Playing the Name Game L.A. Style

If you walked around the neighborhood of Sepulveda, out near the Budweiser plant in the Valley, and asked the people exactly when they decided to ditch the name of their neighborhood, it’s my guess you would get many different answers.

They might say it was the year the Budweiser plant opened and began sending wafts of malt-scented steam over the streets. Certainly, that was a bad year for Sepulveda.

Or they might say it was the year that ranchettes began to lose their appeal in the real estate market. Sepulveda has many ranchettes.

In any case, the day finally came. Sepulveda had become a weary place, its very name suggestive of downward mobility. At dinner parties, Sepulvedans found themselves reluctant to admit where they lived. They concluded it was time for a change.

And this week, they got it. A big chunk of Sepulveda was wiped out. On Monday, the namesake of Francisco Xavier Sepulveda, inheritor of the San Vicente and Santa Monica land grants, alcalde of Los Angeles Pueblo, holy terror of the Mission era, was reduced to a remnant of its former self.

And in its place rose North Hills.

All over the neighborhood, crews from the city soon will be attaching the blue and white signs with the new name. Never mind that down on Roscoe Blvd. the Bud plant will still issue its vapors. Never mind that the ranchette roofs still will sag.

Never mind, in fact, that North Hills is neither hilly nor north of anything in particular. Or that the name, in fact, was probably borrowed from a nearby shopping mall. Something undefinable has been altered, and the former Sepulvedans will now go forward in a new guise.

This notion of transformation is not new to L.A., of course. Our history is full of it. The land barons and oil tycoons who built Southern California often had pasts that were best left uninvestigated. They came here, tranformed themselves, and died rich.

Transformation, in fact, is so central to L.A. that it’s difficult to find an institution here that was not built by a genius or a prophet who had utterly failed in their former lives.

So why can’t a neighborhood do the same? The evidence suggests that it can. Back in the boom years of the 80s, part of Canoga Park decided to peel itself away from its past and arise anew as West Hills. Incredibly, it succeeded. The new West Hills has acquired a pizazz beyond the dreams of Canoga Park.

Of course, these transformations have their downside. The boundaries of the new West Hills failed to include all of Canoga Park, and the exiled neighbors protested. The old Canoga Parkans demanded that the West Hillites let them in.

But the exclusion of certain parts of Canoga Park had been no accident. The West Hillites regarded those sections of their old neighborhood as trashy, and had no intention of changing their boundaries to embrace their former fellow citizens.

The situation grew ugly. The left-out Canoga Parkans appealed to the city for inclusion. The West Hillites fought back ferociously, determined to keep their new identity to themselves.

In the end, the West Hillites prevailed and the boundaries stayed more or less as they were. However, the snobbery of the West Hillites had its cost. I am told that some neighbors still do not speak when they pass on the sidewalk.

So take a lesson from this, North Hills. You, too, have excluded parts of your old neighborhood. And the news reports say the old Sepulvedans are muttering already.

Not to mention some Granada Hillites who know a good thing when they see it. They have already proposed slicing off parts of their neighborhood to join forces with you. The yearning of these groups represents an opportunity, North Hills, not a threat.

Consider the Granada Hillites, for example. They find themselves stuck with a 70s name in the 1990s. “Granada” sounds like it found inspiration from a Ford.

These people would be worthy allies. They don’t care that the name North Hills contradicts geography, that it sounds like a town outside Philadelphia. To them, it looks like the 90s, and they want to be part of your future.

You could fight off the Granada Hillites and the old Sepulvedans and probably manage to hoard your new name for yourselves. But do recall that as of last Friday you were just miserable Sepulvedans, doomed to finish your days watching your ranchette values dribble lower and lower.

So let the riffraff jump on board, North Hills. It is the L.A. way. You can all pull the oars together and, who knows, one of these days you might be right up there with Tarzana.