Originally part of the English town of Gravesend, Manhattan Beach was, until the mid-1800s, known as Sedge Bank, a farming settlement of what became Coney Island.

Its street names today are derived primarily from England.

When neighboring Coney Island became popular as an amusement site, it was subdivided into Norton’s Point or West End (later Sea Gate), West Brighton, Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach. Developers saw the potential of the area. Austin Corbin, a banker, bought 500 acres of swampy seaside land at Sedge Bank and renamed it Manhattan Beach.

Corbin built two hotels: the Manhattan Beach, dedicated by former President Ulysses S. Grant in 1877 (closed in 1911), and the Oriental, dedicated in 1880 by President Rutherford B. Hayes (demolished in 1916).

He hoped to make the area

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