Street Stories
In Southern California, there are majestic avenues like Imperial Highway or Victory Boulevard. There are also romantic roads like Sunset or Laurel Canyon. For every street, there's a history. This summer, KPCC's Kitty Felde has found some of the stories you can find right under your tires.
Are there Southland street names you're curious about? Let us know by leaving a comment on any entry below.
Related Features:
When the Streets Had No Names
The Long and Winding Roads of Southern California
(Photo: *Checco* on Flickr.com)
Table of Contents
Yorba Street, Lane, Etc.
Red Hill Avenue
Bison Avenue
Knott Avenue
Boysenberry Lane & Boysen Avenue
Chapman Avenue (Fullerton)
Chapman Avenue (Orange)
Orangethorpe Avenue
Antonio Parkway
Jamboree Road
Katella Avenue
Santa Maria Road
San Lorenzo Street
Santa Monica Boulevard
Santa Clara Avenue
St. Vincent
Santa Rita Street
San Miguel Street
De La Osa Street
San Ysidro Drive
San Julian Street
St. Katherine's Drive
Flintridge Avenue
El Centro Avenue
Fender Avenue
Lincoln Boulevard
Washington Boulevard
Beulah Drive
Zanja Street
Slauson Boulevard
Autry Avenue
Verdugo Road
La Canada
Hedda Street (Lakewood)
Hardwick Street (Lakewood)
Grand View (Mar Vista)
McCune Avenue (Mar Vista)
Sanford Street
Machado Lane
Wilshire Boulevard - Disaster Central
Wilshire Boulevard - 1930s Bonds
Wilshire Boulevard - Bullock's Department Store
Wilshire Boulevard - Miracle Mile
Wilshire Boulevard
Placentia
Amalfi
Firestone Boulevard
Sarah Place (Fullerton)
Cudahy Street
Olvera Street
Bishop's Road
Bomberry Street
San Fernando Boulevard
Whitley Avenue
Dalton Avenue/Pico House
Pioneer and Whittier
Pico Boulevard
Randolph Street
Marcasel
Malden, Highland, Lawrence, and Spadra (Fullerton)
Solano Avenue
Ford Lane
Highland Avenue
Casanova
Las Pulgas Road
Mamie and Nixon (Lakewood)
Los Angeles Street
Ivar and Selma
Freckles Road (Lakewood)
Leonis Boulevard (Vernon)
Cahuenga
Florence and Central
Las Casas
Nadeau Street
Gage Avenue
Broadway
Romaine Street and Gower Avenue in Hollywood
Lakme Avenue in Wilmington
Hollywood Boulevard
University Avenue
Wilcox Avenue
Chautauqua Boulevard
Canal Street/Avalon Boulevard/South Park
Canal Street/Avalon Boulevard
Coalinga Avenue
Temescal Canyon Road
9 May, 2008
There are a lot of Yorbas in Orange County. There's a Yorba Street in Orange and Santa Ana, and a Yorba Lane in Yorba Linda.
Phil Brigandi says, "Jose Antonio Yorba was one of the original Spanish soldiers here in California."
Brigandi wrote "Orange County Place Names A-Z." In 1784, he says Yorba was given land for his military service and became a cattle rancher. After his father-in-law died, he and a nephew petitioned the governor to use that land.
"They were given a concession to use all the land from the Santa Ana River, all the way down to the bay at Newport. So it's 75 thousand acres."
The next generation of Yorbas expanded their land holdings even more, so that by 1850, Brigandi says, "they could ride from he edge of what is Riverside today all the way to Newport Beach and always be on family property the whole way."
In 1868, the main rancho was broken up and sold off to the developers who would later create the cities of Orange, Santa Ana, and Tustin.
(Airdate: 5/11/08)
9 May, 2008
Red Hill Avenue may be the most obvious name for a street that runs through Tustin and Santa Ana. There's a hill and the soil is red. But the original names were much more colorful.
Red Hill's first name came from the Native Americans who lived in the area. They called it "Katuktu," meaning a hill of prominence, or place of refuge. Indian legends told of a great flood that forced families to find safety up on that hill. Archeologists have found artifacts proving that early people did spend time on the slopes of Red Hill.
The Spanish gave Red Hill its second name. Phil Brigandi, who wrote "Orange County Place Names A-Z," says the new name was inspired by what was at the bottom of the hill.
Down below was a very marshy area that was full of frogs, which was the Cienega de Las Ranas, the frog swamp. So the hill was called Los Cerritos de Las Ranas - the little hills of the frogs. Later, the gringos called it Rattlesnake Hill, for obvious reasons. It became Red Hill in the 1880's, when the cinnabar which gives the soil its trademark color, was recognized as a source of mercury. The mining on Red Hill continued into the 20th century, finally petering out by the Second World War.
(Airdate: 5/10/08)
2 May, 2008
The area around UC Irvine is filled with condominiums and commercial businesses. But some UCI alumni are old enough to remember the herds of cattle grazing across the street from campus. But before the cattle, there was another animal grazing in the grass in Irvine.
There's a Bison Avenue in Irvine that runs from Jamboree into UCI. It's a reminder of the Newport Harbor Buffalo Ranch.
Phil Brigandi, who wrote "Orange County Place Names A-Z," says, "if you lived in Orange County in the 1950s, everybody knew the Buffalo Ranch. A guy named Gene Clark came in, rented some land from the Irvine Company, trucked in a lot of buffaloes, and opened this little local tourist attraction with barns and Indian teepees, and you could buy buffalo burgers."
There was an Indian trading post, miniature tractor rides for the kids, and the herd of 72 buffaloes trucked in from Kansas.
Brigandi says, "it was just such a great novelty to go out there and see buffalo grazing on the hills, not too far from where UC Irvine is today.
In the 1960s, when UCI was being planned, architect William Pereira used the old Buffalo Ranch barn as his office. There he designed the UCI campus, and the very suburban cities of Irvine and Newport Beach.
(Airdate: 5/4/2008)
25 April, 2008
Knott's Berry Farm has been described as America's first theme park. The amusement park and Knott Avenue are named for that plucky farm family that turned boysenberries and fried chicken into an empire.
Walter and Cordelia Knott were always trying to find the next big thing. They started their berry farm in 1920, planting varieties from all over the world. Phil Brigandi, who wrote "Orange County Place Names A-Z," says during the depression, the Knotts tried a berry cultivated by a fellow in Anaheim named Boysen.
"The same year that they introduced this new berry, in 1934, is also the year that, to make a little more money, Cordelia Knott started serving fried chicken dinners on her wedding china in their little stand there on Grand Avenue in Buena Park. That's 1934 when we get both the boysenberry and Mrs. Knott's fried chicken."
The chicken side of the business was a hit. By 1940, Cordelia was serving more than 4,000 chicken dinners every Sunday. The Knotts added attractions like their son's fluorescent rock collection to keep folks amused while they waited for a table. Today, Knott's Berry Farm ranks Number 12 in amusement park attendance in the United States.
(Airdate: 4/27/2008)
25 April, 2008
Boysenberry Lane & Boysen Avenue
There's a Boysenberry Lane in Placentia and a Boysen Avenue in Anaheim. Both are named for the man who cultivated the fruit that still bears his name. Rudolph Boysen began propagating berries up in Napa County. When he moved to Orange County, he brought with him what was described as "the sensation berry of the 20th Century."
Phil Brigandi describes the boysenberry as, "a three-way cross between a loganberry, a raspberry, and a blackberry."
Brigandi wrote the book "Orange County Place Names A-Z." He says the boysenberry was huge and juicy, and it shipped well. But Boysen abandoned his crop after breaking his back in an accident. Years later, Brigandi says a fellow grower named Walter Knott heard about this legendary berry and tracked down Boysen.
"And he took them down to his in-laws former orange grove. They didn't even own the property anymore. And down by the irrigation ditch, in the weeds, were three or four straggly little berry plants that he'd transplanted there years before."
