L.A. Street Names

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OBAMA BOULEVARD (#BaldwinHills, #Crenshaw, #JeffersonPark) President Barack Hussein Obama’s (1961-) popularity in Los Angeles is such that civic leaders renamed most of Rodeo Road for him in 2019. Located in a historically black neighborhood, Rodeo was... lastreetnames.com/street/obama-b…

OCEAN PARK BOULEVARD (#SantaMonica, #WestLA) 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… lastreetnames.com/street/ocean-p…

KAUFFMAN AVENUE (#TempleCity) Milton Kauffman (1882-1956) was one of the founders of Temple City. Born in Tucson, his father Isaac was a French Jewish immigrant and his mother Ernestine (née Laventhal) hailed from one of L.A.’s oldest Jewish families... lastreetnames.com/street/kauffma…

LA PRADA (#HighlandPark) Named in 1906 on the La Prada Park subdivision, owned by James Shelly Green (1870-1946), a recent transplant from Pottsville, PA. La prada doesn’t mean anything in Spanish, so maybe Green and/or his sales agent Mira MacKay... lastreetnames.com/street/la-prad…

BERENICE AVENUE (#MontecitoHeights) Realtor Martin Edwin Johnson (1873-1923) named this street on his 1906 Montecito Park tract after his wife Berenice (1874-1941), whose local popularity long outlasted their marital union. Berenice Ann Brown was born... lastreetnames.com/street/berenic…

RATNER STREET (#NorthHollywood, #SunValley) Named in 1922 by landowner Alex Ratner (c. 1878-1935), who saw his first success with a New York deli. Born in the Russian Empire (western Ukraine region), Ratner came to New York in 1899. After a short spell... lastreetnames.com/street/ratner-…

NICHOLS CANYON ROAD (#Hollywood, #HollywoodHills) Named for John Gregg Nichols (1812-1898) and/or his son John Jr. (1851-1916). The elder Nichols was born in New York and came of age in Illinois, where he worked in the Galena lead mines before serving... lastreetnames.com/street/nichols…

OAKS AVENUE (#Monrovia) Why “Oaks” and not “Oak”? A Monrovian could tell you: it’s because the street gets its name from “The Oaks”, the mansion that Monrovia founder William Newton “Daddy” Monroe built for his family in 1885. It was the second house in... lastreetnames.com/street/oaks-av…

SWEETZER AVENUE (#BeverlyGrove, #WestHollywood) Possibly named for Edward Healey Sweetser (1844-1916), a jeweler-turned-real estate developer whose claim to fame was cofounding the Palms neighborhood in 1886. The case against Sweetser as namesake: the... lastreetnames.com/street/sweetze…

LA CUARTA STREET (#Whittier) Cuarta is the Spanish feminine translation of “fourth”, in this case referring to cuarta calle: “fourth street”. So was La Cuarta Street originally known as 4th Street? Yes it was – and as another street as well. 4th Street... lastreetnames.com/street/la-cuar…

LACLEDE AVENUE (#AtwaterVillage) French fur trader Pierre Laclède (1729-1778) is credited with cofounding the city of St. Louis, Missouri in 1764. Here in Los Angeles, Laclede Avenue – sometimes spelled “La Clede” – was named in 1912 as part of the... lastreetnames.com/street/laclede…

ROCHESTER CIRCLE (#JeffersonPark) Named for Eddie “Rochester” Anderson (1905-1977), the gravel-voiced comic actor best known for playing Jack Benny’s sidekick on radio, film, and television from 1937 to 1965. Born Edmund Lincoln Anderson into an Oakland... lastreetnames.com/street/rochest…

WASATCH AVENUE (#MarVista) Wasatch and Boise avenues are mementos of a Mormon-themed tract set up here in late 1922 by George W. McCune (1872-1963), a local leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Along with McCune Avenue, which of… lastreetnames.com/street/wasatch…

MATILIJA AVENUE (#PanoramaCity, #ShermanOaks, #VanNuys) Mammoth, Matilija, and Murietta avenues were all born on the same 1923 tract co-owned by Jacob Stern & Sons (see Stern Avenue) and George and Ethel Reeves. A minor spelling discrepancy leads to the... lastreetnames.com/street/matilij…

SCOTT AVENUE (#EchoPark, #SilverLake) Parmer Milton “P.M.” Scott (1822-1900) and Elizabeth Morton Scott (1840-1913) were Midwest transplants – he a widowed father of (at least) four from Illinois, she a divorced milliner born in Indiana and recently of... lastreetnames.com/street/scott-a…

LOUISE STREET (#Glendale) Originally just plain “L Street”, Louise Street surely honors Mary Louise Brand (1871-1945), wife of Glendale godfather Leslie Coombs Brand (1859-1925). (A telling clue: Maryland Avenue, one block west, was formerly Mary... lastreetnames.com/street/louise-…

BERMUDEZ STREET (#PicoRivera) Named, probably in 1888, after early landowner Alphonse Amédée “A.A.” Bermudez (1831-1888). Born in New Orleans, Bermudez was working as a miner in Havilah, Kern County by 1866. He was appointed county clerk there in 1871… lastreetnames.com/street/bermude…

COMPTON BOULEVARD (#Compton) Griffith Dickenson Compton (1820-1905) was a Virginia-born farmer who in October 1867 came to SoCal from Watsonville, CA. (Many say he led two dozen Methodist families to form a temperance community; on this claim, facts are... lastreetnames.com/street/compton…

WILEY BURKE AVENUE (#Downey) The Wileys and the Burkes were pioneer Downey families whose sons named this street in 1937. The sons: William K. Wiley (1882-1955) and Frank Burke (1861-1952), who lived just two blocks apart on Rives Ave. Wiley was a Downey… lastreetnames.com/street/wiley-b…