Question re: Normandie Avenue alignment in Los Angeles's Koreatown

[TheStranger]

While just looking up places for my trip next week to LA, I noticed that there's one segment of Normandie Avenue where the through traffic uses a short bypass street, Irolo Street, rather than continuing directly on Normandie (which is a short residential corridor):

https://goo.gl/maps/8xdRo5u6xeS2

Looking at historicaerials, the current configuration where Normandie feeds into Irolo at Olympic did not exist in 1964 (but did by 1972).  Instead, Normandie from the south continued along the short residential corridor all the way to 7th, while Irolo was a completely separate street north of Olympic (connecting to the segment south of Olympic) that had the modern-day transition connector between 7th and Wilshire.

The 1954 Historicaerials shot shows this transition road, but not 1952.  The 1948 Historicaerials shot shows an empty lot between 7th and Wilshire where the current three-building complex is that blocks off the southern and northern segments of Normandie.

So while that narrows down when the road became contiguous, I do wonder why Normandie was never rerouted to follow the portion of Irolo that connects each half.

[sparker]

While just looking up places for my trip next week to LA, I noticed that there's one segment of Normandie Avenue where the through traffic uses a short bypass street, Irolo Street, rather than continuing directly on Normandie (which is a short residential corridor):

https://goo.gl/maps/8xdRo5u6xeS2

Looking at historicaerials, the current configuration where Normandie feeds into Irolo at Olympic did not exist in 1964 (but did by 1972).  Instead, Normandie from the south continued along the short residential corridor all the way to 7th, while Irolo was a completely separate street north of Olympic (connecting to the segment south of Olympic) that had the modern-day transition connector between 7th and Wilshire.

The 1954 Historicaerials shot shows this transition road, but not 1952.  The 1948 Historicaerials shot shows an empty lot between 7th and Wilshire where the current three-building complex is that blocks off the southern and northern segments of Normandie.

So while that narrows down when the road became contiguous, I do wonder why Normandie was never rerouted to follow the portion of Irolo that connects each half.

The most likely explanation was to avoid the folks living on either street (Normandie or Irolo) in that three-block stretch between 7th and Olympic from having to go to the bother of changing their addresses (legal and/or mailing).  And since L.A. tends to maintain its grid-pattern layout on a consistent latitudinal and longitudinal basis, at least south and west of downtown and out in the S.F. Valley, that standard was likely given weight over the prospect of a continuously-named through alignment.  While it may be a bit vexing to some tourists, the current arrangement certainly functions adequately for local purposes.

[mrsman]

While just looking up places for my trip next week to LA, I noticed that there's one segment of Normandie Avenue where the through traffic uses a short bypass street, Irolo Street, rather than continuing directly on Normandie (which is a short residential corridor):

https://goo.gl/maps/8xdRo5u6xeS2

Looking at historicaerials, the current configuration where Normandie feeds into Irolo at Olympic did not exist in 1964 (but did by 1972).  Instead, Normandie from the south continued along the short residential corridor all the way to 7th, while Irolo was a completely separate street north of Olympic (connecting to the segment south of Olympic) that had the modern-day transition connector between 7th and Wilshire.

The 1954 Historicaerials shot shows this transition road, but not 1952.  The 1948 Historicaerials shot shows an empty lot between 7th and Wilshire where the current three-building complex is that blocks off the southern and northern segments of Normandie.

So while that narrows down when the road became contiguous, I do wonder why Normandie was never rerouted to follow the portion of Irolo that connects each half.

The most likely explanation was to avoid the folks living on either street (Normandie or Irolo) in that three-block stretch between 7th and Olympic from having to go to the bother of changing their addresses (legal and/or mailing).  And since L.A. tends to maintain its grid-pattern layout on a consistent latitudinal and longitudinal basis, at least south and west of downtown and out in the S.F. Valley, that standard was likely given weight over the prospect of a continuously-named through alignment.  While it may be a bit vexing to some tourists, the current arrangement certainly functions adequately for local purposes.

Central LA is definitely a puzzle.  Different segments of the city became urbanized at different times and thus creating a patchwork of different grids all along the city.  Particularly along Wilshire and Pico, one notices that many of the grids are broken and not perfectly aligned, particularly the smaller residential streets.

At times over history, certain of these smaller streets become mini-major streets (like Normandie) and the city works to try to minimize the amount of crooked turns on such streets.  Yet, it isn't always convenient to connect the streets in the most logical manner so substitutions occur.  Your example of Irolo is a perfect one.  Another example I like to mention is at the corner of Gardner and Santa Monica in West Hollywood.  Gardner is certainly a mini-major street up and down this side of town, being half-way between La Brea and Fairfax.  There is a traffic signal on every major street it intersects between 3rd and Hollywood.  At SM, the grid breaks such that Gardner north of SM is half-way between Gardner south of SM and Vista south of SM (when looking at old maps such as a 1957 Thomas Guide from historicmapworks).  Since 1957, the county worked to make a connection to avoid traffic on Gardner from making a right and then a left on SM to continue N/S traffic, but they connected N Gardner to S Vista so now you see an intersection of SM with Gardner/Vista.  (For whatever reason, the county decided to use eminent domain to buy parcels to make that connection as opposed to making the connection from Gardner to Gardner) And some how over that period they also widened the street considerably between Willoughby and Fountain.

Going back to Irolo, when I lived in LA, I also found this amusing.  It was hard to remember that if I was on 8th or 9th and I wanted to drive on the mini-major N/S street in the area, I was supposed to turn on Irolo and not on Normandie.  Just another quirk in LA.

[djsekani]

While probably less confusing, another thing that always bugged me was Crescent Heights Blvd. through the mid-city area. It changes its name twice between Wilshire and Olympic for some reason.