This was originally called Looney Street in 1922. The honoree: George M. Looney (1901-1973), cashier for realtor Carlin G. Smith, who developed the Eastmont neighborhood. But Looney wasn’t honored for long. According to the Dec. 19th, 1923 Los Angeles Evening Express, residents petitioned the County Board of Supervisors to change the street’s name to Harding Avenue, not only as a tribute to President Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), who had passed away that August, but because “they did not like the inference” of living on Looney Street. Not even George Looney could blame them: he, his mother Julia, and his brothers Frank and Richard legally changed their own surname to McDonald in 1925, partly to distance themselves from their no-account dad who had abandoned the family in 1907 and partly to avoid further ridicule.
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