Crenshaw, Los Angeles: Difference between revisions

Coordinates: 34°01′05″N 118°20′26″W / 34.01810°N 118.34064°W / 34.01810; -118.34064
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Crenshaw
Crenshaw is located in Western Los Angeles
Crenshaw
Crenshaw
Location within Los Angeles
Coordinates: 34°01′05″N 118°20′26″W / 34.01810°N 118.34064°W / 34.01810; -118.34064
Country United States
State California
County Los Angeles
Time zonePacific
Zip Code
90008
Area code323
Mural of African-American Progress and apartment complexes, along Crenshaw Boulevard

Crenshaw, (CREN-shaugh)sometimes referred to as The 'Shaw [1] or the Crenshaw District, is a neighborhood in the southwestern region of Los Angeles, California. The name derives from Crenshaw Boulevard, one of the city's major thoroughfares.

The Crenshaw commercial business corridor along this street has had many different cultural backgrounds throughout the years but still has a positive African American commerce with many other ethnicity groups in recent years.[2]

Geography

According to Google Maps,[3] the Crenshaw neighborhood is centered on Crenshaw Boulevard and Buckingham Road. The neighborhood of Baldwin Hills is to the south, Baldwin Village is to the west, and Leimert Park is to the east.

Education

Public schools are operated by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).

The district's charter schools in the area include the KIPP network. KIPP Academy of Opportunity[4] middle school, Celerity Nascent Charter School[5] the New Design Charter School (built in 2004), View Park Preparatory High School,[6] and View Park Preparatory Middle School.[7]

Government

Post office

The United States Postal Service operates the Crenshaw Post Office and the Julian Dixon Station.[8]

Emergency service

The Los Angeles Fire Department operates one main fire station - Station 94

Neighborhood

Crenshaw is a largely residential neighborhood of single-story houses, bungalows and low-rise condominiums and apartments. There are also commercial buildings with an industrial corridor along Jefferson Boulevard. There are also several other commercial districts throughout the neighborhood.

After courts ruled segregation covenants to be unconstitutional, the area opened up to other races. A large Japanese American settlement ensued, which can still be found along Coliseum Street, east and west of Crenshaw Boulevard.[9] African Americans started migrating to the district in the mid 1960s, and by the early 1970s later were the majority.[10]

In the 1970s, Crenshaw, Leimert Park and neighboring areas together had formed one of the largest African-American communities in the western United States. Crenshaw had suffered significant damage from both the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the 1994 Northridge earthquake but was able to rebound in the late 2000s with the help of redevelopment.

In 2006, the population of Crenshaw was around 27,600. Currently, there is a huge demographic shift increased in where many middle and lower-class blacks and Latinos are migrating to cities in the Inland Empire as well as cities in the Antelope Valley sections of Southern California as a form of gentrification.[11] Despite the current major demographic shift, blacks had maintained their status as one of the neighborhood's largest ethnic group, with African-Americans forming 63.34% of the population, followed by Whites and Latinos (any race) at 30%, white (not Latino), 16.89%; Asian, 4.38%; American Indians, 0.43%; Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders, 0.20%; other races, 9.20%; two or more races, 9.32%.

Transportation

The Metro Crenshaw LAX Line is an 8.5-mile light rail line that will "add eight new stations serving the Crenshaw neighborhood, Leimert Park, Inglewood, Westchester and surrounding areas". [12]

The line will run between the Expo/Crenshaw station and Aviation/96 Street station, transiting generally north-south along Crenshaw Boulevard.[13]

Notable places

Village Green
Googie architecture of the former Holiday Bowl in 2002 before converting into a Starbucks

Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments

Media

Literature

The novel Southland, by Nina Revoyr, is set in the Crenshaw neighborhood.[17]

Special events

Demographics

In the post-World War II era, a Japanese-American community was established in Crenshaw. There was an area Japanese school called Dai-Ichi Gakuen. Due to a shared sense of being discriminated against, many of the Japanese-Americans had close relationships with the African-American community.[9]

At its peak, it was one of the largest Japanese-American settlements in California, with about 8,000 residents around 1970, and Dai-Ichi Gakuen had a peak of 700 students.[9]

Beginning in the 1970s the Japanese American community began decreasing in size and Japanese-American businesses began leaving. Scott Shibya Brown stated that "some say" the effect was a "belated response" to the 1965 Watts riots and that "several residents say a wave of anti-Japanese-American sentiment began cropping up in the area, prompting further departures."[9] Eighty-two-year-old Jimmy Jike was quoted in the Los Angeles Times in 1993, stating that it was mainly because the residents' children, after attending universities, moved away.[9] By 1980, there were 4,000 Japanese ethnic residents, half of the previous size.[9] By 1990 there were 2,500 Japanese-Americans, mostly older residents. By 1993, the community was diminishing in size, with older Japanese Americans staying but with younger ones moving away.[9] That year, Dai-Ichi Gakuen had 15 students. Recently there has been a shift in a new generation of Japanese Americans moving back into the neighborhood.[9]

Notable people

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4795022
  2. ^ Robinson-Jacobs, Karen (2 May 2001). "Noticing a Latin Flavor in Crenshaw". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 21 January 2016.
  3. ^ [1] The Crenshaw Neighborhood as indicated on Google Maps
  4. ^ "Welcome to KIPP Academy of Opportunity". kippkao.org. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
  5. ^ "Celerity Schools". celerityschools.org. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
  6. ^ "Non-Existent Domain". vpphs.icefla.org. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
  7. ^ "Non-Existent Domain". vppms.icefla.org. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
  8. ^ "Crenshaw Post Office".
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Brown, Scott Shibuya (3 October 1993). "Crenshaw: Littler Tokyo : Although their children have grown and gone, older Japanese-Americans still evince pride, loyalty in their changing community". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 21 January 2016.
  10. ^ Kurashige, Scott (30 January 2014). "Growing Up Japanese American in Crenshaw and Leimert Park". Communities. KCET. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
  11. ^ Mu'min, Nijla (20 September 2015). "Calm before the storm of gentrification". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 5 June 2017.
  12. ^ http://thesource.metro.net/2016/05/12/temporary-art-banners-installed-at-construction-sites-along-crenshawlax-corridor/
  13. ^ Sumers, Brian (21 January 2014). "Metro breaks ground on new $2 billion L.A. Crenshaw/LAX Line". Daily Breeze. Retrieved 31 January 2016.
  14. ^ "Urban renewal project in L.A. begets blight instead - By Ted Rohrlich, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer 10:38 PM PDT, 27 April 2008". latimes.com. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
  15. ^ Scott Kurashige Game Over for Holiday Bowl? Summer 2001Asian American movement E-zine https://web.archive.org/web/20081121112526/http://www.aamovement.net/community/holidaybowl.html
  16. ^ [2] LA city planning list
  17. ^ https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-888451-41-2
  18. ^ "Dr Martin Luther King Jr. celebrated at Kingdom Day Parade". abc7.com. Retrieved 7 June 2017.
  19. ^ Axelrod, Jeremiah B. C. (Occidental College). "The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles." The Journal of American History, 12/2008. p. 909-910. Cited: p. 910.
  20. ^ Tafur, Vic (21 May 2011). "NFL star DeSean Jackson talks bullying in Oakland". SFGate. Retrieved 20 July 2016.
  21. ^ "Prince Harry's girl is (almost) straight outta Compton". The Daily Mail. 2 November 2016. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

External links

  • [3] Leimert Park Beat, a collaborative online community
  • [4] Articles about the Crenshaw district in the Los Angeles Times.
  • [5] Articles about Crenshaw District development from Curbed Los Angeles