Shining Jewel of Recovery: The Baldwin Hills Story : But how can L.A. replicate the success in the central city?
The Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Mall bustles with shoppers. The Sears and Robinson-May department stores boast major upscale renovations. The Broadway, another anchor store, also is crowded. Sales are up spectacularly. New stores open every week. Signs of new investment abound. Magic Johnson and Sony Entertainment are building a 12-screen movie theater, larger than the Century City complex.
When a public-private partnership planned this renaissance in the Crenshaw district, the naysayers said it couldn’t be done. But the success of the mall and its new neighbors, boosted by the recovery efforts after the 1992 riots, proves that profits are possible in every area of Los Angeles. If the political will, private commitment and capital are available, stores and jobs can emerge in neglected, riot-devastated neighborhoods as well.
Baldwin Hills, an affluent community that straddles La Brea Avenue, and the adjacent Crenshaw district never should have been lumped in with the impoverished neighborhoods deep in South-Central Los Angeles. But the riot fires burned as far west as La Cienega Boulevard, branding everything to the east. That erroneous perception could have prompted an exodus of businesses and the middle class similar to the mass departure that eventually devastated Watts after the 1965 civil disorders.
In welcome contrast, an infusion of investment followed the 1992 riots, though not in the South-Central neighborhoods where damage was most severe. Much of the rebuilding took place north of the Santa Monica Freeway and west of Western Boulevard as investors targeted buying power and higher incomes in the neighborhoods near Crenshaw, La Brea and La Cienega boulevards. These westernmost neighborhoods damaged during the riots now boast new places to shop and work. On the stretch of Crenshaw Boulevard between the Santa Monica Freeway and Martin Luther King Boulevard, consumers can choose among a deluxe Lucky’s supermarket, a spruced-up Boys Market, a new Smart and Final, a renovated Thrifty’s, a gleaming Chief Auto Parts and other new stores. This vigorous competition, though common in suburban areas, is rare in what is perceived as the “central city”--written off years ago by most supermarket chains and major retailers.
This vibrancy, though still far short of the area’s true potential, ironically is part of the legacy of the disturbances. Although the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Mall suffered minimal damage overall, throughout the city fire damaged or destroyed 2,314 businesses, 60% of them stores, mini malls or other retail operations. The damage was most severe just east and south of Downtown. Those losses, and the unforgivably slow pace of rebuilding in South-Central, have forced shoppers to travel seven miles west to the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Mall and the nearby supermarkets.
Rebuild L. A., the private-public partnership that then-Mayor Tom Bradley set up immediately after the riots, deserves credit for encouraging chains such as Ralphs, Vons, Food 4 Less, Boys, Alpha Beta, Viva, Thrifty’s and other retailers to return or build anew in underserved sections of Los Angeles. Even so, the progress is short of initial predictions of massive new corporate investment and thousands of jobs. There is more rebuilding to be done, and the new RLA leadership team of Lodwrick M. Cook and Linda Griego promises to do just that.
RLA isn’t alone. Community Build--the private, nonprofit response of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles)--is providing jobs and training, spurring new development and encouraging homeownership. Led by community activist-lawyer Brenda Shockley, Community Build helps residents increase their stake in their communities.
Los Angeles’ recovery is by no means complete--and the city can’t always count on Washington to help, as the Clinton Administration’s recent rejection of an application for an empowerment zone revealed. But hope and enterprise is far from dead in the 1992 riot zones. While some areas need much greater attention, a few are even better off than before. The Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Mall provides a model of what government and private investors can achieve in neighborhoods once erroneously written off as the “inner city.” That success must be replicated throughout Los Angeles.
Thursday: The neighborhoods left behind.
