Village Green, originally named Baldwin Hills Village, is a neighborhood at the foot of Baldwin Hills, within the city of

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. Village Green consists of a large

condominium A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership regime in which a building (or group of buildings) is divided into multiple units that are either each separately owned, or owned in common with exclusive rights of occupation by individual own ...

complex that is both a

Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments are sites which have been designated by the Los Angeles, California, Cultural Heritage Commission as worthy of preservation based on architectural, historic and cultural criteria. History The Historic-Cul ...

and a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...

. Designed in the late 1930s and completed by 1942, it is one of the oldest planned communities of its type in the nation. Village Green was named by The American Institute of Architects as one of the 100 most important architectural achievements in U.S. history.

Geography

Village Green is located between Obama Boulevard and Coliseum Street, and between Hauser Blvd. and slightly west of

La Brea Avenue La Brea Avenue is a prominent north-south thoroughfare in the Los Angeles, California, City of Los Angeles and in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, California. La Brea is known for having diverse ethnic communities, and m ...

, in the northwestern

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, California, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of Downtown Los Angeles, downtown. It is de ...

region. The

Baldwin Village Baldwin Village is a commercial enclave in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the west of downtown Toronto, within the Grange Park neighbourhood, one block north of Dundas Street West, between Beverley and McCaul Streets. The former mo ...

neighborhood is just east of Village Green and

. The site design consists of outer vehicular circulation roads, with spur roadways between some of the buildings of the complex. At its center is an elongated oval greensward, lined and crossed by paved walkways. Smaller garden courts extend outward from the central area between the residence buildings. The spur roads provide access to garage buildings, which also historically housed access to common facilities such as laundry rooms. The residences are one or two story frame structures finished in plaster, with the living units organized so that the living room and master bedroom face one of the garden spaces.

History

Origin

The Baldwin Hills Village complex was built in 1942 as one of the most ambitiously planned communities in Los Angeles at the time, with 627 apartments grouped in buildings on a very large landscaped site. The

Modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

Garden city style complex, which encompassed 627 units, was designed by architect Reginald D. Johnson, consulting architect Clarence S. Stein, with the firm of Wilson, Merill & Alexander, and landscape architect Fred Barlow, Jr. It also featured a mural by Italian-American artist

Rico Lebrun Rico Federico Lebrun (December 10, 1900 – May 9, 1964) was an Italian-American painter and sculptor. Early life Lebrun was born in 1900 in Naples, Italy. Before he started his art career he began a two-year service in the Italian Army durin ...

. The units seldom have more than two bedrooms, and tend to attract seniors and younger professionals as residents. As one of the first such establishments, the Village Green was also designed with the requirements of car-owners in mind.Sam Hall Kaplan: LA Lost & Found, New York 1987, p. 109. The development "was designed with all the roads and garages confined to the edges of its eighty-acre expanse."

Landmark status

As Baldwin Hills Village, Village Green was declared a

Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments are sites which have been designated by the Los Angeles, California, Cultural Heritage Commission as worthy of preservation based on architectural, historic and cultural criteria. History The Historic-Cul ...

in 1977, listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1993, and a

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains historic building, older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal p ...

in 2001. and

Gallery

Image:Village Green Photograph.jpg, A view inside Village Green, 2022 Image:Baldwin Hills Village, Office Building.JPG, Village Green Office Building, 2007 Image:Villagegreen-nhl.JPG, Village Green identification sign, 2011 Image:Baldwin Hills Village, Landmark Plaque.jpg, Baldwin Hills Village

plaque VillageGreen 2006 sm2509.JPG

References

External links

Village Green Owners Association Web Site

baldwinhillsvillageandthevillagegreen.blogspot.comVillage Green History Talks by Gailyn Saroyan
{{National Register of Historic Places Neighborhoods in Los Angeles Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles Crenshaw, Los Angeles Planned residential developments Residential condominiums in the United States Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments Historic districts in Los Angeles National Register of Historic Places in Los Angeles National Historic Landmarks in California Apartment buildings in Los Angeles Residential buildings completed in 1942 Modernist architecture in California Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in California 1942 establishments in California