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Shell Theatre

3011 Ocean Front Promenade Ocean Park (Santa Monica), CA 90405

Opened: Sometime around 1911. It's listed in the 1911 Santa Monica city directory with an 836 Ocean Front address. There was renumbering later.
 

Shell Theatre hadn't yet opened at 836 at the time this map was drawn. The location is seen as a curio shop in this detail from plate 29 of the 1909 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map in the Library of Congress collection. 
 
That's Pier Ave. across the top of the image, Marine St. across the  bottom. The yellowish rectangle across the street from the theatre location is the Ocean Park Auditorium Building. The pink building under construction at 844 would be the second location of the La Petite Theatre after they moved from the Auditorium Building. 
 

 
The Shell would have been down there somewhere in the middle of the block in this c.1910 view looking north toward Pier Ave. Perhaps it was where we see that golden clamshell entrance, typical of nickelodeon design. And appropriate, given the theatre's name. 
 
On the right it's the La Petite at Marine St. There's a bit of the Auditorium Building on the left. The card was a find on eBay by the late Chrys Atwood for a post on the Venice, Ocean Park & Santa Monica Facebook page. There's also a version of it on the site Card Cow. 
 
The Shell has one listing in the 1912 Santa Monica city directory as "Ocean Front bet Pier Ave. & Marine." C.P. O'Connell was listed as proprietor. The directory also had a listing for it with the 3011 Ocean Front Promenade address. 
 
Closing: The block burned in the 1912 fire that destroyed the pier as well as most of the Ocean Park Business district.  
 
More information: There isn't any yet. 

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