Knott made the boysenberry famous. Rudy Boysen found another career as Anaheim's park superintendent, a post he held for 20 years.
(Airdate: 4/26/2008)
18 April, 2008
There are two Chapman Avenues in Orange County, named for two different people. Phil Brigandi says, "they both have off-ramps off the 57 freeway, which causes no end of confusion!"
Brigandi wrote the book "Orange County Place Names A-Z." He says Chapman in Orange was named for an L.A. lawyer.
"But then up in Fullerton, there's a Chapman Avenue, named for C.C. Chapman, for Charles Chapman, one of the famous early Valencia orange growers here."
He was so successful, he became known as the "Orange King of California." Chapman made his big money in real estate and became even wealthier when he struck oil in 1919. His wells in Placentia pumped over 5,000 barrels a day. The "Orange King" became Fullerton's first mayor and the principal benefactor of the college that bears his name: Chapman University. Charles Chapman's autobiography was called "The Career of a Creative Californian."
(Airdate: 4/20/2008)
18 April, 2008
There are two Chapman Avenues in Orange County. And that confuses people.
Phil Brigandi, who wrote the book "Orange County Place Names A-Z," says, "there's Chapman Avenue in Orange, which is named for one of the founders of the town, Alfred Beck Chapman, an attorney from up in Los Angeles."
Alfred Beck Chapman was a West Point graduate. The Army sent him to California in the 1850s. He married the daughter of a lawyer, went into law himself, and worked as both L.A. City Attorney and L.A. County District Attorney. In private practice, Chapman began accepting land in lieu of cash for his legal services. By 1870, he and his partner, Andrew Glassell, owned more than 5,000 acres in Orange County. They wanted to call it "Richland," but there was already a Richland in Northern California. So they had a poker game to decide what the name would be. It's not clear who won the right to name the town, but today Orange has streets that honor both Glassell and his partner Alfred Chapman.
(Airdate: 4/19/2008)
14 April, 2008
Oranges became the big cash crop in Southern California in the 1870s. Civic leaders rushed to name cities, school districts, even the county after the popular fruit. But what about Orangethorpe? Phil Brigandi says, "Thorp is an English word that means a village."
Brigandi wrote the book "Orange County Place Names A-Z."
He says, "In the early 1920s, the city of Orangethorpe incorporated between Anaheim and Fullerton because Fullerton wanted to put their – well, what we called a sewer farm in those days, out there in the ranchlands in Orangethorpe. And by incorporating, they could keep the sewer farm out. And once that project had passed, after two or three years, they disincorporated and the city went away."
And that sewer? Brigandi says the sewer got put someplace else.
Orangethorpe the city is gone, but the street remains.
(Airdate: 4/13/2008)
14 April, 2008
Streets and buildings are often named after politicians, so you might think Mission Viejo's Antonio Parkway is named after the mayor of Los Angeles. It's not. In fact, this particular Antonio isn't even Latino. So who's the Antonio in the Antonio Parkway? Phil Brigandi knows. He wrote the book "Orange County Place Names A-Z."
"There are a whole series of names in south Orange County that are, how would you say the word? Hispanicized?"
There's an unwritten rule in real estate: if you develop it, you get to name it. In 1964, a grandson of the O'Neill family, Tony Moiso, co-founded the Mission Viejo Company and began carving out the ten thousand acre community called Mission Viejo. Phil Brigandi says several streets are named after the O'Neill family... with a Spanish twist.
"Like Tony Moiso from the Mission Viejo Company becomes Antonio Parkway down there."
Tony Moiso does have a legitimate tie to California's early days: he's head of the preservation foundation for the Mission in San Juan Capistrano.
(Airdate: 4/12/2008)
4 April, 2008
In 1935, the Boy Scouts of America decided to celebrate their 25th anniversary by holding a national gathering of scouts in Washington, D.C. called a Jamboree. It was postponed for two years because of the polio epidemic. The second Jamboree was held in 1950 in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. But then, local historian Phil Brigandi says, the Scouts looked west.
"In 1953, the Boy Scouts had their national Jamboree in Orange County in the hills above Newport Beach."
Fifty-five-thousand Scouts created a tent city, complete with its own fire company, bank, theatre, hospital, post office, even a zoo.
Brigandi, who wrote the book "Orange County Place Names A-Z," says his father actually attended that Jamboree. "He was from Garden Grove, so he was with Jamboree Troop 1 at the 1953 Jamboree."
The Scout tents are gone, replaced by the Fashion Island shopping center... but Jamboree Road remains.
(Airdate: 4/6/2008)
4 April, 2008
You might think Katella Avenue in Anaheim refers to some exotic spreadable nut mixture favored by European backpackers. Not quite. But Phil Brigandi says walnuts do figure in the story.
"There was an early rancher in Anaheim named John Rea and he had two daughters named Kate and Ella."
Local historian Phil Brigandi wrote the book "Orange County Place Names A-Z." It was 1896 when John Rea purchased his property.
"And he named his ranch where he grew walnuts – it was over by Disneyland – he named it the Katella Ranch. Kate and Ella, for his daughters."
The road that went by the ranch was also called Katella and for a time, there was even a Katella school district. The sisters lived long and apparently happy lives in Anaheim. Kate taught at Anaheim High School in the early 1900's. Ella became the first chairwoman of the Library board.
Portrait of Kate and Ella Rea
(Airdate: 4/5/2008)
28 March, 2008
There's a tiny street in Topanga Canyon that ends in a dirt road called Santa Maria Road. Artist J. Michael Walker researched Santa Maria for his exhibition "All the Saints of the City of the Angels," now on display at the Autry Museum. Walker says Santa Maria is named for a real person, Jesus Santa Maria, who moved to Topanga in 1875.
"He and his wife Maria Elena made a living by chopping down manzanita and other firewood trees."
Unfortunately, their customers were all in el pueblo de Los Angeles, where most of the trees had already been chopped down.
Walker says, "he was able to make a living by carting it with his mule up to what's now Ventura Boulevard, El Camino Real, and taking it 30 miles into downtown Los Angeles."
Walker says the name Santa Maria indicates they were descendants of the "conversos" – Jews given ultra Catholic names, before they were expelled from Spain during the Inquisition in 1492.
(Airdate: 3/30/2008)
28 March, 2008
Much of what we think of as remnants of California history are just a re-creation. Think of Disney's California Adventure or Knott's Berry Farm. San Lorenzo Street in Santa Monica Canyon gets its name from a local historian's attempt to recreate California's Rancho days.
Rancho La Boca de Santa Monica was a day's ride from the nearest Catholic cemetery, so when the Marquez family died, they were buried on the property. Nearly a hundred years later, in 1926, the land was sold to build homes. But Dorothy Lummis, the daughter of the developer, convinced her father to preserve the remains of the adobe and the graveyard. She commissioned an architect to build an adobe wall around it, one with a niche. Artist J. Michael Walker says that's where Dorothy put the statue of a saint, in the style of the Spanish era.
"As it happens, the saint she chose is St. Lawrence. Nobody really knows why that is, there's no record of why she chose San Lorenzo, but that's the reason the street out front has his name as well."
The 4th century Saint Lawrence met a rather grisly end: he was grilled to death. Peasants called the Perseid meteor shower "the tears of St. Lawrence."
(Airdate: 3/29/2008)
21 March, 2008
They say Los Angeles is a small town separated by freeways. But there's one street that links the westside with the eastside.
Santa Monica Boulevard got its name from the Spanish Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica. J. Michael Walker says St. Monica is best known as the mother of St. Augustine.
"People in college in philosophy class read his books, but when he was a teenager, he was every mother's worst nightmare: a rabblerouser and a carouser."
Artist Walker tells Monica's story in his new exhibit "All the Saints of the City of the Angels," currently on display at the Autry Museum. Walker says Monica spent the better part of 20 years praying that her son would straighten out his life. She became the patron saint of mothers of at-risk youth.
