Stereotyping often allows us to confirm our preconceived, superficial notions about people and places. It requires little work or investigation and is even encouraged within our misinformed social media cultures that are dominated by abbreviated tweets and texts. It also traps people and our perceptions of places into boxes that can’t be escaped, allowing us to move on, in our restrictive ignorance, to the next oversimplified stereotype. But we know that every person and neighborhood – every place and its people – have rich histories and compelling stories to share if only we attempt to dig deeper. Pull back the curtain, look around your neighborhood, and become the local landscape detective. Why do particular people live there and what forces have shaped today’s geography? You may discover generations of people and families, with their unique stories, who can help us understand how sequent occupance has constructed our evolving cultural landscapes.
California has nurtured its share of oversimplified stereotypes about its diverse people and places and you are probably recalling some of them as you read this. The world-famous beach town and tourist attraction known as Santa Monica may be just one example. With today’s home prices averaging more than $1.5 million, it is often considered just another poster child symbolizing overpriced beach communities that have pushed most working and even middle-class families far inland to more affordable locations within or beyond the Golden State. But, as in so many other communities, it hasn’t always been this way. It was once home to thriving working-class neighborhoods, where people without wealth could enjoy open spaces, iconic beaches, and refreshing breezes off the ocean…a piece of the California Dream without the riches. You might visit today’s Virginia Avenue Park to see how City officials and community leaders have struggled to support vestiges of these historic neighborhoods that have earned a closer look.
The following one-hour video is a masterfully-produced blending of art, history, and geography that helps us understand the stories behind these landscapes. Though the setting is in the Pico Neighborhood of Santa Monica, it could be about your family or neighborhood or the multitude of other California communities and ethnic groups that combine to define the most diverse state in the history of the world. After viewing the video, you might want to tour through the series of current images that follow here. They illustrate how a traditional working-class neighborhood has evolved after being bifurcated by a major freeway more than 50 years ago and, more recently, threatened with gentrification pressures familiar to countless other California communities. If you wish to learn more about L.A.’s working-class neighborhoods beyond Santa Monica, you will want to visit our earlier story on this web site, Eat Your Way through L.A.: A Cultural Tour of Los Angeles. For now, enjoy the video:
Once you have seen the one-hour video, you are invited to follow the following images that wander through parts of today’s Pico Neighborhood, July, 2021.
Still Here after 100 Years. Churches have often anchored California’s working-class communities, such as the Pico Neighborhood. The First A.M.E. Church on Michigan Avenue, recognized in the film, advertised its centennial celebration in 2021. Note the wall behind the church on the far right; the adjacent Santa Monica Freeway menaces on the other side.
Dividing a Community. Numerous streets were cut off when Interstate 10 sliced through the Pico Neighborhood and connecting arteries were built to support it. You can find similar landscapes scattered throughout California, where freeways created formidable barriers through established working-class communities.
Today’s 20th Street. It is difficult to imagine the cohesiveness of neighborhoods before major transportation arteries sliced through them. You can see how the Pico Neighborhood was forced to adapt and evolve with separated north (to the left) and south (to the right) sections. This is looking east, down to the Santa Monica Freeway from the 20th Street overpass, near the Olympic Blvd. intersection featured in the movie.
Olympic and 20th in 2021. There’s little hint of the residential community that once flourished around this intersection and was highlighted in the video, although you might recognize a few surviving structures. Looking northeast (inland) along Olympic, past 20th today, and to the right, you will also find a top-rated (and expensive, especially for this neighborhood) private school.
Industrial Landscapes Replace a Working-class Neighborhood. Most visitors rarely encounter these working landscapes that seem far removed from the popular tourist attractions that have made Santa Monica famous. But this center strip along Olympic points toward downtown, the Promenade, the beach, and the pier, all just about a mile away. The Olympic/20th Street intersection featured in the video is directly behind us. Note how the most recent drought was also impacting landscapes during the summer of 2021.
