The source for Vanalden is more inscrutable than you’d expect. This was once two separate streets called Laurel Drive and Oak Avenue. They were renamed in 1917, two years after Los Angeles annexed the Valley, to avoid postal conflicts with like-named roadways elsewhere in L.A. City Council agreed on “Vanalden” as the new identity – but why? It’s a rare surname: neither public records nor city directories showed any Vanaldens or Van Aldens in California at that time. (A Virginia Van Alden was listed in 1916 newspapers as residing in DTLA, but it was such a fleeting mention that it may have been a typo.) Maybe there was a Vanalden in some councilman’s family tree, or someone saw the 1915 silent film Mrs. Van Alden’s Jewels and remembered the posh-sounding name. It could even be some obscure wordplay, or a misspelled tribute to someone with the more common surname of Van Allen. No answers to this mystery.
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