He says, "When I began working on the project, I learned of a group of mothers who meet each month on the east side in Boyle Heights. They're mothers with sons in prison."
The name of this group? Las Madres de Santa Monica: the mothers of St. Monica.
(Airdate: 3/23/2008)
21 March, 2008
When we talk about segregation, we usually think about the American south... not Venice, California.
When Abbot Kinney was carving out his Italian fantasyland, he hired one of the young men working on the boardwalk as his chauffeur. Over the years, Irving Tabor drove Kinney all over the U.S. In the south, when the African-American Tabor was refused admission to a hotel, he and Kinney spent the night in the car. After his death, Abbott Kinney left his Venice home to Irving Tabor. Unfortunately, the other residents of Grand Canal Street refused to let the Tabor family occupy the house.
Artist J. Michael Walker says, "Irving Tabor exercised the wisdom of Solomon, and sawed his house in two, hitched it up to his mules, and drove it home across the same canals he'd helped build several decades before to its present location at 6th and Santa Clara Avenue."
Santa Clara – or St. Clare – was famous for holding up the Blessed Sacrament to repel invaders at her convent. In this case, Walker says, Santa Clara was holding up a beacon to welcome the Tabor family.
(Airdate: 3/22/2008)
14 March, 2008
The diamond district in downtown Los Angeles is called the St. Vincent Jewelry Center. Before the jewelry mart, the neighborhood was home to St. Vincent's College. The city's first university was originally built near Olvera Street in the 1860s, but it quickly outgrew the two story adobe. The real estate boom of the 1880s caused St. Vincent's College to move again. But artist J. Michael Walker says two tiny streets remain downtown: St. Vincent Court and St. Vincent Place, both named for the French priest St. Vincent de Paul.
"St. Vincent had always said that he felt that the poor and impoverished were our proper masters in this life, so it's particularly fitting that all that's left in a way are these very anonymous bits of asphalt. And actually on St. Vincent's Place, he gets to serve the poor in the way he particularly wanted because the homeless gather there each night."
Today, St. Vincent's College has a new location – and a new name: Loyola Marymount University in Westchester. J Michael Walker's exhibit "All the Saints of the City of the Angels" is currently on display at the Autry Museum.
(Airdate: 3/16/08)
14 March, 2008
Santa Rita Street runs through Woodland Hills and Encino. Artist J. Michael Walker says, "Santa Rita de Cascia is the patron saint of those people with difficult or impossible causes."
Walker's new book is called "All the Saints of the City of the Angels: Seeking the Soul of L.A. on its Streets." He says there was another Rita, the widow of the land grabbing Vicente de la Ossa. Rita de la Ossa inherited Rancho Los Encinos, but didn't know how to deal with the property taxes. So she deeded the land to her American son-in-law, the former sheriff and tax collector for Los Angeles, James Thompson. Unfortunately, a year later, Walker says Rita's daughter and two granddaughters died of pneumonia.
"While Rita de la Ossa was grieving over this triple loss, James Thompson found comfort in arms of another."
Thompson evicted Rita from her land, even suing her in court. J Michael Walker says it's too bad St. Rita wasn't canonized until 1900: too late to help Rita de la Ossa.
(Airdate: 3/15/08)
7 March, 2008
There's an intersection in Woodland Hills where De La Osa Street meets San Miguel Street.
San Miguel Curves around Woodland Hills' first elementary school. Artist J. Michael Walker says the street is named for Saint Michael the archangel.
"He's someone you've probably seen in Renaissance paintings. He's the angel wearing armor who's standing in the middle of last judgment paintings holding these scales so he can weigh souls of the dead, to decide whether they're going someplace nice or someplace not so nice."
In an earlier Street Story, we told you about Vicente de la Ossa, an L.A. City Councilman in the 1830s who conned a pair of illiterate women out of the 4,400 Rancho Los Encinos for $120. At the intersection of De La Osa Street and San Miguel, where the con artist and the archangel meet, Walker says the street signs stretch out like an angel's wings.
"It's interesting to kind of contemplate what's going to happen as St. Michael is weighing his soul to decide where he's going to go."
J. Michael Walker's new book is called "All the Saints of the City of the Angels: Seeking the Soul of L.A. on its Streets."
(Airdate: 3/9/2008)
7 March, 2008
There's a small street in Woodland Hills called De La Osa. It refers to Vicente de la Ossa, an L.A. City Councilman in the 1830s who parlayed political power into real estate. He was the first owner of Rancho La Providencia, which today is Burbank. Artist J. Michael Walker says de la Ossa was greedy. He sold his rancho and started eyeing Rancho Los Encinos, owned by an absent landlord and two illiterate widows.
"The widow and daughter of the native men who had inherited Rancho Los Encinos probably didn't know they owed property tax, or if they did, they didn't know how to deal with it. And Vicente de la Ossa stepped in, paid a hundred dollars in property tax, and took away a third of their land."
Within three years, de la Ossa had acquired all 4,400 acres for $120. Today, De La Osa Street is all that remains of greedy Vicente de la Ossa. You can see an exhibit of J. Michael Walker's "All the Saints of the City of the Angels" at the Autry Museum.
(Airdate: 3/8/2008)
29 February, 2008
A number of local land developers looked to California's romantic Spanish past for inspiration for street names. Back in the 1920s, Alfonso Bell developed the exclusive neighborhood north of Sunset known as Bel Air. J. Michael Walker says one of those Bel Air streets is called San Ysidro.
"It's named for 13th century saint San Ysidro Labrador who hired out to work in the lands of wealthy in order to support his family as a farmer and a worker of the land. If you go driving down San Ysidro Drive today in Bel Air, the only people you see on the street are not residents. But they're largely Mexican, certainly Latino, gardeners are living the life of present day San Ysidros."
J. Michael Walker's new book is called "All the Saints of the City of the Angels: Seeking the Soul of L.A. on Its Streets." An exhibition of his work just opened at the Autry Museum.
(Airdate: 3/2/08)
29 February, 2008
In the 1880's, San Julian Street was the heart of L.A.'s commercial district. A hundred years later, the street was home to Gorky's, a funky restaurant that became the heart of the newly blossoming arts community. Today, San Julian is better known as the street address for much of L.A.'s homeless population.
Painter J. Michael Walker says San Julian is one of many streets in Southern California named after Catholic saints.
"Saint Julian one of the most popular saints of the middle ages. He's the patron saint of wanderers and those who give refuge to wanderers."
Walker has been researching L.A.'s holier street names. His new exhibit at the Autry Museum is called "All the Saints of the City of the Angels." Walker says there's a connection between the street and the Saint Julian.
"His story's like a Greek legend or something out of Shakespeare. There was a curse that was thrust upon him and he wandered around for many years until he settled down and decided that he would start offering his home as a refuge to other wanderers."
Today, San Julian is home to the Los Angeles Men's Project, or L.A.M.P., a shelter for the mentally ill. Walker says it's appropriate that many of the staffers at L.A.M.P. used to be homeless themselves and just like Saint Julian, they refer to clients as their "guests."
(Airdate: 3/1/08)
25 February, 2008
Almost 80 years ago, banker and politician Frank Flint named streets after two of the most important women in his life: his mistress and his daughter. You can read the tragic story of his mistress Beulah in an earlier Street Story. This is the story of his daughter Katherine.
Frank Flint had been a successful banker. He'd served in the U.S. Senate, and he'd developed the new community he named after himself: Flintridge. In the 1920s, Flint tried his luck at the hotel business. Filmmaker John Newcombe says Flint built his masterpiece on top of a hill in Flintridge, and named the street after Katherine, his daughter. But the hotel was so far away and the rooms were so expensive, nobody came. And then Flint and his brother Motley became ensnared in a financial scandal. Motley fled the country.
Newcombe says, "Frank Flint had a massive nervous breakdown, and his doctor put him on an ocean cruise, which in those days was considered to be the cure, the magic cure for shattered nerves. He went off in the Pacific with his wife and had a massive heart attack and died."
