The Region - News from Oct. 16, 1986

The Los Angeles City Council took its first steps toward changing the name of a Little Tokyo street to honor Ellison S. Onizuka, the Japanese-American astronaut killed with his fellow crew members in the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. The council unanimously ordered the city engineer to present it with an ordinance changing Weller Street, the short diagonal between 1st and 2nd streets, to Lt. Col. Ellison S. Onizuka Street. The council is expected to formally change the name within a month. Several shopkeepers on Weller Street argued that the present name has historical importance to Little Tokyo.