Even humdrum-sounding Normal Avenue has a rich history. In the good old days, a college that offered degrees in education was called a “normal school”. And indeed, a normal school was situated right here on Vermont, with Normal Avenue leading to its entrance. If you guessed that it was on the site of today’s Los Angeles City College, you’d be right. But did you know that it was previously the location of UCLA? Back in 1913, when both campus and street were being laid out, this proto-UCLA was known as the Los Angeles State Normal School. Six years later, it joined the University of California system as a teachers college. It officially became UCLA in 1927, but the school’s new campus in Westwood was already underway and would open in 1929. The Vermont campus was reborn as Los Angeles Junior College that very September; it took on the LACC name in 1938.
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