Los Angeles

Parents Forum
1

<p>I’m not sure if any of you are familiar with the West LA/Santa Monica area, particularly on Santa Monica Blvd, west of the 405.</p>

<p>When driving upon Santa Monica Blvd or any other east to west street, there are many cross streets named after Top Colleges such as Amherst, Wellesley, Harvard, Berkeley, and Yale. </p>

<p>Does anyone have any information about the coincidence? Or how they came to be named?</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formtype=address&addtohistory=&address=[12464-12499]%20Santa%20Monica%20Blvd&city=Los%20Angeles&state=CA&zipcode=90025&country=US&geodiff=1[/url]”>http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formtype=address&addtohistory=&address=[12464-12499]%20Santa%20Monica%20Blvd&city=Los%20Angeles&state=CA&zipcode=90025&country=US&geodiff=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

2

<p>It seems to be pretty common for roads around colleges to be named after other colleges – at least based on a limited sample size. I know the UC Irvine area has roads named Berkeley, Harvard, Stanford, Marquette, Lehigh, Oxford, Exeter, Columbia, Cornell, and Yale.</p>

3

<p>The Claremont Colleges area also has Harvard, Columbia and Amherst.</p>

4

<p>The streets just north of SMU in Dallas are named after colleges.</p>

5

<p>It’s a residential neighborhood. It’s very common for residential areas to have streets named according to a “theme” – usually determined by the whim of the developer who built the subdivision (but subject to city approval).</p>

<p>Most of the streets in our neighborhood, including the one I live on, are named after lakes. A neighborhood I know in Davis, CA has streets named after characters in The Lord of the Rings.</p>

6

<p>A neighborhood right next to ours in suburban Philadelphia is called College Park and the streets are Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, etc.</p>

7

<p>Many streets are named by developers looking to add “perceived value” to the houses they sell.</p>

8

<p>Well for one, it’s not near any university. And second, I’m wondering specifically about the LA area.</p>

<p>It’s common knowledge what you’ve all given me. Not to sound rude, or come as rude, but it’s frustrating when you want to know or get to the bottom of this. the whole who, what, and why?</p>

9

<p>Hah i know exactly where you’re talking about, i used to work there, </p>

<p>i think everyone else answered your question. many streets in LA county and probably the world are named after themes. the developer saw these as presitgeous colleges and decided to name streets after them.</p>

10

<p>Frankly, I think they were all great and most likely, accurate replies to your question. What sort of answer are you looking for?</p>

11

<p>in my old town(rvc,NY REP!) they had columbia,yale and harvard(a huge block)</p>

12

<p>Near our area are some streets named Harvard, Amherst, Haverford, Cornell–maybe more but I’ve never gone deeper into the development. I always get Haverford and Harvard mixed up, and others have said the same thing.</p>

13

<p>We live on one of the streets in the group mentioned by the OP. My D applied to that school and I remember wondering if it would cause any amusement in the admissions office. I can report that in any event there was no measurable boost in admissions success.</p>

<p>As to how they came to be so named, I have no idea and I’m a real estate agent when not living on-line or writing. And the streets do encompass both West L.A. and Santa Monica.</p>

14

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<p>There isn’t much more of a “bottom” to get to. You’ve already been given the answers:</p>

<p>who - the developer named them.
what - he named them after famous colleges as is comon practice in many other cities.
why - probably to try to boost the prestige and value of the neighborhood by giving it prestigeous names.</p>

<p>You are looking for answers to a mystery that doesn’t exist.</p>

15

<p>Funny you should mention all that, Coureur. I was recently seized by the idea of a fictional “Miramar Hotel” in the middle of the desert. I even know what the story will be.</p>

16

<p>If you are really interested you can go to the building department and see what records they have. I pulled out my old architecture guide to LA and Southern Cal. and the neighborhood isn’t in it. But a more recent edition, or someone else’s guide that covers less ground might.</p>

17

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<p>I guess that’s no worse than the Miramar Ski Club of Vermont:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.miramar.org/about.htm[/url]”>http://www.miramar.org/about.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

18

<p>Liek0806- Next door in the Palisades is a swarm of streets named after Presbyterian colleges…(note they are listed alphabetically as you progress down Via de la Paz to the ocean) Antioch, Bowdoin, Carthage, Depauw, Earlham, and Friends. These streets cross other Presby-named streets: Haverford, Holyoke, and Swarthmore.</p>

<p>I suspect the developer was honoring the fact that the Palisades was an early site of the regional chautauqua’s, essentially Presbyterian gatherings held in the Palisades before it was developed in the 20s…and <em>yes</em> there is a street in the Palisades called Chautauqua, leading up from PCH into the town.</p>

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<p>Can’t speak for all of them, but “Presbyterian” would be a fighting word at Earlham, Friends, Haverford, and Swarthmore if “fighting” was an acceptable category to Quakers.</p>

20

<p>I stand corrected…how’s this? The names of American Christian colleges were selected…others in that same area include Radcliffe, Hampden (as in H-Sydney), Lombard (Galesburg, IL), Berea, and Goucher.</p>