Newcombe, whose documentary is called "Rancho La Canada: Then and Now," says the hotel was sold to the Biltmores, who also couldn't make it work. Eight months after Flint died, the stock market crashed. The Catholic Church bought the hotel for $150,000. Today, Sacred Heart Academy for Girls sits on the site on St. Katherine's Drive.
(Airdate: 2/24/08)
25 February, 2008
You're far more likely to get a street named after you if you're a land developer than a politician. But if you're both, you're in like Flint... or at least, Flintridge.
Frank Flint became a millionaire in the 1880s land boom in Southern California. He was a banker whose biggest client was the Southern Pacific Railroad. In 1897, those railroad interests had him appointed U.S. Senator. But the election of Theodore Roosevelt ushered in a progressive era that required Flint to run for his seat. Instead, filmmaker John Newcombe says Flint got out of politics and into real estate.
"Somewhere around 1912, he became obsessed with [the] developing wealthy suburb of Pasadena, one of the most fashionable addresses in the country. He purchased 1,700 acres of La Canada and named it after himself, much to the chagrin of most residents of La Canada."
John Newcombe, who produced the documentary "Rancho La Canada: Then and Now," says Flint hired the best architects in the country to build mansions all over Flintridge. Frank Flint died in 1929, but his name lives on both in La Canada-Flintridge and Flintridge Avenue.
(Airdate for this story: 2/23/08)
15 February, 2008
El Centro Avenue in Hollywood isn't very big, or very important. At least, not today. But Greg Williams, author of "The Story of Hollywood" says when it came to figuring out who owned what under the old Spanish land grant system, El Centro was crucial.
"It is the center part of the two tracts that were the original of Hollywood: the Spanish tracts. You had Los Feliz and you had La Brea and the dividing line pretty much went along El Centro."
As you probably have figured out, El Centro, the dividing line, is Spanish for "the center."
(Airdate for this story: 2/17/08)
15 February, 2008
You might not think of Fullerton as the center of a rock revolution. But that's where Leo Fender figured out how to merge a guitar with an amplifier. Ginny King, author of "The Street Where You Live: Why Did They Name It...?" says Fender's tinkering turned him into the father of the modern electric guitar.
"He made his first prototype in a shed behind his radio repair shop in 1945 and by 2001, Fender Guitars were the largest guitar company in America."
Fenders were the guitar of choice for Buck Owens, Waylon Jennings and Jimi Hendrix. Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, and Merle Haggard still play them. Leo Fender's shop was located near the Santa Fe Railroad in Fullerton. And that's where you can find Fender Avenue today.
(Airdate for this story: 2/16/08)
8 February, 2008
One of the many Lincoln Boulevards in Southern California runs from Santa Monica to Westchester. It's one of the oldest streets on the Westside and it owes its route to a court case.
When the heirs to Rancho La Ballona sold 20 square miles of their Spanish land grant to outsiders, there was one problem: the land wasn't divided. In 1868, the new owners John Young and George Sanford took the issue to court. The judge decided the fairest way to divide the land was to give each owner a portion of the most valuable and the least valuable farmland. The judge decided the most valuable land was along Ballona Creek. It had water. Next was farmland that could be irrigated, and then pasture. Glen Howell, cofounder of the Mar Vista Historical Society, says the least desirable was the land that ran along the beach.
"Lincoln Boulevard traces its origin back to the dividing line according to the court between the pasture land and the beach land, the sand dunes and so forth. That's Lincoln, how it came about, Lincoln Boulevard."
Mar Vista has two famous presidents commemorated on city streets: Lincoln and Washington.
(Airdate for this story: 2/9/08)
8 February, 2008
In 1857, when L.A.'s first mayor Benjamin Wilson foreclosed on a $1,500 loan, he received title to a quarter of Rancho La Ballona. The only problem was the land was undivided. Wilson sold his share to George Sanford and John Young, and they took the other owners to court to claim their part of the land.
In 1868, a judge decided which portions of Rancho La Ballona were the most valuable. Water was the deciding factor. Glen Howell, cofounder of the Mar Vista Historical Society, says the closer you were to Ballona Creek, the more valuable the land.
"So there was a line drawn by the court in which they decided how to separate pasture land from land that could be irrigated. And that line is Washington Boulevard."
Farmland was on the south side of Washington, the less valuable pasture land was on the north side. And because Ballona Creek wasn't a straight line, that's the reason Washington Boulevard jigs and jogs through Mar Vista today.
(Airdate for this story: 2/10/08)
1 February, 2008
Filmmaker John Newcombe says, "probably the most interesting story behind a street is Beulah in la Canada Flintridge."
Newcombe should know. His documentary is called "Rancho La Canada: Then and Now." He says Walter and Beulah Overall were millionaire socialites who settled in Flintridge in the early part of the 20th century.
"Senator Flint, in a very rare move, actually named a street after her. Rumor was that he was having an affair with her."
The Overall marriage survived, at least until after the Second World War.
Then, Newcome says, "In 1947, Walter and Beulah were murdered. Bludgeoned to death on their boat down in Newport Beach, on a yacht. And then the murderers tried to blow the boat up. Four days later, they arrested their only child, Beulah Louise, a U.S.C. student, and her boyfriend."
In what was then the longest murder trial in American history, the jury let them go. The boyfriend became a homeless drifter, then a college professor. The daughter drank herself to death and died at age 36.
(Airdate for this story: 2/2/08)
1 February, 2008
There's still a Ballona Creek in Mar Vista, though these days it runs along a concrete channel to the sea. In the early days, Ballona Creek was the thing that made the land around it extremely valuable. Farmers depended on the creek for their crops. But Glen Howell, co-founder of the Mar Vista Historical Society, says even if you didn't live right on the creek, you could always run an irrigation ditch.
"In Spanish, an irrigation ditch is a zanja. Well, there's a street in Mar Vista called Zanja and it is an extension of Washington Boulevard and clearly it was an irrigation ditch."
These days, folks who live on Zanja Street get their water out of the tap, not out of the ditch.
(Airdate for this story: 2/3/08)
25 January, 2008
Slauson Boulevard runs from Whittier to the beach. It's one of the oldest streets in southern California. Matt Roths says, "Slauson Boulevard was named for J.S. Slauson, who was one of the empire builders of late 19th, early 20th century Los Angeles."
Roth is historian for the Automobile Club of Southern California. He says the Santa Fe Railroad built tracks along Slauson leading to Redondo Beach.
"Now why were they sending the railroad to Redondo Beach? There was an oil terminal there and there was a lot of money to be made shipping oil."
The railroad also attracted the Goodyear Tire Company, which built its plant in 1919 near Slauson and Central. The railroad even renamed its station at that corner "Wingfoot" after the Goodyear logo, eagerly anticipating the money that would be made from all the tires it would ship from that manufacturing plant.
(Airdate: 01/25/08)
25 January, 2008
Before the Internet, before TV, the medium of choice for most Americans was radio. D.J. Waldie, author of "California Romantica," says you can find some of the stars of radio on Lakewood's street signs. Waldie says a small portion of Lakewood, developed during the Second World War was called Radio Park.
"Because so many of the streets had connections to radio personalities. There's an Autry Avenue..."
As in Gene Autry. The singing cowboy from Texas starred in almost a hundred movie westerns. But from 1940 to 1956, the Autry was host of a national radio show: "Melody Ranch." In later years, Autry left his mark in Southern California broadcasting, owning KMPC, KTLA, and the Angels baseball team.
(Airdate for this story: 1/26/08)
18 January, 2008
Corporal Jose Maria Verdugo was head of the guards stationed at Mission San Gabriel. In 1785, he headed off a plot to murder the mission's two padres. He captured ten renegade Indians inside the mission walls without firing a shot. Filmmaker John Newcombe, whose documentary is called "Rancho La Cañada," says Verdugo cashed in on Spain's version of a pension for retiring soldiers. He got a grant for 36,000 acres of grazing land.
