The Metro Board of Directors voted unanimously last week to award $15 million to Destination Crenshaw, an open-air museum of public art, parks, and murals that will celebrate black Los Angeles. It will run parallel to a section of Metro’s Crenshaw/LAX light rail line.
The board awarded the money to help fund construction of Sankofa Park, an open space that will be located where Crenshaw and Leimert boulevards meet.
Anthony Crump, interim deputy executive officer for community relations at Metro, told the board that this park was selected to receive Metro funds in part because Metro was already on the hook to improve the parcel as part of the Crenshaw/LAX rail line project. The agency planned to reconstruct the center median that is central to the park, as well as replace curbs and sidewalks around the property.
The park also provides a “critical linkage” between Leimert Park and Park Mesa Heights, Crump says.
Destination Crenshaw the community’s response to Metro’s decision to put a section of the Crenshaw/LAX Line along Crenshaw Boulevard at ground level—instead of underground.
The 1.3-mile project—designed by Perkins + Will with landscape by Studio-MLA—will run the length of the above-ground segment of the line, between 48th and 60th streets. There is movement to extend it further north to Obama Boulevard, an addition that would double Destination Crenshaw’s size.
Destination Crenshaw is viewed by Metro officials as an investment in increasing ridership on the under-construction rail line (at a time when transit ridership overall continues its decline) that will contribute to economic development in the area.
According to Crump, the project has a budget of about $100 million. Of that, Crump says Destination Crenshaw has already received $10 million from the state of California and “$5 to 6 million” from city of Los Angeles. Construction is expected to begin this fall.
Comments
What’s the purpose of the overlook? It should have been a pedestrian bridge to the Crenshaw light rail station. The park itself should not have art because it will soon be covered with graffiti and vandalized. It should have plants and nothing else.
By TTTSec on 07.29.19 10:46am
This area has an underground stop so a pedestrian bridge is unnecessary.
As for the rest of your comment. I’ll just let that go.
By jbillz on 07.29.19 12:15pm
Are you going to let the rest of the comment go because it is factually accurate and you have no response to counter it?
By LADude on 07.29.19 12:32pm
He’s letting it go because it’s an uneducated, racially tinged comment coming from an outsider who doesn’t understand South Los Angeles. South L.A. has dozen’s of locally created, beautifully preserved murals that are respected and left alone by taggers. Destination Crenshaw is a locally driven effort, with community members playing a role in its creation and vision — and consequently its art will be respected and preserved.
But all that context is probably too much for the simple minded, who prefer to make sweeping generalizations about Communities of Color and the residents who live there.
By Urbancore on 07.29.19 1:10pm
Nice story. But it will for sure be covered in graffiti. One person will put their markings and then someone will have to cover it with theirs.
By LADude on 07.29.19 4:32pm
You asked for facts and when you got them you didn’t like them so you just covered your ears.
By Partymuscles on 07.29.19 5:45pm
And yet in this exact location, there is already an 800 foot long mural that has been in place for 19 years and stands mostly untouched by taggers. Curbed’s very own Bianca Barragan wrote about it a few years back: https://la.curbed.com/2014/3/31/10122860/a-history-and-possible-future-of-the-incredible-crenshaw-wall
Go back to 1950 dude. We don’t need your narrow minded b.s. in 2019.
By Urbancore on 07.30.19 2:01pm
There was a beautiful mural downtown right across the street from where I work last year. It went untouched for about six months, but once the first tagger struck, it was quickly covered with gang graffiti. The whole thing was then white-washed over.
By tlspam2014 on 07.29.19 5:51pm
Another white lib whitesplaining South Central. Yawn.
By LAwastheplace on 07.29.19 6:15pm
Those beautiful murals were recently defaced.
Crenshaw District mural, Lakers LeBron James mural, Cesar Chavez mural.
Don’t forget "Metro Admits To Painting Over Historic LA Mural".
By TTTSec on 07.29.19 6:48pm
Oooh! 1-0 Urbancore!
