Honest-to-Goodness Neighborhood Life

“Community” is a word often used and rarely experienced. Maybe this is why so many people are looking for it. Fiercely independent bibliophiles who join book clubs. Yoga enthusiasts. Grant application readers trying to determine whom a nonprofit is serving. Born-agains.

Los Angeles is frequently knocked for its lack of community. Angelenos coalesce along extended thoroughfares (Fairfax District, Crenshaw District) as opposed to more insular “blocks,” and we spend hours driving as opposed to walking among each other. When these sociocultural impediments to human connection are coupled with our reputation for shallowness, the community-less stereotype is understandable.

This stereotype has not been my experience. I have worked and, until recently, lived in Leimert Park (I moved up the street, into Windsor Hills), an artists’ enclave in the Crenshaw District. The one-mile-by-one-mile triangular neighborhood has four jazz clubs, a hot blues spot, two theaters, two galleries and several cafes. I’ve served as literary director at the World Stage, a jazz and literature venue, for the last eight years.

Leimert Park is a walking neighborhood. When people pass on the wide sidewalks, they acknowledge each other verbally or with the universal black man “wassup” sign: the quick raised chin. “Brother” and “sister” punctuate casual conversation in this overwhelmingly African American neighborhood. There is a true sense of belonging.

The 40 or so writers who attend the 9-year-old World Stage Writers Workshop also maintain relationships apart from the literary gathering. Two to three nights a month, an impromptu party, complete with wine and reggae dancing, will materialize at someone’s house--usually mine.

When one of the sisters is moving, phone calls are made and four or five brothers faithfully get up early in the morning to get the job done. If someone is experiencing an unexpected financial hardship, a music and poetry benefit is organized to lighten the burden. A hot date? Poets make great baby-sitters.

I can really say, with a straight face, that I love L.A. The specificity of my experience makes this possible. My Los Angeles slays stereotypes with the subtle power of human kindness, with the alchemy that transforms concern into communal connection.