West Adams, Los Angeles
West Adams is a neighborhood in the South Los Angeles region of Los Angeles, California. The neighborhood is known for its large number of historic buildings, structures, notable houses, and mansions. It contains several Historic Preservation Overlay Zones as well as designated historic districts.
History
West Adams is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city of Los Angeles, with most of its buildings erected between 1880 and 1925, including the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. West Adams was developed by railroad magnate Henry E. Huntington and wealthy industrialist Hulett C. Merritt of Pasadena. It was once the wealthiest neighborhood in the city, with its Victorian mansions and sturdy Craftsman bungalows, and a home to Downtown businessmen, as well as professors and academicians at the nearby University of Southern California.1880s - 1890s
In 1887, the Los Angeles Herald announced that the ensuing St. James Park neighborhood would have a stone entrance to "rival the Arc de Triomphe" and would be eventually be surrounded by "the most costly residences yet erected on this coast". The parkland was named and donated to the city by George King and his wife in commemoration of their many trips to London. The gated community of Chester Place was developed in 1889 On October 24, 1901, Edward L. Doheny purchased number 8 Chester Place for $120,000 cash.In 1890, St. Margaret's School for Girls moved from Pasadena to West Adams. On October 1, 1890, the school opened at the corner of 23rd and Scarff Streets. Occupying the empty Marlborough Hotel, the school adopted the name of its new location and was renamed the Marlborough School for Girls. It remained in West Adams for 26 years before relocating to Hancock Park in 1916.
1900s - 1910s
In 1906, numerous West Adams residents experienced a water shortage because the new pipe from the Ivanhoe reservoir was not completed on time. The new reservoir would hold nearly "a billion gallons" of water. In September of that year, a Los Angeles Times reporter wrote: "The growing popularity of apartment houses is causing them to encroach on grounds heretofore exclusively reserved for high-class residences". He was reporting on "one of the handsomest apartment-houses in the city", which was designed by Thornton Fitzhue and was to be built on the southern side of St. James Park.. Landowner John R. Powers completed another apartment building in St. James Place in 1909, with an entrance also on Scarff Street. Designed by George W. Wryman, it was divided into four apartments of seven rooms each; the venture represented an investment of $35,000.By 1912, other wealthy neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area were being developed; tracts were being advertised in the yet-to-be-incorporated Beverly Hills that would "make the dwellers of the West Adams District green with envy".
In 1913, the Times announced that the Monarch Hotel was to be built in the "fashionable residence district" of West Adams. By 1916, the Los Angeles Times stated that the area was "already known for its private parks and handsome homes". At that time, improvements to the boulevard were being spearheaded by five prominent residents including Isidore B. Dockweiler, William May Garland and Edward L. Doheny. After convincing thirty-five other residents to help with funding, the old street paving between Figueroa and Hoover streets was replaced with an asphalt surface. Adams Boulevard was now 65 feet wide with a series of center islands planted with flowers, shrubs and mature palms. Six-cluster electroliers, which were duplicates of those that lined Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, were installed on both sides of Adams Street. Adams Boulevard was now a "magnificent concourse" and "one of the most popular drives in Los Angeles".
1920s - 1930s
In 1921, the Automobile Club announced that it would build a new headquarters at Figueroa and Adams. Architects Sumner Hunt and S.R. Burns designed a building of "attractive Spanish design" that would be a "distinctive structure for the West Adams district".In 1925, silent screen star Ramon Novarro purchased a home in "the exclusive West Adams district" for $12,000 and spent an additional $100,000 on renovations.
In 1927, during the prohibition era, the Times reported that the vice squad raided a "luxurious fourteen room mansion in the exclusive West Adams district". The mansion, located at 2234 Adams Street, contained "the most extensive and elaborate moonshine production plant" they had seen in many months.
In 1931, during the Great Depression, the recently organized West Adams Relief Committee provided work for twenty men for ninety days. Married men with families who lived in West Adams and were registered voters would be paid $2 a day.
Though West Adams had previously been described as "fashionable" and "exclusive", in 1937 the Times wrote: "St James Place, Chester Place, Scarff Street - those place-names mean little to present day Angelinos. Yet they spell an aristocratic Los Angeles of the past, and to a good extent, the present. They are of the wealthy Los Angeles of a past generation, and a visitor to the neighborhood will find evidence of its elegance, if somewhat frayed and faded in spots."
1940s - 1950s
African-Americans began to move in around this time. Notable residents included Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company president Norman O. Houston, actress Hattie McDaniel, civil rights activists John and Vada Sommerville, actress Louise Beavers, band leader Johnny Otis, performers Pearl Bailey and Ethel Waters.In December 1945, some white residents filed a lawsuit against 31 Black residents—including Hattie McDaniel. She held workshops to strategize for the case and gathered around 250 sympathizers to accompany her to court. Judge Thurmond Clarke left the courtroom to see the disputed neighborhood and threw out the case the following day. He said, "It is time that members of the Negro race are accorded, without reservations or evasions, the full rights guaranteed them under the 14th Amendment to the Federal Constitution. Judges have been avoiding the real issue too long." McDaniel's case set a precedent that later impacted the 1948 Shelley v. Kramer decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that state courts may not enforce racially restrictive covenants.
In 1949, the headquarters building of the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company opened. The building is a late-period Moderne structure designed by architect Paul Williams. It was once described as "the finest building to be erected and owned by African-Americans in the nation."
1960s - 1970s
Starting in 1961, construction of the ten-lane Santa Monica Freeway tore through West Adams' core, with the freeway routed east to west just north of Adams Boulevard. Its construction resulted in the taking and demolition of numerous West Adams homes, including a number of mansions owned by African Americans. The construction resulted in substantial displacement of West Adams residents, including the relocation of much of the area's affluent Black families. As the Los Angeles Sentinel reported:The road could have been built without cutting through the so-called Sugar Hill section. However, in order to miss Sugar Hill, it was "said" that the route would have to cut through fraternity and sorority row area around USC. Sorority and fraternity row still stands and Sugar Hill doesn't, so you know who won out!As in many other American cities during the heyday of Interstate Highway Act construction, interstate highway rights of way were disproportionately routed through predominantly African American communities, causing substantial displacement of residents and steep declines in neighborhood viability.
In 1971, the West Adams Community Hospital opened as the city's first black-owned hospital. Located at 24th Street and Western Avenue, it was considered a landmark in the community. According to the LA Weekly, "In the 1970s and '80s it was a thriving, vital part of the West Adams community."
1980s - present day
In 2000, the Alpha Gamma Omega sorority house, a Craftsman structure built in 1911 and located in West Adams, received a Preserve L.A. grant from the Getty Trust.In 2004, homes were demolished and lots were cleared in West Adams for what was then referred to as "Central High School No. 2". The Times reported that "a century-old neighborhood of houses and businesses" were demolished to make room for a new $130 million 15-acre high school. West Adams Preparatory High School opened in the fall semester of 2007 with a final budget of $176 million.
In 2007, the city approved the "West Adams Streetscape Enhancement Program" proposed by LANI. Improvements included the installation of four "gateway markers" at the corners of Adams Boulevard and Western Avenue and Adams Boulevard and Vermont Avenue. Additionally, 58 magnolia trees were planted along Adams Boulevard between Western and Vermont Avenues, along with additional trees clustered near the gateway markers.
In 2010, This Old House magazine named West Adams as "one of the country's best neighborhoods for old houses". Criteria included "architectural diversity, craftsmanship of the homes, and the preservation momentum in the area". The magazine noted that West Adams was "once home to Los Angeles's wealthiest 19th-century bankers" and that the neighborhood was best for movie buffs and city life.
In 2011, the Times reported on neighbors pushing back against crime and wrote: "The neighborhood around them at Western Avenue and Adams Boulevard might be blighted, but they are not about to cede to urban ills their graceful streets of century-old bungalows, well-tended lawns and curbside jacarandas and towering palms."
In 2016, then-U.S. Representative and now Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said, "I tour people through the area all the time and they are surprised when they see beautiful homes, because it's not the perception of the neighborhood." That same year, an empty West Adams Hospital was transformed into a temporary art gallery.