If you count the numbered streets in Central Los Angeles, you’ll notice that there is no 10th Street. (Well, there is, but only in bits and pieces.) That’s because 10th became Olympic Boulevard in 1935, in honor of the Summer Olympics, which were held in Los Angeles in 1932. (We can thank William May Garland for that.) Although it was the 10th Olympiad, the choosing of 10th Street was apparently coincidental, as the road was already being widened and extended across the city. In fact a healthy portion of Country Club Drive was the first road to be renamed Olympic, back in 1929. The boulevard continued to expand all the way into 1945, coopting most of the Westside’s Louisiana Ave. (where it had to slice through the Fox backlot) and Santa Monica’s Pennsylvania Ave., and portions of 9th Street and Mines Ave. on the Eastside.
Find it on the map:
