Crenshaw, Los Angeles, California

The Crenshaw district is located in southwestern Los Angeles, California, United States. It derives its name from Crenshaw Boulevard, one of the district's principal thoroughfares. It is generally considered to be a part of South Los Angeles.

Geography

The Crenshaw district is bordered by Chesterfield Square on the east, Hyde Park on the south, View Park-Windsor Hills on the west, and Leimert Park on the north. The district's boundaries are roughly Van Ness and Arlington Avenues on the east, Vernon Avenue on the north, the city limits of Los Angeles on the west, and Slauson Avenue on the south.

Education

Primary and secondary schools

Public schools

The area is zoned to schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District

Crenshaw High School, which is south of Martin Luther King Boulevard and east of Crenshaw Boulevard, is the school in the area.

Susan Miller Dorsey High School serves some areas near the Crenshaw district.

operates the [http://www.kippkao.org/ KIPP Academy of Opportunity] , a charter middle school, in the area near Crenshaw.

New Design Charter School is a charter school in the area. Built in 2004, this school offers academics, music, and sports.

Neighborhood

The Crenshaw district is a largely residential area of single-story Mediterranean bungalows and low-rise apartment buildings, with an industrial corridor along Jefferson Boulevard. Developed from the early 1920s onward, Crenshaw was initially a very diverse neighborhood of whites (including many Jews and other Eastern Europeans). Covenants on property deeds barred African Americans and Asian Americans from owning real estate in the area. During preparations for the 1932 Summer Olympics, which heralded Los Angeles' arrival as a major world city, Crenshaw's medians and sidewalks were planted with hundreds of the towering palms that, to this day, dominate the area's otherwise low-rise skyline.

After courts ruled segregation covenants to be unconstitutional, the area opened up to other races. A large Japanese settlement ensued, their neighborhood can still be found along Coliseum Street, east and west of Crenshaw Boulevard. Many of the Japanese-Americans are elderly as their children did not stay in Crenshaw. African-Americans started arriving in the sixties and by the seventies they were the majority.

Since the 1970s, Crenshaw and neighboring Leimert Park have since formed one of the largest middle-class African-American neighborhoods in the United States, despite heavy damage from the 1992 riots and the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Crenshaw has some rough areas such as "The Jungle" (officially named Baldwin Village), and the 40s, but overall the area is mainly middle-class.

The population of Crenshaw in 2006 was around 27,600. Recently, with increased middle-class African-American migration to newer neighborhoods such as the Antelope Valley and Moreno Valley, and with the increase in Latino immigration, the African-American character of the neighborhood has been somewhat diluted. Still, African-Americans make up 73.34% of the population, followed by Latinos, [Robinson-Jacobs, Karen, "Noticing a Latin Flavor in Crenshaw," "Los Angeles Times" 2 May 2001: D1.] 16.89%, Caucasians, 3.37%, American Indians, 0.43%, Native Hawaiian & other Pacific Islanders, 0.20%, other races, 9.20%, two or more races, 9.32%, and people of Asian descent, 4.35%.

Notable Buildings

The Crenshaw district is known for the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw plaza shopping mall, which is home to a tri-level Wal-Mart (formerly a The Broadway store and later Macy's, a Sears and a Macy's, as well as many smaller stores In Los Angeles. A bid to bring Nordstrom to the mall did not work out. The West Angeles Church of God in Christ, on the corner of Crenshaw and Exposition, is home to Bishop Charles E. Blake.

A misconception is that Crenshaw Christian Center is located in the Crenshaw district. Crenshaw Christian Center is actually located at 7901 Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles. The church was originally situated in the Morningside Park district of Inglewood on Crenshaw Boulevard at Hardy Street.

The "Crenshaw Square" sign, a local landmark, had been in serious disrepair for years. In 2007, it was replaced by a modern red-and-green sign that lights up at night.

Santa Barbara Plaza is a shopping center in the district. This aging center is in disrepair and is a failed redevelopment project, for which much money has been spent but little has been achieved. [ [http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hammond28apr28,0,3461911.story Urban renewal project in L.A. begets blight instead - By Ted Rohrlich, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer 10:38 PM PDT, April 27, 2008 ] ]

Crenshaw Boulevard

Crenshaw Boulevard is a major thoroughfare for Los Angeles County. It starts at Wilshire Boulevard in Hancock Park and passes several demographically diverse areas to end in Rolling Hills. Tracks for the No. 5 Los Angeles Railway "yellow" streetcars [ [http://www.uncanny.net/~wetzel/lary.htm#map Los Angeles Railway in Brief - Map of Streetcar Routes] ] in the 1920s through 1950s ran in the median between Leimert Boulevard [ [http://www.uncanny.net/~wetzel/fiveline.htm 5 Line] ] on the north and to near Florence Avenue on the south. Since the abandonment of the streetcars, the former railway median has been narrowed, the driving lanes improved and the street reconfigured. Because of its large black community, the name "Crenshaw" has become associated with African-American culture, and the area has often been referred to as the 125th Street, or Harlem of the west.

Crenshaw Boulevard has been immortalized in many rap songs by artists such as DJ Quik, Raekwon from the Wu-Tang, Eminem and The Game.

In the Crenshaw district, Crenshaw Boulevard and Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza are served primarily by LADOT and four Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus lines:

Line 40 - South Bay Galleria to Patsaouras Transit Plaza via Hawthorne Boulevard and King Boulevard

Line 210 - South Bay Galleria to Hollywood and Vine Station via Crenshaw Boulevard

Metro Rapid Line 710 - South Bay Galleria to Hollywood and Vine Station via Redondo Beach Boulevard and Crenshaw Boulevard

Metro Rapid Line 740 - South Bay Galleria to Patsouras Transit Plaza via Hawthorne Bl and King Boulevard

Crenshaw Boulevard is also briefly served in the Crenshaw district by the following MTA routes:

Line 42 - Los Angeles International Airport to Patsouras Transit Plaza via King Boulevard and Stocker Street.

Line 105 - West Hollywood to Vernon

Line 305 - UCLA to Wilmington/Imperial Station

Metro Rapid Line 705 - Vernon and Santa Fe Aves. to West Hollywood

ee also

* South Central Los Angeles

Notable residents and natives

*Kenneth Hahn, (1920–1997) Los Angeles County supervisor
*James Hahn, mayor of Los Angeles, 2001–2005
*Arthur Lee, rock singer
*Darryl Strawberry, professional baseball player
*Eric Davis, professional baseball player
*Ice Cube, rapper and actor
*Ice-T, rapper and actor
*Saaphyri Windsor, reality television star, winner of "Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School."
*Mike Naggar, Mayor, City of Temecula

References