"All the way from Highland Park, Eagle Rock, Burbank, portions of Pasadena, the Crescenta/Cañada Valley, all the way to Sun Valley, he was given all of that land by the Spanish government."
Unfortunately for Verdugo's heirs, the Mexican revolution took California away from Spain. A new survey declared much of their land "unoccupied and unused." But their name still remains on local street signs: Verdugo Road.
(Airdate for this story: 1/19/08)
18 January, 2008
The flags of three different countries have flown over Southern California: Spain, Mexico, and eventually, the United States of America. Those changes in government played havoc with real estate ownership.
Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821. But it was another two decades before bureaucrats got around to surveying Spanish land grants in Southern California. John Newcombe documents this history in his film "Rancho La Cañada." He says in 1843, a portion of the old Verdugo rancho was given to a local schoolteacher and former soldier named Ignacio Coronel.
"He was due a lot of back pay, and this was their way of paying him, they gave him this. He's the one who named it La Cañada, meaning a glen between mountain ranges."
The land was dry and rocky and full of rattlesnakes. Coronel preferred living down the hill near what's now Glendale College. After just four years, Coronel was chased off the land by outlaws during the chaos surrounding the war between Mexico and the U.S. Today, no streets are named for Coronel, but his description "La Cañada" remains for both a city and a major boulevard.
(Airdate for this story: 1/20/08)
11 January, 2008
There have been gossip reporters almost as long as there's been a Hollywood. There's a street in Lakewood that honors one of the most famous celebrity scribes in the business.
You have to remember that Lakewood was created almost entirely in the early 1950s. D.J. Waldie, author of "California Romantica," says the L.A. suburb gave a nod to some of those who were famous at the time.
"There are many streets in Lakewood that are named after semi-obscure characters from Hollywood. There's Hedda Street, named after Hedda Hopper."
Hopper began her career as a silent movie actress, working in more than a hundred films. But by the 1950s, she was best known for her second career as a gossip columnist. Hopper was powerful. She dubbed her fancy home "the house that fear built." She outed alleged Hollywood Communists during the McCarthy era.
Hopper was born Elda Furry. The story is she paid a numerologist ten bucks to come up with a new name. Good thing, or those folks on Hedda Street could be living on Elda Avenue.
(Airdate for this story: 1/13/08)
11 January, 2008
Lakewood's resident historian D.J. Waldie says it may not be as distinctive as the sidewalk outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre, but Hollywood left its footprint on his hometown.
"There's Hardwick Street, named after Sir Cedric Hardwicke," he says.
Cedric Hardwicke made his career playing character roles in "The Ten Commandments," "Around the World in 80 Days," and the 1945 drama "The Keys of the Kingdom," where he played a disapproving Monsignor. In the film, he scolds Fr. Gregory Peck, saying, "when Mrs. Glendenning, one of your best parishioners, who naturally cannot help but extreme stoutness, came to you for spiritual guidance, you looked at her and said, 'Eat less. The gates of paradise are narrow'."
George Bernard Shaw called Hardwicke his fifth favorite actor, after the four Marx brothers. Hardwicke died in 1964. He was 71.
(Airdate for this story: 1/12/08)
4 January, 2008
There's a 200-foot-high hill in Mar Vista with majestic streets named Grand View, Ocean View, and Mountain View. Back in the 1920s, the head of the local Mormon community, George McCune, thought it would be the perfect place for a new Mormon temple in Los Angeles. So he donated the land. But Glen Howell, co-founder of the Mar Vista Historical Society, says McCune's gift got short shrift.
"The leaders in Salt Lake City, who were familiar with Mar Vista, decided it was too far off the beaten track, and they wanted it on a main road, so they picked Route 66."
The Westwood temple was built on land owned by the silent film actor Harold Lloyd. When it was dedicated in 1956, it was the largest Mormon temple. But Glen Howell says, "I think Mar Vistans are glad that it's not on top of our hill. The top of our hill now is a little league field and community gardens. And we like to keep it that way."
That Mormon temple in Westwood is now the second largest. Expansion of the Salt Lake City temple made it the largest operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
(Airdate for this story: 1/6/08)
4 January, 2008
The West L.A. neighborhood of Mar Vista was home to many of Southern California’s earliest Mormon settlers. It was Mormon community leaders who changed the area's name from Ocean Park Heights to Mar Vista. Glen Howell, co-founder of the Mar Vista Historical Society, says they established the chamber of commerce and ran most of the businesses.
"The first church that was built, they called it the Little White Chapel on the Hill, was built in 1928. And it was a community effort. The lumber was donated, the organ was donated, the people, whether they were Mormon or not, all donated labor, and they built the church in a short period of time."
The head of the local Mormon community was an investment manager named George McCune. McCune Avenue in Mar Vista is named for him.
(Airdate for this story: 1/5/08)
28 December, 2007
The news is full of stories of Southern Californians losing their homes due to ballooning interest rates. Unfortunately, it's a story as old as California.
Back in 1819, Felipe Talamantes and his son Tomas, along with some partners, acquired grazing rights in what is now Culver City. Unfortunately, the younger Talamantes ran short on cash and took out a $1500 loan, using his share of the property as collateral. Glen Howell, co-founder of the Mar Vista Historical Society, says the man who made the loan was L.A.'s first mayor, Benjamin Wilson.
"The interest rates were terrible at that time, one to two percent a month was common, and that's how many of these original grantees, the Spanish Rancho owners, lost their land."
And that's what happened. Tomas Talamantes couldn't make the payments. On December 31, 1857, his share of the property, about 20 square miles in all, was auctioned off, and Benjamin Wilson became part owner. Two years later, Wilson sold his share to several buyers, including George Sanford. There's no Talamantes Street in Culver City, no Wilson Road. But there is a Sanford Street.
(Airdate for this story: 12/30/07)
28 December, 2007
They tore down the Studio Drive-In movie theatre in Culver City ten years ago and replaced it with more than 50 homes. One of the streets in that housing tract, Machado Lane, is named for a family that lived in the area almost two centuries ago.
Jose Manuel Machado was one of the "soldado de cuera" or "leather jacket" soldiers who escorted the original settlers of Los Angeles and their mules to Southern California. Glen Howell, co-founder of the Mar Vista Historical Society, says Machado's service to the King of Spain paid off. In 1819, his two sons Augustín and Ygnacio acquired grazing rights with another family on 14,000 acres.
"Typically it was a soldier, a Spanish soldier, who was retiring from one of the presidios, and in lieu of a pension, was given the use of California land."
The Machados' first home was washed out when the Ballona Creek flooded. Augustín rebuilt on what is now Overland Avenue, not far from West L.A. College. The house is gone, but there is an Augustin Lane in Culver City. You can still visit Ygnacio's home. It's the Centinela Adobe in Inglewood. Ygnacio didn't live there long. In 1849, he swapped the Centinela Adobe for a house in Downtown L.A. To sweeten the deal, he had to throw in two barrels of brandy.
(Airdate for this story: 12/29/07)
21 December, 2007
Wilshire Boulevard - Disaster Central
In a city that loves to sell itself, Wilshire Boulevard might have been the most heavily promoted street. Matt Roth says, "Promotion is designed to kind of soothe anger and worry and to minimize conflict. And I think artists are attracted to promotion as something to negate."
Roth, who is historian for the Automobile Club of Southern California, says the same artists who flocked to Los Angeles didn't take long to fashion a dark, dystopian vision of the place.
"It starts out with the noir fiction of Raymond Chandler; he has all kinds of real cutting put-downs of Wilshire Boulevard. He calls it a neon lighted slum. The art of David Hockney, he has a painting called Wilshire Boulevard which is this blank wall with bright sun hitting it and a stringy palm tree, and these alienated stick figures kind of lost in this sun-struck landscape."
