This 1926 street surely honors landowner Bernardo Roselli (1859-1938), who sailed from southern Italy to New York in childhood: records say he arrived in 1873 but an urgent 1869 notice in the New York Daily Herald about two missing Italian boys identified one as ten-year-old Bernardo Roselli, who played violin. This is surely our guy, as Roselli worked as a musician throughout his early life. He married fellow Italian immigrant Teresa LaSalvia (1870-1925) in 1888 and they ultimately had eleven surviving children, all of whom were born in Los Angeles except their eldest, which indicates that the family left New York for L.A. in 1889 or 1890. Roselli evidently made more money as a fruit dealer than as a musician and for many years the family lived and worked on Ord Street, in what was then Little Italy and is now Chinatown. Although it’s unknown when Roselli picked up the land under Roselli Street, by 1919 he owned substantial property in northwest Glendale. He subdivided it in 1923 and built a fine home at Ruberta Avenue and Bel Aire Drive two years later. The house still stands although poor Teresa was felled by a stroke before she could move in. Most if not all of the Roselli offspring would live in that neighborhood, either in the house or close by. Several of the sons were busted for booze during Prohibition; after Repeal in 1933, one wound up running a liquor store, another a cocktail bar.
Find it on the map:
