This is the shortest street in Los Angeles, lying between Terrace Park and the grassy median that divides Bonnie Brae Street from Alvarado Terrace. How short is Powers Place? Although I’ve stood on the street, I haven’t measured it personally, but based on maps I’d say it maxes out at 45 feet. (It’s 40 feet wide.) In any event, it is clearly longer than the 13 feet that some folks claim it to be. City engineers named this street Powers Place in 1910 in honor of Pomeroy Wells Powers (1852-1916), a New York-born real estate developer and onetime City Council president who had developed this neighborhood in 1902 and lived right around the corner. Powers’s old house still stands, while Powers himself is interred in Inglewood Park Cemetery, which he cofounded. Powers Place is one of the only brick-lined streets in Los Angeles, along with the very old Olvera and Sanchez streets and the relatively new L. Ron Hubbard Way.
Find it on the map:
