Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw, Los Angeles

Elias J."Lucky" Baldwin

• "Lucky" Baldwin: Baldwin Hills and other surrounding geography are named for the noted 19th-century horse racing and land development pioneer, Elias J. "Lucky" Baldwin.
• Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera: historic early-19th-century eastern hills Rancho land grant.[4][5]
  • Sanchez Adobe de Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera. The adobe 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.[4]
• Rancho Rincon de los Bueyes: original early-19th-century western section Rancho land grant.
• Olympic Village: The Baldwin Hills were the site of the very first Olympic Village ever built, for the 1932 Los Angeles Summer Olympic Games. Built for male athletes only, the village consisted of several hundred buildings, including post offices 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 Games.[6]

According to the Mapping L.A. project of the Los Angeles Times, Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw is bounded by Culver City, Jefferson Park, Ladera Heights, View Park-Windsor Hills and West Adams. Areas within it are Baldwin Village, Baldwin Vista, The Dons and Village Green.[3][7] The neighborhood limits, according to Mapping L.A, are Jefferson Boulevard on the north, Ballona Creek, Jefferson Boulevard and La Brea Avenue on the west, the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area and Stocker Street on the south and Crenshaw Boulevard on the east.[3]

The neighborhood was considered "moderately diverse"[9] in 2000, with 71.3% of residents being of black or African-American ancestry, 17.3% Latino, 4.7% Asian, 3.3% white and 3.4% of other backgrounds. The neighborhood had the fifth-highest concentration of black residents in the city.[3][10]

The average household size was 2.3 people, low compared to the city as a whole. Almost 32% of the 2,400 families living in Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw were headed by single parents,[3] the third-highest rate in the city, after Watts and Vermont Knolls.[11]

The median household income at $37,948 in 2008 dollars was low compared with both city and county populations. The percentage of households earning $20,000 or less a year was high for the county. The percentage of residents 25 and older with a high school education and some college was high for the county, Those with a college degree were about the same as the rest of the city and county.[3]

The large number of veterans, 2,272 or 10.2% of the population, was high for both the city and the county. The percentage of veterans who served during World War II or the Korean War was among the county's highest.[3]

Only 16.6% of the residents were foreign born, a low figure for both the city and the county. Mexico (31%) and El Salvador (16.8%) were the most common foreign places of birth.[3]

Condition of Baldwin Hills reservoir after collapse of the dam in 1963

On December 14, 1963, a crack appeared in the Baldwin Hills Dam impounding the Baldwin Hills Reservoir. Within a few hours, water rushing through the crack eroded the earthen dam, gradually widening the crack until the dam failed catastrophically at 3:38 pm. Although the area had been evacuated after the crack had been discovered, several homes were destroyed, and most of Baldwin Vista and the historic Village Green community were flooded. The dam's failure was ultimately determined to be the result of subsidence, caused by overexploitation of the Inglewood Oil field. The dam's failure prompted the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to close and drain other small local reservoirs with similar designs, such as the Silver Lake Reservoir. The Baldwin Hills Dam was not rebuilt—instead, the empty reservoir was demolished, filled with earth, landscaped, and converted to 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;[12] the arsonist was never caught.