This was originally called Vanderbilt Avenue, one of several streets on the Pasadena Villa tract honoring Gilded Age industrialists (e.g., Carnegie Street). That was in 1902. A year later, the Baird brothers – George, Arthur, Joel, and Llewellyn – took over the tract and the area soon became known as “Bairdstown”. In March 1917, two years after Los Angeles annexed Bairdstown, residents got the City to change Vanderbilt Avenue to El Sereno Avenue; the post office then adopted the El Sereno name and Bairdstown was no more. That said, it’s unknown who coined “El Sereno” or why. (One source credits Flora Bailey, whose husband Walter ran the Los Angeles Military Academy here, but I found no proof.) I strongly suspect it’s Spanglish: since sereno is Spanish for “serene”, the Anglo residents of 1917 may have thought el sereno translated as “the serene place”. But it doesn’t. It means “the night watchman”. Just as an old English town crier would announce, “Ten o’clock and all’s well!” a Spanish sereno would call out, “¡Las diez y sereno!” Some believe Mrs. Bailey – or whoever named El Sereno – really did have that literal translation in mind. I do not believe. Regardless, El Sereno Avenue was once a longer thoroughfare but most of it was renamed Eastern Avenue in 1926.
Find it on the map:
