Crenshaw, Los Angeles, California
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The Crenshaw District is located in southwestern Los Angeles, California. 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.
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[edit] 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.
[edit] Education
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. Crenshaw High School achieved notoriety in August 2005 when a Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) committee stripped the school of its accreditation. The accreditation was restored in February 2006 on a conditional basis. Crenshaw High School has a notable Magnet/Gifted program and its marching band has appeared in numerous commercials. It also has continued in the yearly Martin Luther King day parade in the Crenshaw District. They also are a yearly competitor in the Battle of the high school marching bands, sponsored by VH1 and held at the Home Depot Center in Carson. Many of its band members have gone on to colleges and universities through music scholarships.
Susan Miller Dorsey High School serves some areas near the Crenshaw district.
New Design Charter School is a charter school in the area. Built in 2004, this school offers academics, music, and sports.
[edit] 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). As with most of Los Angeles, 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 the United States Supreme Court nullified segregation covenants in 1948, many white Crenshaw district residents fiercely resisted African-American westward movement into the area, but the growth of suburbs ultimately led to most whites' departure and their subsequent replacement by African-American leaving South Central and Japanese returning from internment during World War II. Many of the Japanese left Crenshaw after the Watts Riots of 1965, returning to previously Japanese-heavy areas like West Los Angeles and Torrance, but many can still be found in the area along Coliseum st., mainly directly east and west of Crenshaw blvd.. Most of these Japanese-Americans are elderly and not many young families are seen. 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 40's, 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, Senegalese-Americans, Jamaican-Americans, Ugandan-Americans, Nigerian-Americans, Ethiopian-Americans, Eritrean-Americans & Haitian-Americans make up 73.34% of the population, followed by Latinos, many of whom are Afro-Latinos such as Afro-Hondurans and Afro-Costa Ricans, make up 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 4.35% of the population were of Asian descent. Recently, some African-Americans that grew up in the area are returning, tired of the long commutes and racism associated with living in the suburbs.
[edit] Notable Buildings
The Crenshaw District is known for the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw plaza shopping mall, which is home to a tri-level Wal-Mart, a Sears and a Macy's, as well as many smaller stores. A bid to bring Nordstrom to the mall did not work out. The well-known West Angeles Church of God in Christ, on the corner of Crenshaw and Exposition, is home to Bishop Charles E. Blake.
A common misconception is that Crenshaw Christian Center is located in the Crenshaw District. Crenshaw Christian Center is actually located at 7901 Vermont Ave in Los Angeles. The church was originally located in the Morningside Park district of Inglewood on Crenshaw Bl., at Hardy St.
The "Crenshaw Sqaure" sign that some have called Crenshaw's version of other landmarks like the Eiffel tower, or the London eye has been in serious dis-repair as of late.
[edit] 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 [1] in the 1920s through 1950s ran in the median between Leimert Boulevard [2] and the city of Hawthorne. Since the abandonment of the streetcars, the former railway median has been narrowed, the driving lanes improved and the street reconfigured.
Crenshaw Boulevard has been immortalized in many famous rap songs by artists such as DJ Quik, Raekwon from the Wu-Tang, 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 Patsouras Transit Plaza via Hawthorne Bl. and King Bl.
Line 210 - South Bay Galleria to Hollywood and Vine Station via Crenshaw Bl.
Metro Rapid Line 710 - South Bay Galleria to Hollywood and Vine Station via Redondo Beach Bl. and Crenshaw Bl.
Metro Rapid Line 740 - South Bay Galleria to Patsouras Transit Plaza via Hawthorne Bl and King Bl.
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 Bl. and Stocker St.
Line 105 - West Hollywood to Cudahy
Line 305 - UCLA to Wilmington/Imperial Station
Metro Rapid Line 705 - Vernon and Santa Fe Aves. to West Hollywood
[edit] 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
