PHOTOS: Stephanie Asher, Trainman, FireMonkeyfish.
If the residents of a given area vote to rename their neighborhood,
the LA City Council is going to pay for sign changes, according to the LA Times. Such areas as West Toluca Lake, Toluca Woods, Toluca Terrace, Valley Village, Valley Glen, West Hills and Lake Balboa are examples of districts where homeowners sought to bolster their identity by losing it.
Los Angeles, which built itself up by annexing and conquering Highland Park, Eagle Rock and Woodland Hills, wants to pay to further erase and butcher its history and carve up the city into places with names that mean nothing. Is this an attempt at creating community unity by denying it? Why would the City Council make it easier for the unimaginative to create such inane monickers as “Valley Village”?
Supposedly, it improves the real estate values if a community abandons its historic downtown and invents a new village out of a zip code. When North Hollywood hit the skids in the 1970s and 80s, Valley Village didn’t lend a hand, it got out of town.
Now the downtown areas of Reseda, Van Nuys, Canoga Park and North Hollywood are seeing a rebirth. Will Panorama City rename itself North Van Nuys? And will the divorced and dowdy districts of Ms. West Hills and Mr. T. Woods seek reconciliation with their newly hip and artsy parents?
Ventura, Hazeltine and Saticoy all refer to real persons or places. They mean something. So does Van Nuys. Saying a place is a village or a glen when it isn’t won’t make it so.
Here in Van Nuys 
I guess the lilt of the name Flushing Meadows is a bit hard to imagine. (That’s the name of the area in which Shea Stadium, Arthur Ashe Stadium, LaGuardia Airport and the 1939 and 1964 Worlds Fair are located.)
Then there’s Fishkill, NY (on the east end of the Tappanzee Bridge) that many animal rights activists have protested.
And when will someone address the unabated Suffern in suburban Rockland County NY?
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Scott:
You mean that Weirimus Road, Kinderkamack, Van Emburgh, Paramus, Ho-Ho-Kus, Pascack are not exciting names?
Hey, I graduated from Pascack Hills in Montvale so I understand what you are saying.
At least those places in NJ have natural beauty, history and lovely homes to recommend them. I don’t think Valley Glen can compare to Saddle River.
Come to think of it, one of the most boring and beautiful names is Spring Valley, NY–a sprawling and ugly place if I remember correctly.
Andrew
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I was raised in Bergen County, New Jersey, where we were surrounded by River Edge, Hillsdale, Montvale, Park Ridge, Ridgefield Park, Woodcliff Lake, Westwood and Ridgewood. (The only relief was provided by Indian or Dutch names like Hackensack or everyone’s favorite, Ho-Ho-Kus, with hyphens intact.)
A series of more generic and boring small town names probably could not be imagined. So bring on Valleywood.
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This is getting SCARY!!! I grew up in Canoga Park, by West Hills hospital in the 70’s. Then in the 80’s Canoga Park became synonymous with gang members & drug dealers, so my neighborhood was changed to “West Hills”. I now live N of Burbank between Sepulveda & Kester. All of my neighbors say we live in Sherman Oaks. NOT!!!!!!! I, too am down with Isaac, and proudly call my home Van Nuys. I hope to god they don’t change my city’s name to something lame. My husband and I make jokes about it, like “Van Oaks” or “Sherman Nuys”
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Keeping neighborhoods safe is all about knowing your neighbors. If you get along with them, they look our for you. Most people are honest and most crime is committed by people who live outside of where you live.
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All about suburban paranoia and real estate. Exactly. We can have safe neighborhoods and a “good image” by enforcing the law, cleaning up the streets, etc. not creating pretend places.
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We get fliers on our door all the time asking if we want to join the “Lake Balboa Neighborhood Association”, as we’re north of that bogus neighborhood and they want to add us into their fold, presumably so we have to pay some kind of dues. The association’s fliers are masterpieces of generated suburban paranoia, saying things like “Is crime running rampant where you live?”. The whole neighborhood naming scam is all about real estate values.
I found out that my neighborhood, which is Van Nuys, used to be called ‘Sherman Park’ by the developer who built the tract housing in 1950, probably to give it a definition solely to sell. I think it would be shame to slight the name of Mr. Van Nuys, one of the first settlers of the Valley, by renaming neighborhoods for reasons as cynical as real estate.
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I’m sticking with my bro’ Isaac Newton Van Nuys. The house down the street just sold for nearly a mil (!) so I think he really is making a comeback. Soon we’ll have to call ourselves a gated community, charge monthly mello roos fees for uh, landscape or something, and make everyone paint their houses the same color.
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I’m lobbying for Reseda to be renamed No Hills.
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You should see the proliferation of absurd names in South Central. “Athens-on-the-Hill?” WTF?
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It’s so bad it’s inevitable. Valley Woods, Wood Valley, Woodhill Oaks, Oakwood Valley, Woodnard Glen, Veda Glen. It boggles the mind…..
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I suggest Valleywood. Don’t care where, but what a name!
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