Look Underfoot--That’s Civic Pride You’re Stepping On in Ocean Beach

The names along the Walk of Fame in Ocean Beach are--well, let’s face it--far more pedestrian than on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but the small, personalized tiles lining Newport Avenue sidewalks have residents clamoring for more.

Workers have laid more than 2,000 of the ocean-blue tiles--each inscribed with a message from a community resident--from Sunset Cliffs Boulevard to the foot of Newport Avenue, said Linda Small, president of the Ocean Beach Merchants Assn., which sponsored the tile project.

Sayings engraved for posterity range from “Lynette Rice slipped here” to “Keep off my tiles.” One is inscribed with a personal plea--”Ann, will you marry me? Brad.” Another pleads for people to “Work for Peace.”

The tiles were sold for $35 each last year and came with a certificate that reads, “You are the proud owner of an Ocean Beach tile,” Small said.

The tiles were planned to coincide with the community’s revitalization program. As cracked sidewalks were replaced, and street lamps and planter boxes installed, the tiles went in. Money left over from the installation will go toward other community projects, such as a new community bulletin board, she said.

“Ocean Beach is a very close-knit community. Everybody knows everybody,” Small said. “We thought a lot of people would want to be a part of Ocean Beach history.”

Last year, more than 2,000 tiles were sold, but the association’s tile committee could easily have sold 400 more once people saw what they looked like, Small said.

Wayne Andrews, tile number 2021, was among those who got in under the wire. A former paper boy, Andrews commissioned his tile to read, “I sold newspapers here in 1937.”

When he was 15 years old, he sold copies of the old San Diego Sun newspaper for 3 cents in front of what is now Newport Farms Market, Andrews said. His stack of papers was dropped off by streetcar in front of what was then the Piggly Wiggly market, and he sold the papers for a half-cent profit.

He went on to make the Navy his career and served in three wars, he said, but Andrews never forgot his experiences on the corner of Newport Avenue and Bacon Street.

“I’ve lived in Ocean Beach all my life,” Andrews said. “The tile will be there forever.”

The Merchant’s Assn. is going to close the street and hold “a huge tile party in late March so people can look at the tiles uninterrupted by parked cars and traffic,” Small said. It will be a good opportunity for people to lie on their tiles, if they want to, and get their pictures taken with their families, she said.

But a lot of residents are not waiting until the tile party. “We see people who are already strolling up and down the street looking at the tiles,” Small said.

“We bought a tile for Marvin, my father-in-law, for his birthday,” said Pam Lloyd, who was slowly walking down the street with her 6-month-old son, looking for familiar names.

“He was born and raised here. He’s an O. Beachian from the word go. It was a great present for a man who has everything.

“I just wish I had bought a square for my son.”

Lloyd is not the only one who wishes they had bought a tile. People have besieged workers laying the tiles and left the association in a quandary over how to respond to the demand, Small said.

Of the 5,000 tiles laid, more than 2,000 were personalized, but they had to be bulk ordered and delivered in 700-pound crates from Seattle. The company cannot do them in small quantities, Small said.

Denny Knox, an association member, discovered the tiles on a visit to an outdoor Seattle market with personalized tiles while on vacation there, Small said. The association decided to use the same Seattle manufacturer to make the tiles because “we couldn’t find anyone locally to do it.”

But now the group is trying to find a contractor who will engrave the remaining blank tiles, she said.