Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles, California
Encyclopedia
Baldwin Hills is a community and neighborhood in the South Los Angeles
area of Los Angeles
, within southwestern Los Angeles County, California
. Baldwin Hills is in their namesake Baldwin Hills range
overlooking the Los Angeles Basin
and the lower plain immediately to the north.
, on the west by Culver City
, on the north by the Los Angeles Mid-City
district, and on the east by the Crenshaw
district. The Baldwin Hills ZIP code
is 90008, and telephone area code is 323
. Baldwin Hills starts at Martin Luther King Blvd. going up to the base of the hills of Baldwin Hills Estates (an area nicknamed "The Dons" for the several streets beginning with the Spanish honorific)
. Baldwin Hills from Martin Luther King Blvd on the North, Marlton Avenue on the East, La Brea Avenue of the West, and Baldwin Hills Estates on the South.
The landform Baldwin Hills
have long been drilled for petroleum
, with active oil well
s in the mid-hills along La Cienega Boulevard
. As the oil field
s close some of the otherwise undeveloped open space land is being acquired by agencies for the public's benefit. The Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area
is a major jewel enhancing the community with park activities and recreation. The headwaters of Ballona Creek
are in the hills and park, which then flows west into the Santa Monica Bay
.
operates the Baldwin Hills Branch Library.
within ZIP code 90008. Baldwin Hills is among the wealthiest majority-black communities in the United States. Prior to 1965 and restrictive covenant
s being eliminated, it was known as "Pill Hill" because a large number of doctors seemed to live there. After African Americans began moving into the area, Baldwin Hills was given nicknames such as the "Golden Ghetto" and the "Black Beverly Hills."
Baldwin Hills has been home to such celebrities as Ray Charles
, Tina Turner
, "Bubba" Smith, Nancy Wilson
, Cal Worthington
, Oscar-nominated film director
John Singleton, comedian Jimmy Pardo
, renowned architect
Paul Williams
, and the late Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley
.
situated up in the Baldwin Hills began to crack. Within a few hours, the leak from the small crack had expanded to a gaping hole, releasing a sudden torrent of water that rushed down the Cloverdale Avenue canyon. Many expensive homes were destroyed and washed away. Most of Baldwin Vista below the canyon, including the historic Village Green community, was flooded as well. The crack in the dam was ultimately attributed to subsidence
caused by overexploitation
of the Inglewood
Oil field
. The disaster caused the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
to phase out small local reservoirs, such as this one and the Silver Lake Reservoir
. The dam was not repaired, and the basin was later filled in as part of Kenneth Hahn Regional Park
.
During the summer of 1985, an arsonist started a brush fire along La Brea Avenue
. The fire spread up the canyon towards the expensive homes along Don Carlos Drive in the Baldwin Hills Estates tract. Many homes were destroyed despite the efforts of the Los Angeles Fire Department
to suppress the flames. The fire killed three people and destroyed 69 homes; the arsonist was never caught.
began airing Baldwin Hills, a program featuring several African-American teenagers and their lives in the upper-middle class Los Angeles
community.
The show is very similar in nature to such MTV
program as Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County
,The Hills, and the online series The Suburbs - as it features African-Americans of upper-middle class families who divide their time between attending school, playing sports, shopping at high-end stores, and driving expensive cars. The series is in a third season.
Orson Scott Card's urban fantasy
novel Magic Street
is set in Baldwin Hills.
South Los Angeles
South Los Angeles, often abbreviated as South L.A. and formerly South Central Los Angeles, is the official name for a large geographic and cultural portion lying to the southwest and southeast of downtown Los Angeles, California. The area was formerly called South Central, and is still widely known...
area of Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, within southwestern Los Angeles County, California
Los Angeles County, California
Los Angeles County is a county in the U.S. state of California. As of 2010 U.S. Census, the county had a population of 9,818,605, making it the most populous county in the United States. Los Angeles County alone is more populous than 42 individual U.S. states...
. Baldwin Hills is in their namesake Baldwin Hills range
Baldwin Hills (mountain range)
The Baldwin Hills are a low mountain range surrounded by and rising above the Los Angeles Basin plain in central Los Angeles County, California...
overlooking the Los Angeles Basin
Los Angeles Basin
The Los Angeles Basin is the coastal sediment-filled plain located between the Peninsular and Transverse ranges in southern California in the United States containing the central part of the city of Los Angeles as well as its southern and southeastern suburbs...
and the lower plain immediately to the north.
