This time we asked what Figueroa Street was originally called in Highland Park? The answer is Pasadena Avenue. This is a question with many different ways of determining the answer. What I did was look at an old map of the area courtesy of the library’s collection of scanned maps. I looked at the “Map of Pasadena and Vicinity.” This undated map showed the name for me and also illustrated the fact that the street has been extended overtime so that the current Figueroa runs past where the old Pasadena ended.
Find this map and many others in the Library’s Map collection. The map collection is over one hundred years old, contains more than 100,000 items and represents a wide scope, including local, national and international cartography. The online archive focuses on maps depicting Los Angeles and the West. The online archive is part of the Library's "Visual Collections", with the maps available for online viewing. You can access the map collection via the library’s Research & Homework page (https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/research-and-homework). You’ll find it under M
