COVER STORY : Leimert Park: Alive and Kicking : From Dance to Theater, This Once Little-Known Pocket of the Crenshaw Area Now Has Arguably the Most Intense Concentration of African-American Cultural Enterprises in Los Angeles

It’s early Saturday morning, 2 a.m., and while many of the city’s night spots are spinning their last grooves, Fifth Street Dick’s in Leimert Park is just getting cranked up.

Patrons laden with coffee and other refreshments elbow their way to folding chairs set up before a small upstairs stage. The wooden floors of the jazz coffeehouse reverberate with the thump of bass and the intermittent squeal of saxophone and fluegelhorn as musicians and music lovers from all over the city warm up for a jam session that will last until dawn.

The after-hours scene at Fifth Street Dick’s is one rendering of myriad forms of black creativity in Leimert Park that have blossomed into distinctly soulful enterprises.

Just as Central Avenue was the heart of the city’s black music and club scene in the 1940s, Leimert Park has emerged as a center for not only jazz, but also for visual and performance art. Nowhere else in the city is there a group of black-owned and operated businesses with a common mind-set of building an artistic community.

“For five years I just saw the artistic community grow,” said Valerie Shaw, head of the Crenshaw Neighborhood Development Corp., a nonprofit organization that focuses on commercial development and neighborhood planning. “In 1987, (Leimert Park) was in decline. Now it’s become a mecca for black art.”

Indeed, the emergence of Leimert Park as a black cultural mecca with potential for growth has sparked several plans for economic development, such as neighborhood beautification and reconstruction of some buildings.

But that has also caused some concerns. Merchants and residents worry that they will have little say as various city agencies prepare proposals for the neighborhood.

Bounded by Crenshaw Boulevard and 4th Avenue on the west and east, and Rodeo Road and Vernon Avenue to the north and south, Leimert Park is little more than a square-mile of the Crenshaw district. Architect Walter Leimert created the area in 1927 as an upscale bedroom community, with restrictive covenants limiting the area to whites until the pacts became illegal in the late 1940s.

Today, Leimert Park remains a largely middle-class enclave of professionals, musicians and actors, but its population is now 85% African-American. Its business and arts district, Leimert Park Village, is centered on 43rd Place, 43rd Street and its main street, Degnan Boulevard. The commercial district was built to mimic a European village, with the triangular grassy island that is Leimert Park as its centerpiece, opening up to Degnan Boulevard’s neat rows of shops and their bay windows.

The village was started in 1967 by local artists Alonzo and Dale Davis, brothers who rented out a stretch of seven storefronts on the western side of Degnan Boulevard as studio space in the hopes of attracting photographers, painters and potters in an artistic gathering place for L.A.’s black community.

That vision attracted more artists to Degnan, including graphic artist Akili Ramsses, poet Kamau Daaood, who founded the World Stage jazz and performance gallery, and merchant Brian Breye, owner of Museum in Black, which boasts a visual feast of African masks and artifacts.

“It really has been a conscious effort to make this a cultural center of this community,” Daaood said, seated in his Final Vinyl record shop among piles of jazz books and vintage albums carefully preserved in plastic sleeves.

“It was the artists and the shop owners here who created this vision,” he said. “And the seeds we planted are coming to light.”

The formidable collection and presentation of African-American arts, crafts and music in Leimert Park has attracted out-of-town musicians and patrons in recent years.

“People come into the gallery now straight off the plane, actually looking for Degnan,” said Laura Hendrix, owner of Gallery Plus, which offers an array of sculptures and paintings by up-and-coming and renowned artists, including Synthia Saint James and Varnette Honeywood.

Hendrix moved her gallery from nearby Windsor Hills to the burgeoning art scene of Leimert Park Village two years ago. It has quickly become an anchor store in the community, frequently hosting book signings, lectures and other events.

In the last three years, Leimert Park has boomed as a cultural center, especially after actress Marla Gibbs opened the Crossroads Arts Academy and the Vision Complex Theater in 1990. Its strong community sense was spotlighted by last year’s riots, when merchants slept in the street and kept vigil on each other’s property while two businesses burned perilously close to Degnan Boulevard’s museums and galleries.