Geography
Baldwin Hills is bordered on the southeast by Los Angeles' Leimert Park neighborhood, on the south by View Park-Windsor HillsView Park-Windsor Hills, California
View Park-Windsor Hills is a census-designated place in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 11,075 at the 2010 census, up from 10,958 at the 2000 census...
, on the west by Culver City
Culver City, California
Culver City is a city in western Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883, up from 38,816 at the 2000 census. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, but also shares a border with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. Culver...
, on the north by the Los Angeles Mid-City
Mid-City, Los Angeles, California
Mid-City is a district in Los Angeles, California. It is 2.5 miles south of Hollywood and 3.5 miles west of downtown Los Angeles. The Lafayette Square, Victoria Park, Wellington Square, and Vineyard neighborhoods are part of the district.-Geography and history:Mid-City's boundaries are roughly...
district, and on the east by the Crenshaw
Crenshaw, Los Angeles, California
Crenshaw is a neighborhood and district in southwestern Los Angeles, California. It derives its name from Crenshaw Boulevard, one of the city's principal thoroughfares....
district. The Baldwin Hills ZIP code
ZIP Code
ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...
is 90008, and telephone area code is 323
Area code 323
North American area code 323 is a California telephone area code which covers, roughly, the area of central Los Angeles . 323 also includes several gateway cities of the region, including Bell and Huntington Park...
. Baldwin Hills starts at Martin Luther King Blvd. going up to the base of the hills of Baldwin Hills Estates (an area nicknamed "The Dons" for the several streets beginning with the Spanish honorific)
Don (honorific)
Don, from Latin dominus, is an honorific in Spanish , Portuguese , and Italian . The female equivalent is Doña , Dona , and Donna , abbreviated "Dª" or simply "D."-Usage:...
. Baldwin Hills from Martin Luther King Blvd on the North, Marlton Avenue on the East, La Brea Avenue of the West, and Baldwin Hills Estates on the South.
The landform Baldwin Hills
Baldwin Hills (mountain range)
The Baldwin Hills are a low mountain range surrounded by and rising above the Los Angeles Basin plain in central Los Angeles County, California...
have long been drilled for petroleum
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
, with active oil well
Oil well
An oil well is a general term for any boring through the earth's surface that is designed to find and acquire petroleum oil hydrocarbons. Usually some natural gas is produced along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce mainly or only gas may be termed a gas well.-History:The earliest...
s in the mid-hills along La Cienega Boulevard
La Cienega Boulevard
La Cienega Boulevard is a major, well-known north–south arterial road that runs between El Segundo Boulevard in El Segundo, California on the south and the Sunset Strip/Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood....
. As the oil field
Oil field
An oil field is a region with an abundance of oil wells extracting petroleum from below ground. Because the oil reservoirs typically extend over a large area, possibly several hundred kilometres across, full exploitation entails multiple wells scattered across the area...
s close some of the otherwise undeveloped open space land is being acquired by agencies for the public's benefit. The Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area
Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area
Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area or "Hahn Park" is a state park and recreation area in the California Department of Parks and Recreation system...
is a major jewel enhancing the community with park activities and recreation. The headwaters of Ballona Creek
Ballona Creek
Ballona Creek is an waterway in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, whose watershed drains the Los Angeles basin, from the Santa Monica Mountains on the north, the Harbor Freeway on the east, and the Baldwin Hills on the south...
are in the hills and park, which then flows west into the Santa Monica Bay
Santa Monica Bay
Santa Monica Bay is a bight of the Pacific Ocean in southern California, United States. Its boundaries are slightly ambiguous, but it is generally considered to be the part of the Pacific within an imaginary line drawn between Point Dume, in Malibu, and the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Its eastern...
.
History
- "Lucky" Baldwin:
Baldwin Hills and other surrounding geography are named for the famous 19th century horse racing and land development pioneer, Elias J. "Lucky" BaldwinLucky BaldwinElias Jackson "Lucky" Baldwin was a prominent California businessman and investor of the second half of the 19th century.-Biography:...
. - Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la TijeraRancho La Cienega o Paso de la TijeraRancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera was a Mexican land grant in present day Los Angeles County, California given in 1843 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Vicente Sánchez...
- historic early 19th century eastern hills Rancho land grantRanchos of CaliforniaThe Spanish, and later the Méxican government encouraged settlement of territory now known as California by the establishment of large land grants called ranchos, from which the English ranch is derived. Devoted to raising cattle and sheep, the owners of the ranchos attempted to pattern themselves...
.- Sanchez Adobe de Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera. The adobeAdobeAdobe is a natural building material made from sand, clay, water, and some kind of fibrous or organic material , which the builders shape into bricks using frames and dry in the sun. Adobe buildings are similar to cob and mudbrick buildings. Adobe structures are extremely durable, and account for...
was once the center of the rancho. In the 1920s, an addition was built linking the structures and the building was converted into a larger clubhouse for the Sunset Golf Course.
- Sanchez Adobe de Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera. The adobe
- Rancho Rincon de los BueyesRancho Rincon de los BueyesRancho Rincon de los Bueyes was a land grant in present day Los Angeles County, California given in 1821 to Bernardo Higuera and Cornelio Lopez by Pablo Vicente de Sola, the Spanish Governor of Alta California. In 1843, this Spanish grant was confirmed by Mexican Governor Manuel Micheltorena...
- original early 19th century western section Rancho land grant. - Olympic Village:
The Baldwin Hills were the site of the very first Olympic VillageOlympic VillageAn Olympic Village is an accommodation centre built for an Olympic Games, usually within an Olympic Park or elsewhere in a host city. Olympic Villages are built to house all participating athletes, as well as officials, athletic trainers, and other staff. Since the Munich Massacre at the 1972...
ever built, for the 1932 Los Angeles Summer Olympic Games1932 Summer OlympicsThe 1932 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the X Olympiad, was a major world wide multi-athletic event which was celebrated in 1932 in Los Angeles, California, United States. No other cities made a bid to host these Olympics. Held during the worldwide Great Depression, many nations...
. Built for male athletes only, the village consisted of several hundred buildings, including post and telegraph offices, an amphitheater, a hospital, a fire department, and a bank. Female athletes were housed at the Chapman Park Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard. The Olympic Village was demolished after the Summer Olympic GamesSummer Olympic GamesThe Summer Olympic Games or the Games of the Olympiad are an international multi-sport event, occurring every four years, organized by the International Olympic Committee. Medals are awarded in each event, with gold medals for first place, silver for second and bronze for third, a tradition that...
.
Communities
Communities and sub-divisions in Baldwin Hills include:- Baldwin Hills Estates (east of La Brea, southwest of Santo Tomas Drive, south of the Jim Gilliam Recreation Center and north of Stocker Street), one of the wealthiest majority-African American areas in the United States, and is sometimes called "the Black Beverly Hills". It includes the so-called Dons, winding streets with "modernistic" homes, panoramic views of the city, and such names as "Don Luis", "Don Felipe", etc. The area is characterized by hillside houses with swimming pools, and some condominiumCondominiumA condominium, or condo, is the form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights...
s (the latter often jut out from steep hillsides, perched on stilts). - Baldwin Vista is north of Coliseum Street and west of the major thoroughfare, La Brea Boulevard, with slightly smaller homes and a more secluded ambience.
- Village GreenVillage Green, Los AngelesThe Village Green is a condominium complex in Baldwin Hills, a Los Angeles neighborhood. It is located between Rodeo Road and Coliseum Street, west of La Brea Avenue. The complex was built in 1942 as one of the most ambitiously planned communities in Los Angeles at the time...
, originally named Baldwin Hills Village and within Baldwin Vista, is a historic Mid-Century modernMid-century modernMid-Century modern is an architectural, interior and product design form that generally describes mid-20th century developments in modern design, architecture, and urban development from roughly 1933 to 1965...
"garden cityGarden city movementThe garden city movement is a method of urban planning that was initiated in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom. Garden cities were intended to be planned, self-contained communities surrounded by "greenbelts" , containing proportionate areas of residences, industry and...
