Baldwin Village is a neighborhood in the

South Los Angeles South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of downtown. It is "defined on Los Angeles city maps as ...

region of

Los Angeles County, California Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the List of the most populous counties in the United States, most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, ...

Geography

In 1988, Baldwin Village became be a distinct community in the city's General Plan, and signs were to be posted to identify the area. It is bounded by La Brea Avenue, Marlton Avenue, Obama Blvd, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Santo Thomas Drive.

History

Baldwin Village was developed in the early 1940s and 1950s by architect

Clarence Stein Clarence Samuel Stein (June 19, 1882 – February 7, 1975) was an American urban planner, architect, and writer, a major proponent of the garden city movement in the United States. Biography Stein was born in Rochester, New York into an upwardly ...

, as an apartment complex for young families. Baldwin Village is occasionally called "The Jungles" by locals because of the tropical trees and

foliage A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, ste ...

(such as palms,

banana tree A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

s and

begonias ''Begonia'' is a genus of perennial flowering plants in the family Begoniaceae. The genus contains more than 2,000 different plant species. The Begonias are native to moist subtropical and tropical climates. Some species are commonly grown ind ...

) that once thrived among the area's tropical-style postwar apartment buildings. The

Los Angeles City Council The Los Angeles City Council is the legislative body of the Los Angeles, City of Los Angeles in California. The council is composed of 15 members elected from single-member districts for four-year terms. The President of the Los Angeles City Counc ...

changed the name in 1990, after residents complained that it reinforced the neighborhood's image as a wild and menacing place. They renamed it Baldwin Village after the Baldwin Hills

neighborhood A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural area, ...

Development

While redevelopment has shown many successes, not all efforts have yielded results.

Marlton Square

Development of

Marlton Square Marlton Square is a one-block medical facility, retail and residential portion of Marlton Ave, located in the Baldwin Village neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California. It is bordered by Martin Luther King Jr Blvd on the north, Marlto ...

was stalled in bankruptcy after years of work and millions of dollars of public and private funds until 2012.

Kaiser Permanente

The neighborhood houses a 100,000

square foot The square foot (plural square feet; abbreviated sq. ft, sf, or ft2; also denoted by '2) is an imperial unit and U.S. customary unit (non- SI, non-metric) of area, used mainly in the United States and partially in Canada, the United Kingdom, Bang ...

Kaiser Permanente Kaiser Permanente (; KP), commonly known simply as Kaiser, is an American integrated managed care consortium, based in Oakland, California, United States, founded in 1945 by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser and physician Sidney Garfield. Kaiser P ...

medical Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practic ...

office building An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific dut ...

and outdoor plaza which opened on September 7, 2017.

Education

* Hillcrest Drive Elementary - 4041 Hillcrest Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90008

Media

Film

Baldwin Village served as a location for the 1992 film ''

White Men Can't Jump ''White Men Can't Jump'' is a 1992 American sports comedy film written and directed by Ron Shelton. It stars Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson as streetball hustlers. The film was released in the United States on March 27, 1992, by 20th Century ...

''. The neighborhood also appears in the 2001 film ''

Training Day ''Training Day'' is a 2001 American crime thriller film directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by David Ayer. It stars Denzel Washington as Alonzo Harris and Ethan Hawke as Jake Hoyt, two LAPD narcotics officers over a 24-hour period in the gang- ...

''.

Television

It was also in episode 1 of Season 3 of the

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

television series ''

Southland Southland may refer to: Places Canada * Dunbar–Southlands, Vancouver, British Columbia New Zealand * Southland Region, a region of New Zealand * Southland County, a former New Zealand county * Southland District, part of the wider Southland Reg ...

''. It was a prominent setting in the ''

S.W.A.T. In the United States, a SWAT team (special weapons and tactics, originally special weapons assault team) is a police tactical unit that uses specialized or military equipment and tactics. Although they were first created in the 1960s to ...

'' episode "Local Heroes" (Season 4, Episode 15).

Music Videos

Wacka Flocka Flame's "Hard in Da Paint" music video.

References

External links

Kaiser Permanente Baldwin HillsLA Improvements.The Gangs of Los Angeles - Part 3: Helping to Heal Communities

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...

{{Los Angeles Neighborhoods in Los Angeles Crenshaw, Los Angeles South Los Angeles