A section of Figueroa Street stretching from the Staples Center to Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is expected to be renamed Kobe Bryant Boulevard.
The plan was announced Monday — a date celebrated as Kobe Bryant Day in Los Angeles — by city councilmembers Herb Wesson and Curren Price in an event outside the arena that’s come to be known as “the house that Kobe built.”
“This is a gift to the city of Los Angeles and to all the Kobe Bryant fans around the world,” Price said. “L.A. streets will rise in honor of the ‘King of L.A.’
The councilmembers are expected to officially introduce the renaming motion Tuesday, and they expect it to pass without opposition.
“Sometimes we have the opportunity to do something that everyone supports,” Wesson said. “Sometimes we have an opportunity to do things where politics are never considered. And this is one of those.”
If approved, the stretch of road from Olympic Boulevard to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard would become Kobe Bryant Boulevard.
“It’s been in Ohio as early as the mid-1850s at least, brought in as an ornamental plant because of its unique foliage and white flowers,” Gardner said. “It was actually planted in people’s landscaping, and it has been spreading.”
Wesson shared an image on Twitter showing what the street signs are expected look like.
Bryant was killed in January, along with his daughter Gianna Bryant and seven others, when the helicopter they were on crashed in the hills above Calabasas. His passing was mourned for weeks across Southern California.