It wasn't the sun that struck Wilshire Boulevard in a 1974 disaster film starring Charlton Heston. It was a 9.9 magnitude earthquake. In "Earthquake," a massive aftershock destroyed the graceful Wilshire Colonnade – then known as the Ahmanson Center, near Western Avenue.
Roth says, "There was this great underground film called 'Miracle Mile', which was this post nuclear fantasy which, through rather crude effects, shows this blown up Wilshire Boulevard."
Earthquakes and nuclear war, Roth says, were only the beginning.
"There's the Tommy Lee Jones movie "Volcano," which treats moviegoers to lava flows destroying the Wilshire streetscape."
So why have so many artists portrayed a catastrophe-prone Wilshire Boulevard? One prone to massive destruction on a regular basis?
Roth thinks, "It's precisely a reaction to the promotion of the kind of sunny environment where we can travel and shop in safety and freedom."
Of course, people with a long view of history might say Wilshire's connection with death and disaster dates way back. Wilshire, after all, is home to the La Brea tar pits, where prehistoric wooly mammoths and sabertooth cats met a sticky and untimely end. And 9,000 years ago, someone murdered a young woman and dumped her body in those same tar pits on what's now Wilshire Boulevard.
(Airdate for this story: 12/25/07)
21 December, 2007
Wilshire Boulevard - 1930s Bonds
During the housing boom of the last few years, homeowners liked to brag about how much their property increased in value. Matt Roth, the historian for the Automobile Club of Southern California, says you should have heard the property owners on Wilshire Boulevard back in the Roaring Twenties.
"The lots on Wilshire were appreciating in value by a thousand percent a year through the late 1920s. In the worst years of depression, 1931, the property owners association on Wilshire Boulevard gets together to sell bonds in the bond market in order to raise capital, to improve the street, and the bonds sell overnight with no discounting in a very, very difficult environment."
Roth says in many ways, that sums up what makes L.A. distinctive in the 20th century: Its ability to attract money and investments from elsewhere, even places where the economy has hit the skids.
(Airdate for this story: 12/23/07)
21 December, 2007
Wilshire Boulevard - Bullock's Department Store
It was 1929 when the prestigious Bullock's department store opened its doors on Wilshire Boulevard. Property owners wanted to attract other classy shopping establishments. They decided their target audience was ladies who shopped. Matt Roth, historian with the Automobile Club of Southern California, says property owners set about making Wilshire "female friendly."
"They contribute money for special lamp posts, for trees, they're effectively making it into a kind of refined park-like atmosphere. Which is specifically geared to women shoppers. This is a gendered environment. And they actually take, consciously take elements of park design, as it evolved in the 19th century, which was able to kind of stipulate areas for middle class women, white women, by the kinds of plantings and carriage roads – as opposed the areas set aside for the noisier pursuits of middle class park uses. So they create refined areas as a procession of consumption."
Today, the only thing consumed at the Bullocks Wilshire building is legal knowledge. What used to be L.A.'s most elegant department store is now the law library at the Southwestern School of Law.
(Airdate for this story: 12/22/07)
21 December, 2007
Wilshire Boulevard - Miracle Mile
The part of Wilshire Boulevard near the L.A. County Museum of Art is known as the "Miracle Mile." How it got that nickname is another Street Story. In the mid- to late-1920s, property owners along Wilshire Boulevard wanted to "brand" the street so it would stand out in the public's mind.
Matt Roth, historian for the Automobile Club of Southern California, says, "First they call it the 'Great White Way of Los Angeles' which refers, of course, to Broadway in New York. Then they call it the Champs Elysee of Los Angeles, referring to the famous shopping street in Paris. Another set of publicity materials refer to it as the Fifth Avenue of the west. The thing is, none of these comparisons actually have anything to do with Wilshire Boulevard, except that those other streets are, in fact, celebrated."
In 1929, the prestigious Bullock's department store moved to Wilshire and an associate of real estate magnate A.W. Ross came up with the name "Miracle Mile."
(Airdate for this story: 12/16/07)
21 December, 2007
Almost as soon as there were cars, there was traffic on Wilshire Boulevard. Matt Roth, historian for the Automobile Club of Southern California, says there was an elaborate plan to ease congestion west of MacArthur Park.
"In the early 1920s, a group of civic leaders, including Harry Chandler of the L.A. Times, William O'Melveny of the law firm O'Melveny and Myers, they wanted to rebuild Wilshire Boulevard into this eight- or nine-lane parkway, as they called it, that would go from the Park to the sea."
The Wilshire Parkway would have commemorative fountains and lavish landscaping. But property owners wanted Wilshire to be a fancy shopping street and they wanted the street extended through MacArthur Park all the way to downtown L.A. The battle ended up, as most political battles in California do, on the ballot. The property owners won, and traffic pokes along Wilshire Boulevard to this day.
(Airdate for this story: 12/15/07)
30 November, 2007
There are Placentia Avenues in Brea, Fullerton, and the city of Placentia. Ginny King says, "The name Placentia was given by one of our pioneers, a Mrs. Sarah McFadden, 1876." King is author of the book "The Street Where You Live: Why Did They Name It?"
Placentia is Latin for "a pleasant place to live." There used to be a Placentia in Italy. But these days, its Italian name is used: Piacenza, a town founded by the Romans on the banks of the Po River.
Here in California, Union Oil christened one of its largest tanker ships "La Placentia" in 1921 and nearly everyone in the town of Placentia contributed toward a silver tea service for the captain's table. The ship was scrapped the year World War II ended. But in Orange County, Placentia Avenue lives on.
(Airdate for this story: 12/2/07)
30 November, 2007
Alfonso Bell is best known as the man who developed Bel Air. But he also had a hand in the creation of Pacific Palisades. Randy Young, who wrote the book "Street Names of Pacific Palisades", says a European vacation inspired Bell.
"When he purchased the land, he had just taken a trip to the Amalfi coast and he loved it. And he thought really this area was the Amalfi coast before it was developed. And so he demanded that all of his subdivision have basically Italian and French and Riviera names."
That means you, too, can tour the Riviera: Amalfi, Capri, Corsica, Monaco, Sorrento, and Naples – actually, Napoli – just by cruising the streets of Pacific Palisades.
(Airdate for this story: 12/1/07)
23 November, 2007
Sometimes, losing your job can be the best thing that ever happened to you. At least it was for Harvey Firestone. Firestone Boulevard runs though Downey, Norwalk, South Gate, and Watts. Local historian Wally Shidler says the street owes its name to the man behind the tire.
"Firestone Boulevard was named for Harvey Firestone, who built the Firestone plant there in South Gate in the late '20s."
Harvey Firestone was an Ohio salesman for the Columbus Buggy Company. The company went bankrupt, and Firestone lost his job. But it gave him time to work on his dream of making buggy rides a bit smoother. He imagined replacing steel-rimmed buggy wheels with rubber tires. When the horseless buggy became big, Firestone became even bigger. The Firestone plant in South Gate was a major regional employer until it closed its doors in 1981.
(Airdate for this story: 11/25/07)
23 November, 2007
Sometimes, getting a street named for you is a matter of being at the right place at the right time. Take Sarah Place in Fullerton, one of the older street names in that north Orange County town. Ginny King is working on a book about Fullerton street names called "The Street Where You Live: Why Did They Name It?"
King says, "The information on file says 'named by someone at the Pacific Electric office for a girl at the office'."
It was big news when the Pacific Electric trolley cars began running in 1918, linking Fullerton with Los Angeles. Local headlines read "All Aboard Tomorrow!" The trolley's tomorrow ended in 1948. Today, Metrolink trains stop at Fullerton, the busiest station in Orange County.
(Airdate for this story: 11/24/07)
16 November, 2007
There's a Cudahy Street in Huntington Park. Local historian Wally Shidler says it's named for Irishman Michael Cudahy.
"Michael Cudahy was the meatpacking impresario. Cudahy Packing Company; it was around here. It doesn't exist anymore."
