Named after developer and philanthropist Irving Louis “Red” Kalsman (1908-2000). Born into a Lithuanian Jewish family in Brooklyn, Kalsman and his wife Lee (née Gottesman, 1909-2003) spent some years in Massachusetts and Rhode Island before coming to Los Angeles with their daughter Ervley (get it?) in 1936. Kalsman initially sold venetian blinds and linoleum before getting into real estate after WWII. (It’s unclear if he fought in the war.) During the suburban building boom of the 1950s, Kalsman and partner Richard S. Diller constructed thousands of homes across the Southland – from Beverlywood to West Covina, from Van Nuys to Compton. He was also a charter member of several high-profile Jewish organizations. Kalsman’s eponymous street lies on one of his former tracts.
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