Florence Avenue

Florence Avenue is a major east–west street in central Los Angeles County and South Los Angeles, in Southern California.

The oldest operating McDonald's is on Florence Ave at Lakewood, in Downey, California.

Route

It starts off as Mills Road at Janine Drive in Whittier. At Telegraph Road, it changes to Florence. West of La Cienega Boulevard, it swerves into Aviation Boulevard, which is a north–south street, in the City of Inglewood.

Florence Avenue runs through the cities of Inglewood, Los Angeles, Huntington Park (where it intersects Pacific Boulevard), Bell, Bell Gardens, Downey, Santa Fe Springs, and unincorporated Los Angeles County bordering the City of Whittier.

Florence Avenue also crosses under Harbor Freeway (Interstate 110), Long Beach Freeway (Interstate 710), San Gabriel River Freeway (Interstate 605), and Santa Ana Freeway (Interstate 5).

Public transit

Metro Local Lines: 111 and 120 run through Florence Avenue; the former runs through most of Florence starting at Studebaker Road and the latter east of Studebaker Road.

Rapid transit

The Metro Blue Line light rail serves the Florence station, at the intersection of Graham Avenue and Florence Avenue in the unincorporated community of Florence.

Crenshaw/Lax Line

The under construction Crenshaw/LAX Line will have 2 new light rail metro rail stations on Florence Avenue, the Fairview Heights Metro station at West Boulevard in the Hyde Park district, and the Downtown Inglewood Metro station at La Brea Avenue in Downtown Inglewood.

History

Some segments of the avenue traverse some of the low middle class sections of south Los Angeles County, however on the eastern end it goes through more of the quiet affluent residential sections of the region. There are also dozens of retail outlet shopping strip malls and local sit down restaurants, especially in the city of Huntington Park at the intersection of Pacific Boulevard and Florence Avenue. The intersection of Florence and Normandie was made famous during the 1992 riots in Los Angeles when several men pulled Reginald Denny from his truck and beat him in the intersection.