In August, the Los Angeles Festival celebrated Leimert Park’s artistic scene with more than a dozen events, including guided tours called “artwalks” that took visitors through Leimert Park Village’s main attractions. The morning tours, some merchants said, prompted curious looks and a slew of questions, but little business.

Most of Leimert Park’s business district, in fact, is somewhat dormant on weekdays, with merchants occasionally visiting each other’s stores to catch up on news. But come Friday, the sleepy strip of Degnan comes alive as the weekend gets under way.

On 43rd Street, Dance Wonderland sits at the west end, a short stretch from the Regency West ballroom. The ballroom once hosted the Comedy Act Theater, where the late comedian Robin Harris regularly packed the house. Today, a lineup of the city’s grittiest black comics hold court Wednesday nights.

A block south on 43rd Place, across from the park, filmmaker Ben Caldwell runs his Kaos Network video workshop and performance space. Two doors down, swirls of marble decorate the foyer of Gibbs’ newly redone Vision Complex Theater. Next door, the sounds of jazz greats on vinyl blare from speakers in front of Fifth Street Dick’s, where a collection of imported African coffees and down-home desserts are served up day and night.

The one-block stretch of Degnan Boulevard includes three African goods shops, a dance studio and two art galleries in addition to Breye’s museum.

On a recent evening, a dozen or so cars lined the street as a trickle of people meandered along the block, seeking incense, jewelry, art or casual conversation. The doors of the art galleries and shops stood wide-open, catching the infectious beats of African drums marking time for students at the Dance Collective studio, where a knot of onlookers gathered to watch.

Inside Bak-Tu-Jua, a crafts and clothing shop, co-owners Sika Wilkinson and Shaka Camara sat in the back of their store, Camara on the floor threading a leather shoulder bag and Wilkinson at an old wooden table welding pieces of silver around cowrie shells to make earrings. The shop often stays open late into the night to catch lingering customers.

The two started their business on Degnan in 1991, lured by the atmosphere, the central location and the affordable rent charged by a landlord who has long advocated having artists in the neighborhood.

“The physical layout of this area is conducive to success,” Wilkinson said. “The location is good and aesthetically it has potential.”

The potential Wilkinson and others see is an area that rivals Olvera Street, Santa Monica’s 3rd Street Promenade or Old Town Pasadena--a “Crenshaw Village,” they say.

But like the rest of the affluent pockets of the Crenshaw district, business owners say Leimert Park residents have not supported the merchants in proportion to their incomes, which limits the shops’ ability to compete with similar businesses in suburban areas.

“People out here aren’t supportive enough of what’s here,” Wilkinson said. “I’m not saying there aren’t any people coming. But those people on the hill (Baldwin Hills and View Park) need to come down here and help keep us alive.”

Some, meanwhile, argue that there is a plethora of African-themed businesses, but not enough goods and services to attract people on an everyday basis.

“I see Leimert as evolving into one of the greatest commercial areas in the world,” gallery owner Jimi Walton said. “But merchants have to cultivate clients. Just because you’re black, you can’t expect people to patronize you. You have to give good service, (that’s the) bottom line. People come here from the Westside to get framing done because I give them good service.”

Walton, president of the Leimert Park Merchants Assn., has had his gallery on Degnan for six years and has lived in the community for seven. Walton wants to integrate all of the merchants into his association, including the several beauty shops and cleaners that dot the area.

Ruth Nuckolls, who owns Leimert Park Eyewear on Degnan Boulevard, said that the artistic attractions will eventually bring other businesses out of their economic doldrums. “When people say ‘Leimert Park’ now, they know what it is,” she said. “Once we get tourists regularly, everyone will have more visibility. When people come down for the black art, they’ll discover other quality places that also happen to be black-owned.”

Leimert Park “is a gold mine,” said Debra Allen, a 15-year resident. “All we have to do is maintain it, control it and make sure big businesses don’t come in and try to overrun it and push out the little businesses.”

Community members say merchants and residents must unite to thwart opportunists who may seek to come in, take advantage of the growing affluence of Leimert Park and dilute its cultural base. While efforts to organize continue to gel, no clear-cut community agenda has emerged on the future of the neighborhood.

