“Pyramid” probably refers to its location at the peak of a hill, but the best story about this 1924 street concerns the name it didn’t go by. In 1971, actor/crooner Rudy Vallée (1901-1986), who lived on Pyramid Place, tried to get it renamed “Rue de Vallée”. He was only half-joking: Vallée claimed that his friend, L.A.’s cantankerous mayor Sam Yorty, kept confusing it with the nearby Pyramid Drive and getting lost. The State Assembly approved Vallée’s request in 1974, but by then Yorty was out of office and City Council turned Vallée down. Vallée blamed his neighbors, calling them “disgruntled pukes”. Some developer later picked up on the story, for there is a Rue de Vallee way out in Azusa.
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