| Harbor City | |
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| — Neighborhood of Los Angeles — | |
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Harbor City
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| Coordinates: | |
| Country | United States |
| State | California |
| County | Los Angeles |
| City | Los Angeles |
| Time zone | PST (UTC-8) |
| • Summer (DST) | PDT (UTC-7) |
| ZIP Code | 90710 |
Harbor City is a community within Los Angeles, California, United States. As of the 2000 census, the community had a total population of 24,640. The ZIP Code which serves Harbor City Post is 90710.[1]
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Harbor City is part of the Los Angeles region known as the South Bay. Harbor City is located at the foot of Palos Verdes and the suburb of Torrance; but also borders the city of Lomita and the communities of Wilmington and San Pedro. The area near Torrance is part of a larger contiguous upper middle class neighborhood that consists of some of the wealthiest real estate in the area. Some parts of Harbor City, notably those that border Torrance and Palos Verdes are home to the middle class suburbs, while other regions, particularly those bordered by Lomita Blvd and Pacific Coast Highway north and south and by Normandie Avenue and Vermont Avenue on the west and east respectively, are of particularly working class.
Harbor City is located in the southern part of the city of Los Angeles, and part of the South Bay region. It is bordered on the north by Sepulveda Boulevard, the east by Vermont, the south by Anaheim Street/Palos Verdes Drive North, and to the west by Western Avenue.
In 2009, the Los Angeles Times's "Mapping L.A." project supplied these Harbor City neighborhood statistics: population: 23,529; median household income: $55,447.
The ethnic composition is White (25.1%), Asian (13.0%), African American (10.7%), Latino (48.1%) and Other (3.1%).[2]
Harbor City was originally part of the Rancho San Pedro, granted by the Spanish Empire in 1784 by King Carlos III to Juan Jose Dominguez. The rancho was divided and sold by Californios during the Spanish and Mexican periods of Alta California. After the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, many of the rancho lands were acquired by American immigrants.
Harbor City stands as a testament to the ambitious designs of the Anglo-American creators of the modern metropolis of Los Angeles. By the turn of the century, city leaders had decided that it would be in the best interests of the city if the port and harbor areas were directly annexed. The independent cities of San Pedro (founded in the late 18th century) and Wilmington (founded in 1858 by Phineas Banning) were then independent establishments of what would become the Port of Los Angeles. Following the establishment of San Pedro as the main source for the port over Santa Monica in 1897, Los Angeles city leaders argued that direct control over the port areas would be mutually beneficial by providing San Pedro and Wilmington with larger funding and in turn allowing the city to garner more revenue via the increasing port trade. The two cities were initially reluctant to join; in 1906, frustrated by the indecision of San Pedro and Wilmington leaders, the city of Los Angeles purchased a long and narrow swath of land that connected then-South Los Angeles to San Pedro, naming the two regions Harbor Gateway and Harbor City. City leaders then threatened to build a new port in Harbor City if the recalcitrant towns would not acquiesce to annexation. Both agreed by 1909. In return, the city of Los Angeles elected to keep Harbor City as a land-locked part of the main city, linking the metropolis to its newly won ocean trading centers.
Harbor City hosts a hospital and various medical buildings in the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, located along Pacific Coast Highway, between Normandie Ave. and Vermont Ave. The Hospital is across from the Ken Malloy Memorial Park, also known as "Parque de los Patos" or "the Duck Park."
The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services operates the Torrance Health Center in Harbor Gateway, Los Angeles, near Torrance and serving Harbor City.[3]
Residents are zoned to Los Angeles USD schools.
Some residents are zoned to Harbor City Elementary, some are zoned to Normont Elementary School, and some are zoned to President Avenue Elementary School or Eshelman Avenue located in Lomita.
All residents are zoned to:
Los Angeles Harbor College, one of two community colleges in the South Bay area along with Torrance's El Camino College, straddles the border between Harbor City and Wilmington and looks over nearby Machado Lake.
Los Angeles Public Library operates the Harbor Gateway-Harbor City Branch Library.[4]
The Harbor City Park is a landscaped park in Harbor City. The Harbor City Recreation Center and the Harbor City Childcare Center are on the same site.[5] The Harbor City Recreation Center, which functions as a Los Angeles Police Department stop-in center, has a gymnasium that may also be used as an auditorium. The center has a lighted baseball diamond, lighted indoor basketball courts, lighted outdoor basketball courts, a children's play area, a community room, picnic tables, a senior center, and a lighted soccer (football) field.[6] The Harbor City Childcare Center takes children from grades Kindergarten through 12.[7]
The Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park is in Harbor City. The park has barbecue pits, a lighted baseball diamond, a bicycle path, the Machado Youth Camp campground, a children's play area, hiking trails, a jogging path, a lake without fishing, and a lighted soccer field.[8]
The Kenneth Malloy Memorial Park and Machado Lake saw a marked increase in news activity during the summer of 2005 with the sighting of "Reggie the Gator", a 6-to-10-foot-long (1.8 to 3.0 m) first thought to be a caiman and later described as an alligator released into the lake illegally in 2005. By August 2005, city officials had indefinitely cordoned off the lake and began to attempt to capture and relocate the non-native species. All attempts, which included hiring 'wranglers' from as far away as Florida and Colorado failed, and Reggie was seen to be a local folk hero, appearing in summer news stories in the weeks before Hurricane Katrina's domination of headlines.
On September 8, 2005, a smaller alligator was found in a nearby flood channel, suitably alarming several local residents.
Reggie was once again seen on April 30, 2007 at about 1pm (local time)[2] The alligator was described by eyewitnesses to have grown at least 2 feet (0.61 m) long. As soon as word spread, the spotlight on Machado Lake returned, as the Reggie Watch re-commenced.
On May 24, 2007, the alligator came out of Harbor Regional Park's Lake Machado and was spotted sunbathing on land at the same moment city and park officials and wildlife experts were meeting nearby to find a method to capture the reptile. The wildlife experts wrestled with the alligator and finally managed to duct tape its mouth shut. Firefighters strapped the alligator onto a board and was loaded into an animal control truck for transport to the Los Angeles Zoo. Reggie was transported to the zoo with a police escort as several news helicopters broadcast the trip live on television.
Two books for children were written about Reggie since the news broke out. Reggie the L.A. Gator and Reggie: My Story, written and illustrated by Angi Ma Wong [3]
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