North University Park, Los Angeles, California

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North University Park Historic District
(U.S. Registered Historic District)
Location: Roughly bounded by Hoover St., Adams Blvd, 28th St. and Magnolia Ave
Los Angeles, California
Added to NRHP: February 11, 2004
NRHP Reference#: 04000016

North University Park is a subdistrict district of West Adams, Los Angeles, California a few miles south of Downtown Los Angeles. North University Park refers to the area immediately north of the University of Southern California, bordering University Park. It also includes Mount St. Mary's College's Doheny campus and Hebrew Union College.

The area's main thoroughfares are Figueroa Street, Adams Blvd, Hoover Blvd, and Vermont Blvd.

West Adams as a whole is notable for its architecture (see:Historic Architecture of West Adams), but in many of the residential areas of North University Park this architecture has been torn down to make room for apartment-style housing to accommodate USC students, notably along Ellendale Street and 30th Street.

[edit] Downtown or South Los Angeles?

There is some debate as to whether the University Park neighorbood is a part of Downtown Los Angeles or South Los Angeles. Historically, when USC was founded next to Exposition Park (then called Agricultural Park) in 1880, it was south of the 20,000 person town of Los Angeles, which was centered around what is now Olvera Street at the northern end of the current Downtown Los Angeles neighborhood. Over the years, the area and neighborhood has been considered a part of the northern end of South Los Angeles, with the dividing line between South and Downtown LA delineated by the Santa Monica Freeway (I-10).

Since 1998 there has been a movement, supported by businesses and organizations in the region of University Park and North University Park, to redefine the neighborhood as a part of Downtown Los Angeles, starting with the formation of the Business Improvement District the Figueroa Corridor Partnership. The goal of the businesses and organizations making up the Partnership is to extend the definition of Downtown to make the University Park the area's southern tip, and it consists of business and organizations in the adjacent University Park and South Park neighborhoods (the latter is universally considered part of Downtown Los Angeles). Since that time there has been significant construction on both ends: with the Staples Center, LA Live and luxury apartment buildings moving south from South Park and the Galen Center and other university buildings from University Park moving north; however the possibility of merging University Park with Downtown Los Angeles remains years away.