Leimert Park
Back in the ‘50’s most of us associated the name “Leimert” with the park, the street name
and the movie theater.
But there’s more to the Leimert Park name. In
1927 it was a real estate development of new
homes by the Walter H. Leimert Company from
Oakland. It was bordered by Vernon Ave on
the south, Santa Barbara Ave. (now MLK) on the
north, Angeles Mesa Drive (now Crenshaw
Blvd) on the west and Arlington Ave. on the east.
Today the City of Los Angeles uses a larger area
to designate the official “Leimert Park”
neighborhood. It was originally a planned
residential community with shopping along 43rd
Place and Degnan Blvd. near the north side of
the park. The community was laid out by Olmsted & Olmsted, sons of the famed landscape
architect Frederick Law Olmsted who created Cental Park in New York and dozens of
notable parks across the country. The sons were pioneers in the practice of city planning.
The basic design of the original development holds true today.
Until 1948 the community was restricted to “whites only”.
A shopping area that was built at the corner of 43rd
Place and Crenshaw has been considered by some
as the first with a dedicated parking lot referred to
as a “drive-up”. A forerunner of today’s strip malls. It
is the site of the Leimert Park Metro station today.
The Metro station has resulted in new apartment
housing being developed along Crenshaw and
some of the side streets.
The Leimert theater with
it’s tall spire was designed
to be the centerpiece of
the shopping area. After delays it opened in 1932. It’s where many
of us regularly saw double features plus newsreels and cartoons.
The bill changed every Wednesday. In the late ‘70’s it became the
Watchtower, a Jehovah’s Witnesses facility. In 1990 the City took
over the property and it became the Vision theater, a cultural and
entertainment complex.
The Leimert Park identity was to become quite flexible. When the
Baldwin Theater opened on La Brea Ave. in 1949 it was described
in the L.A. times as being in “Leimert Park”. The Baldwin became
the site of Dorsey High graduation ceremonies for many years.
Leimert Park is also cited as the site on Norton Ave. near 39th St.
where the remains of Elizabeth Short, the famous “Black Dahlia”
murder victim were found in 1947.
Today Leimert Park is a centerpiece of the African-American culture scene in Los Angeles.
But further change is coming to the neighborhood with gentrification mainly as a result of
access to the Metro line
