Harris Newmark (1834-1916) was one of the Southland’s best-known businessmen. A Jewish immigrant from Löbau, West Prussia (now Lubawa, Poland), Newmark arrived in the dusty, violent Los Angeles of 1853 to work for his shopkeeper brother Joseph. Harris took over the shop, married his first cousin Sarah Newmark (1841-1910) in 1858, and started plying his keen business skills in real estate in time for L.A.’s 1880s building boom. Here in the SGV, Newmark subdivided the Repetto ranch – today’s Montebello, part of which was called “Newmark” from 1900 until 1912. As for Newmark Ave., it originated on the 1906 Ramona Acres tract: the future Monterey Park. (It’s not clear whether Newmark had a stake in the tract or was merely being honored with a street name.) Among his many notable achievements, Harris Newmark cofounded the Los Angeles Public Library. His landmark memoir Sixty Years in Southern California: 1853-1913, published just months after his death, is an absorbing account of Victorian Los Angeles.
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