainstreet Association[3], the Ocean Beach Community Development Corporation[4],the Kiwanis Club of Ocean Beach, the Ocean Beach Antique District [5], and the Ocean Beach Historical Society[6][7].

Local events include the Ocean Beach Street Fair and Chili Cookoff in late June, a jazz festival at the foot of Newport in late September, the Ocean Beach Christmas Parade in early December, and the Ocean Beach Kite Festival on the first Saturday of March. Also,each Wednesday from 4 to 8 p.m, two blocks of Newport Avenue are open to only foot traffic and bicycles for a [8] farmer's market].

The Ocean Beach Municipal Pier, built in 1966, is the longest concrete pier on the West Coast, measuring 1,971 feet (601 m).[9] The pier, which includes a restaurant and bait shop, is located at the south end of the beach and is available to the public for walking and fishing. A concrete walkway spans most of the length of the one-mile beach.

The northern end of OB's waterfront is known as Dog Beach, alongside the canal that empties into San Diego River. It has been set aside specifically for leash-free pets and their owners 24 hours a day.[10]

[edit] History

Waves crashing over the Ocean Beach Pier in 2002
Waves crashing over the Ocean Beach Pier in 2002

Ocean Beach was given its name by developers Billy Carlson and Frank Higgins in 1887. They opened the real estate firm of Carlson & Higgins and proceeded to develop Ocean Beach.

The pair developed the Cliff House, a resort hotel, and subdivided the area into lots. To drum up business for their subdivision, Carlson and Higgins organized a variety of promotional activities, including mussel roasts (thus the early names of "Mussel Beach") and band concerts. Despite their efforts, the development did not do well, because it was 2-1/2 hours by carriage from downtown San Diego. They rented a locomotive, but by that time, the boom ended and the development was put on hold. The Ocean Beach Railroad, launched in April 1888, was a casualty of the economic decline. Passengers could take a ferry from San Diego to Roseville in Point Loma to ride the train to the Cliff House. Later, Higgins' partner committed suicide and the Cliff House burned down from a fallen chandelier in 1898. Carlson sold the Ocean Beach development to an Eastern financier, and its development would wait another 20 years for permanent rail service -- trolley cars -- to arrive, carrying riders from Ocean Beach to Old Town. A wooden bridge, built in 1914 across the San Diego River flood-control channel between Mission Beach and Ocean Beach, was demolished in January 1951, thereby cutting off through traffic to Ocean Beach from the Mission Beach and Pacific Beach communities.[11]

But Carlson and Higgins were not the first to file a subdivision map in Ocean Beach. Theirs was filed with the city on May 28, 1887, according to research done by librarian Rhoda E. Kruse.[12]. Earlier, on April 22 of the same year, J.M. DePuy filed "DePuy's Subdivision" on 15 blocks in the northern portion of OB.

The northern end of Ocean Beach was once dominated in the early 20th century by the Wonderland Amusement Park, which opened on July 4, 1913 and was constructed on the sand at Voltaire and Abbott streets. It boasted a large roller coaster, dance pavilion, large menagerie, roller skating rink, merry-go-round, children's playground and 22,000 lights outlining the buildings. Wonderland was a popular attraction until 1916, when most of it was washed away by high tides. Some of the bungalows built as tourist accommodations atop the cliffs on either side of Niagara Avenue are still in use as businesses and homes[13].

By the middle of the twentieth century, Ocean Beach had become a classic Southern California beach town, with its main street running straight into the Pacific Ocean. The primary business district along Newport Avenue had a wide-variety of locally-owned consumer and trade oriented shops, these included: a number of women's and men's apparel stores, a couple of pharmacies, a few diners and restaurants (one Mexican restaurant - Nati's), a few bars, a couple banks, Cornet's - one of the last Five & Dime stores, a hardware store across the street from a paint and glass store, an optometrist, a camera store, The Strand movie theater and a Piggly Wiggly market. The business district served not only the local community, but the western half of Point Loma - a more upscale residential community.

The small cottages, bungalows, single-family homes and two-storied apartments in the residential areas, were filled with college students from several local colleges, joined by a good number of sailors, retirees and middle-class families. With the dredging and development of Mission Bay and the dismantling of the Ocean Beach-Mission Beach bridge, O.B. became geographically isolated from the rest of San Diego and the other beach communities, until the construction of Interstate 8, which ended in O.B. The Ocean Beach Pier was built during the early '60s, adding to the attraction of the community's waterfront.