Cudahy and his brother Patrick established the Armour-Cudahy meat packing plant in Nebraska. But Michael sold his share of the company in 1908 and invested in Southern California's booming real estate market. His one-acre lots were incorporated in 1960 as the city of Cudahy. Today, the 24,000 people who live in Cudahy are packed like sausages into one square mile, making the tiny town one of the most densely populated cities in the U.S.
(Airdate for this story: 11/18/07)
16 November, 2007
The street's original name was either Vine or Wine Street, for the grapes that used to grow there. But, Frank Damon says, "In 1877 it was changed to Olvera Steet after the first county judge of Los Angeles, Augustin Olvera."
Damon heads Las Angelitas del Pueblo, the docents who lead walking tours of old Los Angeles. He says Judge Olvera was both wealthy and well respected. He came to California in 1834 during the Mexican period as a justice of the peace. He signed the treaty that ended the war between the U.S. and Mexico.
"And he had a house right on the corner of Vine Street and the Plaza, where the Methodist Church stands today."
After the war, Judge Olvera continued to rule from the bench, using U.S. law. But because he spoke no English, he had to rely on a bilingual sheriff to translate court proceedings. And until L.A. County built a courthouse, Judge Olvera's courtroom was inside his house. He died in 1876. Wine Street became Olvera Street one year later.
(Airdate for this story: 11/17/07)
9 November, 2007
There's a Los Angeles street that leads from Chinatown to Dodger Stadium called Bishop's Road. Alicia Brown, founder of the Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council, says the story behind the name is simple.
"It was the road that was traveled when the Bishop came to visit from San Gabriel to the church in Los Angeles or vice versa. And so you just called it: The Bishop went that way. So that's the Bishop's road. You know, there weren't too many tendencies of putting up a sign. They point in that direction."
You can still find a Catholic Bishop on Bishop's Road from time to time. The street has been the longtime home of Cathedral High School.
(Airdate for this story: 11/11/07)
9 November, 2007
The city of Lakewood was built all at once between 1950 and 1953 – the same years as the Korean War. That conflict left its mark on the city in one particular street name: Bomberry.
DJ Waldie is public information officer for city of Lakewood and author of "California Romantica." He says, "Bomberry in Lakewood is named after Robbie Bomberry, who was a prisoner of war of the North Koreans."
Waldie says Bomberry's story was headline news at the time. He was a Native American from Oklahoma with just one year of high school. He moved to California and enlisted in the Army. In the first weeks of the Korean War, Bomberry's artillery unit was overrun by North Korean tanks. Eighty percent of his unit was slaughtered. Robbie Bomberry was captured. DJ Waldie says Bomberry was a POW for several months.
"He escaped a massacre of prisoners and eventually made his way to friendly lines and was rescued."
Robbie Bomberry lived another four decades. He died in 1992. Bomberry Street in Lakewood is located not far from All Souls Cemetery.
(Airdate for this story: 11/10/07)
2 November, 2007
It sounds like a bad joke: A priest and three psychics were walking outside the San Fernando Mission on San Fernando Boulevard. Michael J. Kouri, author of "Haunted Houses of Pasadena," says they were investigating claims that a trio of headless monks were haunting the place.
"We felt this icy cold blast of air. It was 104 degrees that day, it was in the summertime. And all of a sudden, one of the monks appeared. And his head was on, and when he bent down to greet us, his head rolled off and landed, of course, on the cement.
Now of course, he was a spirit and he was transparent, so we couldn't pick up his head and give it back to him. Not that we wanted to anyway. But we just felt he was doing this as a prank, to sort of startle us. And we just started laughing. And when we laughed, he had this look of utter disgust on his face and he dematerialized right in front of our eyes."
California fourth graders still have to build a mission as part of their state history class. No reports on whether extra credit is given for adding headless monks.
(Airdate for this story: 11/4/07)
2 November, 2007
Silent film legend Rudolph Valentino used to live in a charming Mission style home in the Hollywood neighborhood of Whitley Heights ... until the Hollywood Freeway was built and the house was knocked down. But Michael J. Kouri, author of "Haunted Houses of Pasadena," says Valentino's often in the neighborhood.
"His ghost is often seen wearing a derby hat, spats, a grey pinstripe suit. He was quite the snappy dresser. He was a clothes horse in every sense of the word."
Kouri says Valentino loved his whippets and his collection of exotic cars.
"He's often seen in his roadster coming down off the hill, down on Whitley, and he stops and he waves to his fans. And when the light turns green, he rides away, but he gets halfway through the intersection and he totally disappears."
Valentino had bad luck with houses. His home in Benedict Canyon, Falcon Lair, was torn down to the floorboards in 2003. There are no reports of Valentino's ghost at that location.
(Airdate for this story: 11/3/07)
31 October, 2007
Dalton Avenue in Azusa is named for Henry Dalton, an Englishman who made his money shipping goods from Peru to Wilmington. He bought a Mexican rancho, renamed Azusa Rancho de Dalton, planted a vineyard and built a flour mill. Michael J. Kouri says he was the wealthiest man in the San Gabriel Valley until California joined the Union in 1846.
Kouri is the author of "True Hauntings of the San Gabriel Valley." After the Mexican American war, homesteaders (or as Kouri calls them, "squatters") started moving in on Dalton's vast holdings. His land covered what's now Azusa, Glendora, La Verne, and Pomona. Dalton spent the rest of his life and his fortune fighting the U.S. government over land and water rights. He died penniless in the Pico House hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Michael J. Kouri says the Dalton family still haunts Pico House.
"And you hear a woman saying, 'Alisa, Alisa, come, come baby, come.' Well, Alisa was their third child. And when she was about 4 years old, she was running around the Azusa Rancho and fell into what's called a tanning pit, which is a hole in the ground that's filled with acid."
The family was so heartbroken, they saved scraps of the child's hair and eyelashes and pasted them onto a doll that they dressed in Alisa's baptismal dress. The doll joined the Daltons at family gatherings for years, even after they moved to Pico House. Today, that same doll is in the possession of Michael J. Kouri.
(Airdate for this story: 10/31/07. Boo!)
29 October, 2007
Pio Pico was the last man to govern California under Mexican rule. His house "El Ranchito" is located at the corner of Pioneer and Whittier in the city of Whittier. Pico was a wealthy man, and apparently, he liked to party. Michael J. Kouri, author of "True Hauntings of the San Gabriel Valley," says he still does.
"Pio has been seen there many times. Sometimes they hear the sound of the clinking of glasses in the dining room, as if he's having a party. He was quite the entertainer; he loved to have lots of people over, and it's just a very creepy place. But it's really cool."
You can visit El Ranchito at Pio Pico State Historic Park, at the corner of Pioneer and Whittier. No promises that you'll see the ghost of Pio Pico, though.
(Airdate for this story: 10/27/07)
29 October, 2007
Pico Boulevard is named for Pio Pico, the last Governor of California when it still belonged to Mexico. Michael J. Kouri, author of "Haunted Houses of Pasadena," says the area of Pico between La Brea and Robertson is full of ghosts.
"Not haunted by Pio Pico himself, but by winos and a lot street people who died tragically in 1932, when Los Angeles was very, very cold. It actually snowed in Pasadena that year, and a lot of them froze to death."
Kouri says there are at least 60 spirits haunting that stretch of Pico Blvd. No telling whether the proposal to make Pico a one way street will confuse the ghostly inhabitants.
(Airdate for this story: 10/28/07)
19 October, 2007
Long before the red line or the gold line or even the blue line, Southern California had a rail system that connected communities from the mountains to the sea. A street in Huntington Park is named after the so-called architect of the Pacific Electric Railway system.
Randolph Street runs right along the Southern Pacific railroad tracks in Huntington Park. Local historian Wally Shidler remembers the trolley known as the Red Car that used to run on those tracks.
"You could go from Huntington Park to Los Angeles in 12 minutes on the Pacific Electric for ten cents or five cents."