"developed by Walter H. Leimert (1877-1970) Multi-family residentialMulti-family residentialMulti-family residential is a classification of housing where multiple separate housing units for residential inhabitants are contained within one building or several buildings within one complex. A common form is an apartment building...
, which was designated as a National Historic LandmarkNational Historic LandmarkA National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
in 2001. The units are now condominiumCondominiumA condominium, or condo, is the form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights...
s on very spacious grounds, attracting seniors, young families, and design professionals as residents. - "The Jungle" - named so because of its lush landscaping, since the mid-1980s the city has promoted use of the name "Baldwin Village". Located in Baldwin Hills' northeastern, flat section, between King Drive and La Brea, it consists largely of two-story apartment buildings of ten or more units, often originally surrounding a swimming pool and gardens, built in the late 1950s. Originally occupied mostly by adults, young families not yet able to afford home purchase began to move in around the same time that de-segregation evoked white flightWhite flightWhite flight has been a term that originated in the United States, starting in the mid-20th century, and applied to the large-scale migration of whites of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions. It was first seen as...
in the early 1960s. In the 1970s, black gangs took up illicit drug trade in the vicinity. - "Sherm Alley", near Coliseum Street and Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard (formerly Santa Barbara Avenue), became a notorious drive-through drug market (a "Sherm" is a PCPPhencyclidinePhencyclidine , commonly initialized as PCP and known colloquially as angel dust, is a recreational dissociative drug...
-laced cigar in U.S. slang). By the 1990s the area had become a low-income, predominantly African-American and LatinoLatinoThe demonyms Latino and Latina , are defined in English language dictionaries as:* "a person of Latin-American descent."* "A Latin American."* "A person of Hispanic, especially Latin-American, descent, often one living in the United States."...
neighborhood, its glass portals gated and swimming pools filled in. - The southern-most portion of Baldwin Hills is actually outside the Los Angeles City limits; it resides in the unincorporated Los Angeles County area that also shares its space with View Park-Windsor HillsView Park-Windsor Hills, CaliforniaView Park-Windsor Hills is a census-designated place in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 11,075 at the 2010 census, up from 10,958 at the 2000 census...
and Ladera HeightsLadera Heights, CaliforniaLadera Heights is a census-designated place and unincorporated area in southwestern Los Angeles County, California. The population was 6,498 at the 2010 census, down from 6,568 at the 2000 census...
. Stocker Street divides Baldwin Hills from View Park. The northeast face of the former overlooks the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Mall.
Parks and recreation
- Baldwin Hills Recreation Center - The 8.5 acres (3.4 ha) park is open daily from 8 am to sunset. The Visitor Center is open Thursday–Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm. The park includes an amphitheatre, drinking water, the Evan Frankel Discovery Center, gardening boxes, picnic tables, a permeable parking lot ($6), toilets, and walking paths. The Visitor Center has a comprehensive guide to the native plants of the area and history of Culver City and offers fantastic views of downtown Los Angeles on a clear day.
- Kenneth Hahn State Regional ParkKenneth Hahn State Recreation AreaKenneth Hahn State Recreation Area or "Hahn Park" is a state park and recreation area in the California Department of Parks and Recreation system...
- recreation and sports areas, and preservation of the open-space lands and native habitatHabitat* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...
s: entrance on South La Cienega Boulevard. - Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook Park website - entrance on Jefferson Boulevard - trail map
- Norman O Houston Park website
- Jim Gilliam Recreation Center website
Services
- The majority of Baldwin Hills receives services from the city of Los AngelesLos ÁngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. Most of Baldwin Hills is served by the Los Angeles Fire DepartmentLos Angeles Fire DepartmentThe Los Angeles Fire Department is the agency that provides fire protection and emergency medical services for the city of Los Angeles....
and the Los Angeles Police DepartmentLos Angeles Police DepartmentThe Los Angeles Police Department is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With just under 10,000 officers and more than 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of with a population of more than 4.1 million people, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in...
(LAPD). - A small southern portion of Baldwin Hills lies in unincorporated Los Angeles County and receives police services from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's DepartmentLos Angeles County Sheriff's DepartmentThe Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is a local county law enforcement agency that serves Los Angeles County, California. It is the fourth largest local policing agency in the United States, with the New York City Police Department being the first. The second largest is the Chicago Police...
and fire protection from the Los Angeles County Fire DepartmentLos Angeles County Fire DepartmentThe Los Angeles County Fire Department , serves unincorporated parts of Los Angeles County, as well as 58 cities and towns that choose to have the county provide fire and EMS services, including La Habra. It should not be confused with the Los Angeles City Fire Department, which serves the city of...
