Los Angeles: Where the streets need new names

A sign for 6th Street in downtown Los Angeles. Photo by Thomas Hawk via Flickr/CC.

Too many streets in Los Angeles have boring names: Fair Oaks, Mission, Palms, etc.

When LA Mayor Eric Garcetti approached Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully with the idea of renaming a street after him, the famously humble Scully politely demurred.

That got the folks at Zócalo Public Square thinking: who else deserves to have an LA street named after them?

Some notable Angelos offered up ideas, like rebranding Central Avenue in South LA “Jazz Central” for the music greats who performed there, or renaming Seaside Avenue on Terminal Island in honor of Kihei Nasu, a secretary of the Southern California Japanese Fishermen’s Association.

KCRW’s Steve Chiotakis met with Joe Mathews, California editor of Zócalo Public Square, to talk about some ideas for new street names.