Shidler says Epes Randolph was the chief engineer for the trolley system. He only lasted three years. Tuberculosis forced him to retire and move to Arizona in 1904. The Red Cars lasted quite a while longer. The last car was retired in 1961. Only Randolph Street remains.
(Airdate for this story: 10/21/07)
19 October, 2007
Mar Vista has always had a reputation for being a healthy place, especially for those with respiratory problems. Glen Howell, cofounder of the Mar Vista Historical Society, says at one point, Mar Vista boasted of five sanitariums.
"One of those sanitariums, which was on Venice Boulevard, was called Casa del Mar: House by the Sea."
When the town was annexed by the city of Los Angeles in 1927, Mar Vista had to give up a street name already claimed by L.A. Inspiration came from the sanitarium across the way. So Howell says West Street became Marcasel.
"So if you drop a couple letters and switch some things around, you can switch Casa del Mar to Marcasel. So actually some people think the 'house by the sea' became 'sea castle.'"
Today, Marcasel is the street address for homes pretty enough in their own way to be called sea castles.
(Airdate for this story: 10/20/07)
17 October, 2007
Malden, Highland, Lawrence, and Spadra (Fullerton)
Fullerton was founded by a pair of homesick brothers from Massachusetts, George and Edward Amerige. Ginny King is working on a book about the street names of Fullerton called "The Street Where You Live: Why Did They Name It?" She says the brothers brought a little bit of home out west by giving Fullerton streets familiar names.
"Malden Avenue is the town in Massachusetts where the Amerige brothers were born. Highland Avenue is a street in Malden, where their residence was located. Lawrence Avenue was named by the brothers for the town of Lawrence, Massachusetts."
The Amerige brothers even let a pal name a street for his hometown in Arkansas, Spadra Bluffs. Spadra Road disappeared when the street was rechristened with a more utilitarian name: Harbor Boulevard.
(Airdate for this story: 10/13/07)
17 October, 2007
There are several theories about how Solano Avenue near Dodger Stadium got its name. Alicia Brown, founder of the Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council, says a family named Solano once lived in hills where the street is now. But Solano Avenue is also near the spot where, in 1769, Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola took a break on his trek through California.
"In Spanish, in Castilian Spanish, it's supposed to mean a shady place where you can rest; a place to rest."
There's another explanation: One of Portola's traveling companions was a Franciscan friar. Just prior to the exploration of California, another Franciscan missionary, Francisco Solano, was canonized for his work in South America. He had a gift for languages, and Father Solano was rumored to have another gift: The ability to predict earthquakes.
(Airdate for this story: 10/14/07)
5 October, 2007
The Ford Fairlane was a beautiful car sold in the '50s and '60s. It was named after Henry Ford's Michigan estate, called Fair Lane. But what about Ford Lane in Huntington Park?
Ford Lane is a tiny street behind Huntington Park City Hall. But local historian Wally Shidler says it was named for a very big man in the city: William "Uncle Billy" Ford.
"He was the first Huntington Park town marshal and he was elected April 15, 1908 and he served until 1910 when he became disabled. Then he retired. But he later served as street superintendent, tax and license collector, tree warden, and fire chief."
Maybe he didn't have time to find a more important street to name after himself. Wally Shidler says Ford Lane had absolutely nothing to do with the Ford Motor Company or the Ford Fairlane automobile.
(Airdate for this story: 10/7/07)
5 October, 2007
It's the street that leads you to the Hollywood Bowl: Highland. But before the Bowl, before the street, there were two neighbor ladies, Mary Moll and a Mrs. Highland Price. They were good friends, but then in 1901, Highland Price passed away.
Greg Williams says, "She was the first person buried in the Hollywood cemetery."
Williams is the author of "The Story of Hollywood: An Illustrated History." About the time of Price's death, city planners were trying to build a road that would run through Mary Moll's property. Williams says Moll agreed to the road on one condition: she wanted to name it. The city agreed, and that's why we have Highland Avenue.
"I think she did that in honor of her friend that lived down the street," Williams says.
Mary Moll's strawberry farm is long gone. But something sweeter grew up across the street: the new home of the Oscars, the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood and Highland.
(Airdate for this story: 10/6/07)
26 September, 2007
Casanova was the infamous Venetian lothario who's been immortalized in song and story. But apparently, not in Los Angeles cartography. There is a street near downtown Los Angeles, just north of Broadway, called Casanova. Alicia Brown, founder of the Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council, says Casanova owes its name to the European immigrants in the neighborhood.
"There were Italians, Croatians, Italians, so there were different groups. Irish, Germans, some Mexican people. And this was their new home. So at that time, the street was just like an alley, more like a little gully, actually, so they decided to name it their new house. Therefore, 'Casa Nova' &ndash 'new house.'"
You might still find romance on Casanova. It's practically across the street from Elysian Park.
(Airdate for this story: 9/23/07)
26 September, 2007
Long before flea baths and flea collars, native Californians had a foolproof way of getting rid of tiny, pesky, maddening fleas.
"And many times they would have a village and it would get so full of fleas, they would just move and burn the village down," says Randy Young, author of "Street Names of Pacific Palisades." The Palisades is a fancy neighborhood now ... but perhaps not back then. Young says one of those crude exterminations didn't work. The fleas stuck around.
"Obviously this was a village that hadn't been properly burned out, and so it was called 'the fleas.'"
Or, in Spanish, "las pulgas." No word on whether there's still a flea problem on that street in Pacific Palisades ... but they're still in the name: Las Pulgas Road.
(Airdate for this story: 9/22/07)
14 September, 2007
There are streets all over Southern California named for U.S. Presidents. L.A. has Washington, Adams, and Jefferson Boulevards. And there's a Gerald Ford Drive in Rancho Mirage. Even Lakewood got into the act.
Lakewood was an instant city, created in three short years in the early 1950s.
According to DJ Waldie, the public information officer for the city of Lakewood and author of "Holyland: A Suburban Memoir:" "In that era, developers were given pretty much free hand to name the streets as they saw fit. There were some restrictions imposed by the county engineers office, and there were some post office regulations."
Lakewood developer Louis Boyer wanted to honor the current First Family and Vice President, but the post office said both Dwight and Eisenhower were out because other cities had already claimed the names.
"But he was allowed to name a street Mamie," says Waldie, "and allowed to name a street Nixon. He wanted to name a street after Adlai Stevenson, but Stevenson lost so heavily in the 1952 election that he dropped that idea."
Stevenson lost again by a landslide in 1956. So there's no Stevenson Street in Lakewood.
(Airdate for this story: 9/15/07)
7 September, 2007
It was the most notorious street in Southern California. If you were looking for gambling, prostitution, or a stiff drink, Los Angeles Street was the place to go. Its original name was Calle de los Negros – street of the blacks. Frank Damon says at the time, "negroes" was a derogatory term for Mexicans, but the street itself was infamous for a massacre of local Chinese.
Damon heads Las Angelitas del Pueblo, the docents who lead walking tours of old L.A. He says in October of 1871, a fight broke out between two gangs over a woman. An Anglo man tried to intervene and was shot and killed. "Within a couple of hours," he says "nineteen Chinese were brutally killed by the Anglos. Men, women, and children. They were both shot and they were hung."
The murders were reported around the world. But it wasn't the first time L.A. was labeled a dangerous city. In the 1850s, there was, on average, one murder a day. That means about 20 percent of the city's population met an untimely death.
(Airdate for this story: 9/8/07)
7 September, 2007
Hollywood began its glamorous career as a farming community. Then in the 1880s, real estate magnate Harvey Wilcox and his wife Daeida began subdividing more than 150 acres of their property. Greg Williams, author of "The Story of Hollywood," says the Wilcoxes had to come up with enough names for all the new streets they were carving out of the old fig orchards.
"When they were grading the streets, they would sit down by their fig barn and figure out the names. There were these two little kids who lived in Holly Canyon. They would walk their way to Cahuenga, past their school which is on Sunset and Gordon, and they would walk pa