.
Library
The Los Angeles Public LibraryLos Angeles Public Library
The Los Angeles Public Library system serves the residents of Los Angeles, California, United States. With over 6 million volumes, LAPL is one of the largest publicly funded library systems in the world. The system is overseen by a Board of Library Commissioners with five members appointed by the...
operates the Baldwin Hills Branch Library.
Education
Baldwin Hills is zoned to Los Angeles USD, and the schools include:- Baldwin Hills Elementary School
- Audubon Middle School
- Susan Miller Dorsey High SchoolSusan Miller Dorsey High SchoolSusan Miller Dorsey High School is a high school located in Los Angeles, California.Dorsey is a part of the Los Angeles Unified School District. The school serves Baldwin Hills, Baldwin Village, Jefferson Park, Leimert Park, and portions of Crenshaw....
- and
- Windsor Math/Science/Aerospace Magnet (K-5, zoned only for Kindergarten)
- Hillcrest Drive Elementary School.
- Marlton School
- New Designs Charter School
Demographics
The Baldwin Hills population is 78.5% African AmericanAfrican American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
within ZIP code 90008. Baldwin Hills is among the wealthiest majority-black communities in the United States. Prior to 1965 and restrictive covenant
Restrictive covenant
A restrictive covenant is a type of real covenant, a legal obligation imposed in a deed by the seller upon the buyer of real estate to do or not to do something. Such restrictions frequently "run with the land" and are enforceable on subsequent buyers of the property...
s being eliminated, it was known as "Pill Hill" because a large number of doctors seemed to live there. After African Americans began moving into the area, Baldwin Hills was given nicknames such as the "Golden Ghetto" and the "Black Beverly Hills."
Baldwin Hills has been home to such celebrities as Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
, Tina Turner
Tina Turner
Tina Turner is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years. She has won numerous awards and her achievements in the rock music genre have led many to call her the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll".Turner started out her music career with husband Ike Turner as a member of the...
, "Bubba" Smith, Nancy Wilson
Nancy Wilson (singer)
Nancy Wilson is an American singer with more than 70 albums, and three Grammy Awards. She has been labeled a singer of blues, jazz, cabaret and pop; a "consummate actress"; and "the complete entertainer." The title she prefers, however, is song stylist...
, Cal Worthington
Cal Worthington
Calvin Coolidge "Cal" Worthington is a well-known car dealer throughout the West Coast of the United States. He is best known for his unique radio and television advertisements for the Worthington Dealership Group. He was usually joined by "his dog Spot", except that "Spot" was never a dog...
, Oscar-nominated film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
John Singleton, comedian Jimmy Pardo
Jimmy Pardo
Jimmy Pardo is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and host of the popular comedy podcast Never Not Funny.He is married to fellow comedian Danielle Koenig. They live in Los Angeles with their son Oliver...
, renowned architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
Paul Williams
Paul Williams (architect)
Paul Revere Williams, FAIA was a Los Angeles-based, American architect. He practiced largely in Southern California and designed the homes of numerous stars including Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball/Desi Arnaz, Lon Chaney, and Charles Correll...
, and the late Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley
Tom Bradley (politician)
Thomas J. "Tom" Bradley was the 38th Mayor of Los Angeles, California, serving in that office from 1973 to 1993. He was the first and to date only African American mayor of Los Angeles...
.
