Boring old F Street became Fedora Street in 1897. It was named either for the men’s hat or for the stage drama that inspired said hat. Here’s the story: In 1882, playwright Victorien Sardou wrote Fédora as a vehicle for the legendary French actress Sarah Bernhardt. It was a hit, and when the English version premiered in New York a year later, with Fanny Davenport (a legend in her own right) in the title role, Americans went gaga for all things Fédora. (Davenport brought the play to Los Angeles in July 1888; the plot concerns the fictional Russian princess Fédora Romazoff, who falls in love with her husband’s assassin.) It’s an oft-repeated myth that Bernhardt donned a man’s chapeau in the Paris show and thus the fedora was initially a unisex hat marketed to women. Not true. The first fedora-named hats were introduced in late 1883, they were inspired by the American production, and they were for men. For a while there was a style of ladies’ fashion called a “fedora front” – a curtain-like blouse. But from 1891 onwards, “fedora” primarily referred to men’s hats. P.S. There’s no evidence of Fedora Street ever having had a hat factory or hat store on it.
Los Angeles Street Names – their origins, their histories, their meanings