Welcome to L.A. Street Names, the origin stories of street names across Los Angeles County, from the shortest cul-de-sacs to the longest boulevards. Mysteries solved, myths debunked, scandals exposed, history revealed. This is an ongoing project with more than 1,700 streets – and growing. See FAQ for more information.
Featured Major Street
Avenue of the Stars
In 1956, the struggling 20th Century Fox decided to repurpose its backlot into real estate, and Century City was born. (For more, see Century Park East and West.) Avenue of the Stars, Century City’s grand concourse, was a riff on Avenue of the Americas, the name given to Manhattan’s 6th Ave. in 1945. (New Yorkers still call it 6th Ave.) And by “stars” I mean movie stars, not galactic stars. This was old Hollywood studio property, after all. So the vision of Edmond Herrscher, nephew-in-law of Fox president Spyros Skouras, was to line the avenue with statues of famous Fox names like Will Rogers and Shirley Temple. But by the time Fox resignedly sold the land to aluminum giant Alcoa in the early 1960s, Herrscher and his never-made statues were out of the picture.