Surfing, as a sport and recreation began to take hold in O.B., and became a prominent feature of the community by the early and mid-1960s. Major surfing contests were held at the end of Newport Avenue, a number of local surfers made it to the big-time and several well-known surf shops prospered (Duke Dana for one). Shooting the pier on a surfboard became a rite of passage for many young locals.

Each spring, Ocean Beach would become a favorite local beach hang-out for many of the area's youth. As in many youth beach towns, friction arose between the youth and local police. 1968 was a particularly explosive year, as there were well-known police-youth skirmishes at the beach during Easter weekend and Memorial Day weekends that year.

Beginning around 1967, Ocean Beach morphed into the Haight-Ashbury of San Diego. The community became an attraction for hippies, who eventually became accepted by many local business establishments. The Black headshop opened on Newport Avenue; the Inbetween, a youth drop-in center, was established a block away. Alternative newspapers also blossomed, first with the OB Liberator and then with the OB Rag, which was published from 1970-1975. Soon to follow was an organic food store -- the People's Market -- on Voltaire Street.

Beginning in the early '70s, local development and land interests pressed for the development of Ocean Beach's oceanfront, with plans for tourist-oriented resorts, hotels and a marina outlined in the Ocean Beach Precise Plan. However, by the mid-part of the decade, opposition to the Precise Plan jelled and groups such as the OB Community Planning Group, the Merchants Association and the Town Council coalesced and successfully lobbied the City Council to authorize a direct election of the OB Planning Board. This election took place in 1976, and the first democratically elected planning committee in the history of the State of California was established. With the passage of a 30-foot height limit in 1972 and the re-writing of the Precise Plan, the commercial assault on the waterfront was defeated.

[edit] Economy

While a few chain businesses moved into Ocean Beach in the 1990s and early 2000s, the economy of Ocean Beach is still dominated by small, independent businesses. Yet, financial stresses played havoc with a sought-after stability on OB's main street, alluding the beach community merchants. Over time, economic pressures convinced several of the Newport Avenue landowners to raise rents, forcing out a number of the small, family owned businesses, commonly called "mom and pop stores." OB's main business street lost a bakery, two drug stores, a book and novelty shop, a shoe store, several mainstream men's and women's apparel shops, and a 30-year family owned pet store. OB went from having one antique store in the mid-1970s into becoming a mecca for the genre by the late 1980s. Over time, many of the new, small businesses were either antique malls, where interior space is leased to small vendors, or restaurants, bars and surf shops.

Since 1964, the Ocean Beach Hotel[14], located at the foot of Newport and the Pacific Ocean, has been family owned and operated. The current owners purchased the hotel in 2002 and have completed a remodel.

In 2001, Starbucks rented property within the community. A grassroots effort attempted to block Starbucks from opening in Ocean Beach, including printing bumper stickers that read "No Corporate Whores On O.B. Shores."

Shortly after that, the historic, single-screen movie house The Strand Theatre -- which opened to screen talkies in 1924 in the middle of town -- was converted into a Wings, an East Coast chain selling beach apparel.[15]Beginning in 1977, The Strand was the only venue in San Diego showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a “midnight movie” where the admission was just $1.25.[16] The theater was designated a historic building by the San Diego Historical Resources Board in December 2003.

Voltaire Street, the other business avenue in the community, has also seen development since the late 1990s. More restaurants opened and existing bars built kitchens so they could serve food.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.californiahostels.com/ international hostel
  2. ^ http://www.obtowncouncil.org/index.php
  3. ^ http://www.oceanbeachsandiego.com/
  4. ^ http://www.obcdc.org
  5. ^ http://www.oceanbeachantiques.com/
  6. ^ http://obhistory.wordpress.com/
  7. ^ http://www.oceanbeachsandiego.com/CommGroups.shtml
  8. ^ http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050515/news_lz1x15mkts.html
  9. ^ http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/local/california-piers.htm
  10. ^ http://www.dogbeachsandiego.org/committee/
  11. ^ http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/75spring/aspin.htm
  12. ^ http://search.blossom.com/geturl?&o=0p&i851&KEY=ocean+beach+area&URL=http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/77fall/mystery.htm
  13. ^ http://entertainment.signonsandiego.com/profiles/places/249552
  14. ^ http://www.obhotel.com
  15. ^ http://cinematreasures.org/theater/4281
  16. ^ http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20030317-9999_1m17theater.html

Ocean Beach Antique District

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