Have You Noticed? New Signs Added to
Glendale’s Streetscape 2

The city just added more signs to Glendale’s crowded streetscape, this time to highlight former historic neighborhood names.

Glendale recently completed installation of street signs throughout city neighborhoods denoting their historic names. The signs are on major streets entering each neighborhood.

The names of the districts are based on this map developed several years ago. The signs replace similar signs taken down in the 1970s because the City Council believed they were divisive and emphasized loyalty to neighborhoods rather than to the city as a whole. The old signs were sold off as surplus property in a retail shop located in the Glendale Galleria in those years.

The current signs each feature a unique emblem meant to replicate the design on the corresponding area’s earlier sign. Some of the earlier emblems have been lost, so a replacement design was used in those instances.

Some of the names (such as Rossmoyne and Verdugo Woodlands) remain the name of those neighborhoods today. Others do not. Residents in certain areas, such as Northwest Glendale between Glenwood and Pacific avenues, question the historic accuracy of the unfamiliar name “Glenwood” given to that area. The area between Pacific Avenue and Brand Boulevard was given the historic name of “Verdugo Viejo,” probably based on the historic Casa Verdugo located in that area, but that name is unfamiliar to residents as a designation for their neighborhood.

In any event, the signs themselves do not say “historic,” and give the impression that the names are current ones. Some residents would have preferred signs featuring the current name of their neighborhood, as signs in Los Angeles do, but Glendale did not adopt that alternative.