Ten college-themed streets in east Santa Monica and Sawtelle were named on 1903’s Artesian tract, owned by the all-powerful Santa Monica Land and Water Company. No university was planned for this neighborhood – UCLA was still two decades away – so the developers probably just thought prestigious schools made for attractive street names. The original ten, from west to east: Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Berkeley, Franklin, Cambridge, Vassar, Wellesley, and Amherst. Cambridge eventually got coopted by Centinela and little Vassar, just one block long, became part of Carmelina. If you’re wondering about the inspiration for Franklin Street, I wonder too. Is it tiny Franklin College in Franklin, IN? Franklin University in Columbus, OH? Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA? All doubtful. It’s possible that it’s a nod to the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school, and that developers chose to honor its founder Benjamin Franklin in order to avoid confusion with Santa Monica’s Pennsylvania Avenue. If so, why not just go with a more recognizable Ivy League name like Dartmouth or Cornell?
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