By Sarah Scoot on 07.29.19 10:24pm
So is this quote untrue "The 1.3-mile project—designed by Perkins + Will with landscape by Studio-MLA—will run the length of the above-ground segment of the line, between 48th and 60th streets."
I confirmed from the Crenshaw-LAX map that from 48th and 60th, it is AT-GRADE LRT.
Also, the station itself is not underground "The Hyde Park (formerly Crenshaw/Slauson) station is the only street-level station along the Crenshaw/LAX Line. The platform will be located in the center median of the street just south of the Crenshaw Boulevard/Slauson Avenue intersection."
By TTTSec on 07.29.19 1:43pm
The Hyde Park station is the next station down, a mile or so from the site in question. This location is where the LRT surfaces. In the first rendering in this article, where the word "Crenshaw" is located is where the alignment exits the subsurface. The parcel in question is located in the triangle between Liemert and Crenshaw Blvds as the text in the article states.
By Jason Michael Saunders on 07.29.19 8:52pm
I’m not following this – is there a big ramp that leads to a platform and then back down a stairs. Why do you need this? It looks like a big freeway overpass. why not just keep everything at ground level? who’s going to walk up there to look at street traffic?
By LAoneWay on 07.29.19 12:23pm
Lots of cement and metal, not so many plants and trees. What is the point of this thing they are building?
By LADude on 07.29.19 12:33pm
Knock yourself out: http://destinationcrenshaw.la/
By Urbancore on 07.29.19 1:13pm
It’ll be scary to go down to an underground station in the area. It’ll be 100% scary at night.
Fortunately, the planners thought about it.
By Ivan III on 07.29.19 2:02pm
Why don’t you go have dinner there? It’s hardly a scary area.
Currently a bunch of construction for this train but it’s not a bad area at all.
By Jason Michael Saunders on 07.29.19 8:55pm
Yes, a rapper was killed there recently, it’s not a bad area at all.
By Ivan III on 07.30.19 5:24pm
Honestly I would have just leveled that area and put in a bunch of nice shady trees. There is enough concrete and steel in the city.
By Greyvagabond on 07.29.19 2:44pm
Much of the 1.3 mile art walk is located on not level terrain. There is a frontage street that is at a higher level then Crenshaw Blvd. I bet the stairs and what not are to access this higher level.
By Jason Michael Saunders on 07.29.19 8:58pm
So much of the comments here are "taggers are just going to tag it therefore do not build anything nice." This is such a defeatist attitude. We need more nice things in South L.A., This attitude that only "nice" areas of town can have art, and museums, etc contributes to under investment. I wouldn’t be surprised if the sentiment is founded in self un-recognized racism/ classism.
All people need art, and art walks, nice civic things. Not just wealthier enclaves.
By Jason Michael Saunders on 07.29.19 9:06pm
The murals ARE defaced. And many noted how it looks like a freeway overpass. Nice things does not mean murals. Many nice towns have greenery without urban art exhibits on the outside. I noticed how art colonies seem to be a feature of the urban art scene. You see it a certain locales that are usually unconventional. Well, you have to decide whether to serve the community there or the art scene. Haven’t the poor people on those areas protested gentrification? Please make up their minds.
By TTTSec on 07.30.19 6:59am
Gentrification does not mean a neighborhood getting nicer. It means displacement. It means the people who have been a part of the community, the people who have lived and worked in a community, people who owned businesses, and perhaps even participated in community betterment, do not get to reap the benefits of THEIR community getting nicer.
Because of weak rent control laws, these people get little to no equity in the increase of value of a place, and in fact are forced, against their will to leave their long time neighborhoods.
I am one of these people.
In regards to graffiti. Every major city has these problems. Every city has it’s knuckleheads but it doesn’t mean we should allow that activity to define a place. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have nice things.
BTW: If you haven’t done so. Take a trip down to Watts Towers. Very little graffiti there and an inspiring sculpture. The city has built a small park around the towers.
By Jason Michael Saunders on 07.30.19 2:31pm
A renter gets no equity. What are you talking about? You get a place to live until you can’t afford it.
By TTTSec on 07.30.19 6:40pm