This street was first christened Adams Avenue in 1906 by landowner John Quincy Adams, no relation to the president. In 1923, when Eagle Rock was consolidated into the City of Los Angeles, fifty-four Eagle Rock street names had to be changed, mostly to avoid postal conflicts with existing street names in L.A. – in this case, Adams Boulevard. Eagle Rock trustees submitted a list of replacement names that November, including Addison Way. (Ironically, there was already an Addison Street in the San Fernando Valley; I can’t explain why the City overlooked that.) While “Addison” obviously sounds similar to “Adams”, the trustees were probably also honoring the late Addison E. Lee (1876-1918), a beloved Eagle Rocker who had resided on Adams Avenue for a dozen years until a heart attack felled him at 42. His widow Evalyn (not a typo) continued to live on this street until remarrying in 1948 and moving to Whittier.
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