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South Central Los Angeles ("South Central") is a large geographic and cultural area lying to the south and southwest of downtown Los Angeles, California. While the name South Central derives from the neighborhood's historical core along south Central Avenue, the neighborhood is generally considered to cover most of the area of the city south of the Santa Monica Freeway and east of the San Diego Freeway, including neighborhoods such as West Adams, Watts, Leimert Park and Crenshaw.
South Central contains some of the oldest neighborhoods in Los Angeles, featuring many spectacular examples of Victorian and Craftsman architecture in West Adams. It is home to the University of Southern California, founded in 1880. The 1932 and 1984 Olympic Games took place near the USC campus at neighboring Exposition Park, which hosts the Los Angeles Coliseum. Until the rise of the Wilshire Boulevard corridor refocused Los Angeles' development to the west of downtown in the 1920s, West Adams was one of the most desirable areas of the city.
At the same time that well-to-do whites were building stately mansions in West Adams and Jefferson Park, the area of modest bungalows between Figueroa Street and the Los Angeles River emerged as the heart of the black community in southern California. South Central thus played host to one of the first jazz scenes in the western US, with trombonist Kid Ory a notable resident. The explosive growth of whites-only suburbs and West Side neighborhoods, the construction of freeways, and the massive influx of black immigrants during World War II resulted in the area being predominantly African-American by the 1960s.
The precipitous decline of the area's manufacturing base during the 1960s and 1970s resulted in widespread poverty and crime. Street gangs, such as the notorious Crips, rose to great notoriety at this time, becoming even more powerful with the arrival of crack cocaine (trade in which was dominated by gangs) in the 1980s. By the time of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, which began in South Central and spread throughout the city, "South Central" had become a byword for urban decay, its bad reputation spread by movies such as "South Central," "Friday," and South Central native John Singleton's "Boyz N the Hood."
In the aftermath of the violence, much of the black population moved to the Antelope Valley and Inland Empire areas far to the north and east (respectively) of Los Angeles; departing black homeowners were swiftly replaced by an influx of Latinos. In 2003, the city of Los Angeles changed the area's official name from "South Central" to "South Los Angeles," hoping to blur collective memories of violence and blight.
People from South Central
South Central Landmarks
See also
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