There is a consensus among most merchants, artists and residents on the need to expand and upgrade in order to bring more attention and business to Leimert Park. But not everyone agrees on how to do it.

Some say the area needs to be remodeled with new office buildings, vast reconstruction of the park and stores, and new parking structures and walkways. Others argue that Leimert Park just needs a few more Afrocentric businesses that keep with the vibe of the community. Still others say all that’s needed is a simple face lift--a few flowers and trees along the major streets.

What has emerged is a tug of war of solutions with concepts and lofty plans, but few that have moved toward implementation. Although business owners have their opinions on what should be done to boost the popularity of the area, they have not taken action because of lack of money.

“It’s going to take capital infusion and organizing the merchants and a marketing plan. Then you’ll have more foot traffic,” said Shaw, who worked as deputy to Councilwoman Ruth Galanter when Leimert Park was in Galanter’s council district.

The area is currently represented by Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, whose 8th District office has several proposals for improvements to Leimert Park and will make some of the final decisions on what will be done to the area.

“What we need to do, and ultimately what will happen, is a collaboration of the resources that the community has to offer and the plans being drafted for Leimert Park Village,” Ridley-Thomas said.

Shaw says the most feasible plan to improve the area is one drafted by the city planning department.

City planners started devising a strategy in October, 1992, as part of the department’s South-Central/Southeast Task Force and have come up with three possibilities. Some elements of these plans include upgraded landscaping, underground parking and closing off Degnan Boulevard to vehicles to create a self-contained area similar to Santa Monica’s 3rd Street Promenade.

“People like the art and they want that, but they also want more variety and more quality in offerings in the business center,” said Associate City Planner Dwayne Wyatt, who heads the project.

Wyatt and others agree that one of the most critical issues for Leimert Park is safety. The park, hangout for gangs and transients, needs to be cleaned up.

Debra Allen, a member of Rebuild Crenshaw and the 8th District Empowerment Assn., pointed out that the residential areas, plagued in recent years with a smattering of crack houses and drug dealers and apathetic residents, have also declined.

“There has to be a strong commitment, plus a collective agreement, to make some of these changes possible for the businesses and the residents,” she said.

But what neither merchants nor residents want are outsiders making changes without their input, or higher rents for merchants that may force them out of their stores.

“We’re interested in building our own infrastructure by and for the community, not by someone else,” said Gibbs, who has invested several million dollars into her theater to draw more people.

Breye agreed, skeptical of whether the community’s best interests are being considered by city departments such as the Community Redevelopment Agency, which is looking at Leimert Park Village as a possible riot recovery area for revitalization.

Breye and other business owners want to see fewer beauty supply stores, salons and non-artistic shops and more businesses such as bookstores, restaurants, health food markets, art galleries and mainstream retail shops.

Others, however, don’t completely share his vision.

Jimmy Dodson, owner of Banjo’s Yogurt and Deli on 43rd Street, says it is time to buckle down and modernize. Dodson, who has lived in Leimert Park 16 years, said he would raze the village and rebuild it to be compatible with the Spanish-style architecture of most of the neighborhood’s homes.

Architect Michael Anderson agrees. Anderson’s three-year Crenshaw revitalization plan first calls for a overhaul of the park.

“If you rebuild from the ground up, yes, you’ll lose some people through increased rents,” said Anderson, a Ladera Heights resident. “But those that are vital to the artistic community, that are already draws, will stay.”

Anderson, who researched and wrote the plan independently, has been shopping it around at community group meetings and has mustered considerable support from residents and local politicians.

Joe Hubbard, a development consultant and longtime community activist who wants residents and business owners to be more cohesive, said those who really know the community are rarely involved in development efforts, or even know they exist.

Walton, the gallery owner, agrees that merchants will have to form a more organized group that can follow through on projects and collectively voice concerns to the city and other agencies. “But we’re all small-business owners,” he said. “A lot of us don’t want to take the time to meet, even once a month. We work 12-hour days.”

Although merchants and many others struggle to map out the fortunes of Leimert Park, it is clear that its role as a wellspring of black creativity in Los Angeles will continue.

“This is the heart of the community,” said Daaood. “The African-American community has shifted and this is really Custer’s last stand. We’ve got to get behind and see that it prospers.”