The Complicated Racist History of “Black Beverly Hills” in Los Angeles

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The 1920s subdivision of View Park earned its nickname “Black Beverly Hills” by becoming one of Los Angeles’ largest, wealthiest and most architecturally distinct black neighborhoods. In 2016, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places due to its ethnic heritage and architectural integrity. But it owes its importance to a complicated racial history. When it was created, anyone who was not of the Caucasian race was prohibited from owning or occupying property in View Park due to racial restrictions. After the practice was banned by the Supreme Court in 1948, affluent black families began to settle in the neighborhood. In the 1980s, as a result of an attack of antagonism and racial violence – and a possible flight of whites – the black population of View Park outnumbered the white population nine times.

Today, racial turnover still threatens View Park. Prior to its listing, residents debated the value of historical recognition. Many feared the national title would cause an influx of new populations, escalating prices, and disruption of the hard-earned community identity of black residents. Coherent neighborhood planning and aesthetics may have earned View Park a national title, but these characteristics were first sequestered for the benefit of white populations. At the turn of the 20th century, neighborhoods where black families were not prohibited from owning or occupying property generally did not feature modern improvements such as underground utilities or broad land facades like those in View. Park. Without community investments to support an increase in property values, black neighborhoods in LA were more likely to decline, influencing enduring housing insecurity for black populations in Los Angeles. View Park’s national recognition commemorates racial advancements in the civil rights era, but racial inequalities still underlie its character.

Advertisement for “The Barcelona”, a house designed by LAIC in View Park “with a view that rivals the Mediterranean”. | The Los Angeles Times, Sep 30, 1928: E3

View Park was planned, subdivided and built by the Los Angeles Investment Company (LAIC) from the 1920s to the 1950s. LAIC was formed at the turn of the century to buy and subdivide land and to design, finance, build and sell homes in through Los Angeles. Although its first directors were charged with overspeculation and fraud in 1913, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of continuing LAIC under new management. After much litigation, JE Fishburn, president of the National Bank of California; LA Times Editor: Harry Chandler; real estate lawyer, Henry O’Melveny; and William Allen Jr., president of Title Insurance and Trust Company, were chosen to transition the company. With their respective influences, the new trustees were called upon to complete LAIC’s largest project: a contract to purchase land in the Baldwin Hills. After years of negotiations and refinancing, LAIC secured the land and began subdividing what would become View Park in 1924 under the leadership of its new chairman, Reuben Ingold.

View Park’s plans were aligned with the projected interests of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, the City Planning Commission, and the Realty Board. These agencies have made known their belief that homogeneous subdivisions with deed restrictions would prevent property values ​​from falling. The suggested restrictions included both aesthetic and racial characteristics. LAIC selected the magnificent hilltop site of its Baldwin Hills property for development of a fully improved, all-white subdivision in accordance with these beliefs. By widening Crenshaw and Slauson boulevards, installing underground utilities, paving the streets and lining them with sidewalks, trees and lampposts, LAIC ensured the creation of a modern and completely improved neighborhood; by establishing wide lot fronts (60 to 100 feet on average) and minimum prices for houses ($ 7,500 and more), LAIC ensured an upper class population; and by providing model homes and architectural review board, LAIC has ensured a cohesive and distinctly residential architectural character throughout.

LAIC created a cohesive community by celebrating Los Angeles’ colonial past with the neighborhood design. After subdividing and improving the site, LAIC built several modern Spanish-style homes to define the character. The Spanish and Renaissance architecture of the mission echoes the structures built by the Spanish colonizers during their conquest of California. The LAIC houses were adorned with stucco walls, clay-tiled roofs, cylindrical entrance towers, carved wooden doors, ornamental beam ceilings, and wrought-iron balconies. The houses have been given names like “The Barcelona” and “The Peyolas” to support this vision. View Park would contain sites like those that can be “found in the” best home “neighborhood of Barcelona, ​​Spain and overlooking the Mediterranean. The identities of the African and indigenous Mexican and American populations who founded and helped build Los Angeles were hidden behind Aesthetics and Rhetoric of the Spanish Revival.

