Geography

Funky geography redux

smfwy-screengrab.jpgIf you click on the map you'll see that Google Maps has fixed its misspelling of Sanford, but still insists it's a place on the L.A. streetscape rather than merely a post office name — albeit the one where Charles Bukowski worked. (I notice Google also calls Carthay Circle Theatre a place...but not Carthay Circle sans theater, which actually is a place. Go figure.) Meanwhile, reader Dana Gabbard notes that he was in the Bukowski post office at 6th and Harvard the other day to buy stamps. Guess what: the receipt still reads Sanford Station, six years after Congress changed the name to the Dosan Ahn Chang Ho Post Office.

By the way: In a rant in which Steve Lopez gets hip to some realities about the Westside subway extension — that it won't go to the beach, won't be done to the West LA VA stop until 2036 and isn't a universally popular project — the columnist stumbles on a key geographic coordinate. He proposes "congestion pricing on all the ridiculously traffic-snarled east-west corridors west of the 10 Freeway..." West of the 10? Let's hope he meant the 110.


More by Kevin Roderick:
Standing up to Harvey Weinstein
The Media
LA Times gets a top editor with nothing but questions
LA Observed Notes: Harvey Weinstein stripped bare
LA Observed Notes: Photos of the homeless, photos that found homes
Recent Geography stories on LA Observed:
When Van Nuys was a name downtown too
Another great old map from Glen Creason of LAPL
The story behind one cool LA map
Appreciating LA's ghost streets and shapes
Nokia Theatre is out, Microsoft Theater (and Square) are in
100 years ago today, the Valley made Los Angeles big
Just where is downtown Los Angeles anyway?
Even Silver Lake doesn't want you to call it 'Eastside' *


 

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