Disasters
On December 14, 1963, the Baldwin Hills ReservoirBaldwin Hills Reservoir
The Baldwin Hills Reservoir was a water storage basin located on a low hilltop in Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles, California. It was constructed between 1947 and 1951 by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power directly on an active fault line which was subsidiary to the well known nearby...
situated up in the Baldwin Hills began to crack. Within a few hours, the leak from the small crack had expanded to a gaping hole, releasing a sudden torrent of water that rushed down the Cloverdale Avenue canyon. Many expensive homes were destroyed and washed away. Most of Baldwin Vista below the canyon, including the historic Village Green community, was flooded as well. The crack in the dam was ultimately attributed to subsidence
Subsidence
Subsidence is the motion of a surface as it shifts downward relative to a datum such as sea-level. The opposite of subsidence is uplift, which results in an increase in elevation...
caused by overexploitation
Overexploitation
Overexploitation, also called overharvesting, refers to harvesting a renewable resource to the point of diminishing returns. Sustained overexploitation can lead to the destruction of the resource...
of the Inglewood
Inglewood, California
Inglewood is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, southwest of downtown Los Angeles. It was incorporated on February 14, 1908. Its population stood at 109,673 as of the 2010 Census...
Oil field
Oil field
An oil field is a region with an abundance of oil wells extracting petroleum from below ground. Because the oil reservoirs typically extend over a large area, possibly several hundred kilometres across, full exploitation entails multiple wells scattered across the area...
. The disaster caused the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is the largest municipal utility in the United States, serving over four million residents. It was founded in 1902 to supply water and electricity to residents and businesses in Los Angeles and surrounding communities...
to phase out small local reservoirs, such as this one and the Silver Lake Reservoir
Silver Lake Reservoir
The Silver Lake Reservoirs comprise two concrete-lined basins, Ivanhoe Reservoir and Silver Lake, divided by a spillway, in the Silver Lake community of Los Angeles, California.-History:...
. The dam was not repaired, and the basin was later filled in as part of Kenneth Hahn Regional Park
Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area
Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area or "Hahn Park" is a state park and recreation area in the California Department of Parks and Recreation system...
.
During the summer of 1985, an arsonist started a brush fire along La Brea Avenue
La Brea Avenue
La Brea Avenue is a prominent north/south thoroughfare in Los Angeles. Several museums are located along La Brea, and it is known for having many stores and eateries.-Description:...
. The fire spread up the canyon towards the expensive homes along Don Carlos Drive in the Baldwin Hills Estates tract. Many homes were destroyed despite the efforts of the Los Angeles Fire Department
Los Angeles Fire Department
The Los Angeles Fire Department is the agency that provides fire protection and emergency medical services for the city of Los Angeles....
to suppress the flames. The fire killed three people and destroyed 69 homes; the arsonist was never caught.
Media
In 2007, Black Entertainment Television - BETBlack Entertainment Television
Black Entertainment Television is an American, Viacom-owned cable network based in Washington, D.C.. Currently viewed in more than 90 million homes worldwide, it is the most prominent television network targeting young Black-American audiences. The network was launched on January 25, 1980, by its...
began airing Baldwin Hills, a program featuring several African-American teenagers and their lives in the upper-middle class Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
community.
The show is very similar in nature to such MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
program as Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County
Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County
Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, often referred to simply as Laguna Beach, is a reality television series which originally aired on MTV from September 28, 2004 until November 16, 2006. It documents the lives of several teenagers living in Laguna Beach, an affluent seaside community located in...
,The Hills, and the online series The Suburbs - as it features African-Americans of upper-middle class families who divide their time between attending school, playing sports, shopping at high-end stores, and driving expensive cars. The series is in a third season.
Orson Scott Card's urban fantasy
Urban fantasy
Urban fantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy defined by place; the fantastic narrative has an urban setting. Many urban fantasies are set in contemporary times and contain supernatural elements. However, the stories can take place in historical, modern, or futuristic periods...
novel Magic Street
Magic Street
Magic Street is an urban fantasy novel by Orson Scott Card. This book follows the magical events in the Baldwin Hills section of contemporary Los Angeles, including the life of protagonist Mack Street, his foster brother Cecil Tucker, a trickster identified variously as Bag Man, Puck, Mr...
is set in Baldwin Hills.
External links
- Friends of the Baldwin Hills website
- The Baldwin Hills Conservancy website
- official Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area website
- lacounty.info: Kenneth Hahn Recreation Area
- Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook Park website
- Village Green website
- Village Green: historic architecture article
- 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Athlete's Village in the Baldwin Hills: history
- Baldwin Hills Dam history
- University Park Family - a collaborative online community: focused on University Park, Expo Park and the surrounding areas.
- Leimert Park Beat - a collaborative online community focused on Leimert Park: "The Soul of Los Angeles and the African American cultural center of the city."