Model posing in front of LAIC’s “Peyolas” model home on Aureola Boulevard in View Park, 1928 | Courtesy of the “Dick” Whittington Photography Collection 1924-1987, USC Digital Library

Perhaps the most influential restriction was LAIC’s requirement that all properties have deed restrictions to prevent any “non-Caucasian” person, considered “harmful influences”, from owning or occupying the property. Earth. The Supreme Court supported this practice in its decision in the 1919 LAIC case against Alfred Gary, an African-American man who had purchased a house in one of LAIC’s restricted subdivisions. The court ruled that while the Fourteenth Amendment protected black property, it did not prevent developers from restricting black occupation of property through deed restrictions.

With the establishment of the National Housing Act in 1934, View Park became the first subdivision in Southern California to be insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). FHA insurance has provided homeowners with long-term amortized mortgages and developers with financial incentives and protection against defaulting on homeowner loans. As Richard Rothstein describes in “The Color of Law,” these security offers were only available to white people and real estate developers for properties with racial restrictions in place. View Park has been assured as a national example of the type of property that is expected to experience enduring values ​​due to its seamless racial makeup and cohesive residential aesthetic.

Children posed in front of a modern Spanish-style stucco house in View Park | Courtesy of the “Dick” Whittington Photography Collection 1924-1987, USC Digital Library

It would not be until after the Supreme Court’s decision in the 1948 Plessy v Ferguson case that restrictions on racial acts would be revoked, and even then black families faced extreme racial violence when they moved into quarters previously reserved for whites. In 1969, Andre Vaughn, the African-American owner of the First Security Investment Company, began selling properties to black families in View Park. The weekend after Dr Piper moved into his new home at 4915 Sud Verdun, white neighbors burned a cross on his lawn. Although affluent black families were able to enjoy the benefits of fully improved housing estates like View Park after the 1960s, their experiences were marred by continued racist acts. At the 2018 LA Commons Symposium titled “Evolution of View Park,” a community member explained how white “gentrifiers” monitor the neighborhood for reportable violations, which makes black residents feel harassed. Citizen policing and racial profiling are a danger to black people in the suburbs; or worse: fatal, as was the case with Ahmaud Arbery, shot dead while jogging by white neighbors who considered him a criminal because of his race.

Today, racial inequalities in housing are pervasive, though less evident. In View Park’s decade of greatest demographic change (1960 to 1970), median property values ​​rose only 30% from the city average of 54%. According to US census data, white neighborhoods appreciated $ 200,000 more on average from 1980 to 2015 compared to non-white neighborhoods. As whites are overpriced in desirable neighborhoods, demand increases in those like View Park which have not experienced proportional spikes in property values. Indeed, from 2010 to 2020, View Park’s black population rose from 85% to 78%, suggesting that residents’ fears of gentrification are not unfounded. The “Reuben Ingold Park” at the northwest end of View Park is named after the racist real estate developer behind its development. Despite View Park’s successful transformation into “Black Beverly Hills,” its racist past lingers in the fine print.

Sources

Clary, William W. 1966. “Los Angeles Investment Company” in the History of the O’Melveny & Myers Law Firm, 1885-1965 Volume I. Los Angeles: O’Melveny & Myers.

Howell, Junia and Elizabeth Korver-Glenn. 2020. “The Growing Effect of Neighborhood Racial Composition on Housing Values, 1980-2015.” Social issues spa 033, 04 Sep.

Jennings, Angel. 2015. “‘Black Beverly Hills’ Debates Historic Status vs. White Gentrification” Los Angeles Times, July 18th. Retrieved from: https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-adv-view-park-20150719- histoire.html

Thomas, Fred. 2018. “Racism: White Flight: Gentrification-A Discussion of View Park and Surrounding Communities.” Thomas Reports, May 12. Retrieved from: https://thomasreports.org/2018/05/12/racism-white-flight-gentrification-a-discussion-about-view-park-and-surrounding-communities/

US Department of the Interior, National Park Service. 2016. See Park Historic District No. 1024-0018, July 12. https://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/pdfs/16000434.pdf

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