Streets Built for Cars. When the interstate invaded more than 50 years ago, more intimate, compact neighborhoods were bulldozed into paved surfaces to serve car cultures. This view is toward the southeast, along the 20th Street overpass. A freeway onramp and auto body shop decorates today’s car-friendly landscape.
Where the Interstate Meets the Pacific. Driving toward the beach, in just about a mile, most folks will soon notice how Interstate 10 passes Santa Monica Pier and becomes PCH toward Malibu. But passengers in these cars traveling along this sunken freeway route may never realize they are racing directly through one of California’s storied working-class neighborhoods to get to the beach. The A.M.E. Church highlighted in the film (and its freeway barrier) can be seen perched on the other side. As if to taunt, the fencing only mimics a barrier: Is it designed to protect the neighborhood from the freeway or vice versa?
No Outlet. Numerous streets once connected a neighborhood before the interstate sliced through here more than 50 years ago; they now end abruptly in these cul-de-sac-meets-freeway landscapes. Proximity to the air- and noise-polluting interstate decreased living standards and kept housing costs lower than surrounding neighborhoods. More recently, higher-income bargain hunters flush with cash have discovered one of the last relatively “affordable” places on the West Side, accelerating the familiar gentrification trends that have impacted so many California communities. The results include the many families with roots in Santa Monica forced to relocate to distant, more affordable inland locations.
Connecting to and Serving the Monster. The adjacent freeway and the connecting roads and gas stations that serve it have created a sometimes-confusing landscape in the Pico Neighborhood. These car culture landscapes efficiently (before traffic gridlock hit) connected Santa Monica to the surrounding behemoth conurbation we know as L.A. Here, we look inland (north and east) toward the high-priced high rise density in Westwood and Century City in the distance.
Pinched into Spaces without Purpose. Where city streets approach the intruding sunken freeway at awkward angles, it creates these slivers of lost land that are pinched without a purpose. Even in a city with skyrocketing real estate values, there are still a few forgotten splinters that barely serve to separate usable space from the interstate.
A Community Discovers its Power. When residents of the Pico Neighborhood began to discover and exercise their political power, City leaders (such as in the City Council) paid attention. The result was a reimagined and remodeled Virginia Avenue Park that reopened in 2005. It includes the abundant open space, basketball courts, and other sports facilities that you might expect at any park, but it also functions as a vital center for the neighborhood. The City’s description serves as a good summary: “In addition to outdoor amenities, Virginia Avenue Park is home to a vibrant community center offering a variety of free educational, recreational programs and activities for Santa Monica families of all ages and abilities.”
Open Space and Recreation in the Neighborhood. Virginia Avenue Park is more than nine acres in the Pico Neighborhood. Serving as a modern example of how folks can come together to celebrate community, you will find a diversity of people of all ages enjoying its open spaces and meeting places. Here, about a mile from the beach, summers are relatively cool; but that doesn’t stop local kids from splashing in fountains surrounded by a library, meeting facilities, and local activities that include after school programs and camps and a Saturday Farmers’ Market. It is difficult to overstate or even imagine the amount of volunteer time and work that has been required to make this park such a success and a lasting valuable asset for the neighborhood. While reading this, you might be acknowledging or at least imagining how such a precious space could improve your community.
More Recent Addition. The more recent extension of the Metro Expo Line brought light rail through the neighborhood in 2015. It was cheered by those who were looking for better public transportation choices that didn’t involve cars, but criticized by others who worried about another transportation corridor running through their working-class neighborhood. This train stops at the 17th Street Station as it transports passengers inland from the turnaround stop in nearby downtown Santa Monica near the Pier. Last stop will be downtown L.A.
Connecting to L.A. through the Pico Neighborhood. Here is where the train makes a slight turn as it winds inland toward 20th Street and through Santa Monica’s industrial landscapes. It should arrive in downtown L.A. in less than 45 minutes.
One last reminder: If you wish to learn more about L.A.’s working-class neighborhoods beyond Santa Monica, you will want to visit our earlier story on this web site, Eat Your Way through L.A.: A Cultural Tour of Los Angeles.
