In March 1886, city councilman Levi N. Breed requested an ordinance to convert 500 acres of city property – then called Stone Quarry Hills – into a public park. (There was indeed a stone quarry here; the park ultimately grew to around 600 acres.) By May of that year, the “Elysian Park” name was being tossed around if not already decided upon. (The media failed to report on whichever City Council meeting invented or approved the name; its first mention was in a May 7th letter to the Times, in which some anonymous crank complained that Elysian Park was “too common” and not as “romantic” as Quarry Hill Park.) That August, a stretch of present-day Sunset Boulevard, between Douglas and Beaudry, was dubbed Elysian Park Avenue. A small but crucial remnant existed all the way into 2016, when it was rechristened Vin Scully Avenue. Elysian Park Drive, a separate street, was laid out in the 1890s, but much of it has since been renamed and realigned. “Elysian” itself is derived from the Elysian Fields: the ancient Greek version of heaven.
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