Lafayette Park was founded in 1896 as Sunset Park on land donated to the city by Clara Shatto. Its name was changed in early 1919 to honor the Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834), the French aristocrat who fought alongside the Americans in the Revolutionary War. The petitioners, led by numerous French Americans, originally wanted to rename the larger, prettier Westlake Park. That plan was nixed and Sunset Park was their consolation prize. (Westlake Park would be renamed MacArthur Park in 1942, after another war hero: General Douglas MacArthur.) A year after the park’s rebranding, nearby property owners lobbied City Council to change Andrews Boulevard, which led to the park, to Lafayette Park Place. The street would later absorb the former Benton Boulevard, which at two blocks wasn’t much of a boulevard – and Benton Way had taken on a life of its own by then anyway.
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