Crenshaw Square

Crenshaw Square. . , The Japanese in Crenshaw , Though it is mostly known as an African American community, Crenshaw was also home to the largest Japanese American population in the United States for decades, a population that lived and worked alongside blacks and left an indelible mark on the area. After World War II, Japanese Angelenos started moving out of the ethnic Downtown enclave of Little Tokyo and Crenshaw was their first foray into the westside. Beginning in the 1950s, the Crenshaw district, especially Leimert Park and the Jefferson Corridor, was dotted with Japanese-owned businesses, and Crenshaw Square, an airy, 300,000-square-foot courtyard-style shopping and business center, was the flagship. Besides typical mall offerings like a grocery store, Crenshaw Square boasted many Japanese shops, restaurants, and services, including Sumitomo Bank and Cren-Star Realty, owned by Crenshaw Square developer Yo Takagaki. The center also had its own annual Obon Festival and carnival. Just north of Crenshaw Square was the Holiday Bowl and restaurant, another flagship Japanese-owned business that became an institution in Crenshaw among Japanese and black residents alike. , The Color of Change , Japanese residents were a diverse mix of entrepreneurs, professionals, and blue-collar workers who found a lot of common ground with their black neighbors. Both groups had experienced intense discrimination, especially in housing, and were working hard to increase their social mobility. Leimert Park was already known for its black celebrities, including Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, and the politically ambitious Tom Bradley. Kazuo Inouye opened Kashu Realty on Jefferson Boulevard in 1947, the year before the Supreme Court invalidated racial covenants that had kept non-whites out of Crenshaw and elsewhere. After 1948, Inouye and other realtors would be actively selling houses to African Americans, Mexican Americans, and Japanese Americans, like himself who had previously been shut out. , , The multiethnic community proved hard to maintain. When white flight began to accelerate in the mid-1960s, Japanese members of Crenshaw Neighbors, a homeowners group devoted to integration, attempted to convince white residents to remain, but to little avail. Many whites moved out of Crenshaw in the passing years, and African Americans became the prominent presence in the community. In the 1970s, Crenshaw Square was sold to Logan Westbrooks, a pioneering black music executive and marketer who instituted the popular Sunny Sunday Arts show, a place for local artists to gather and sell their work. , , The once-formidable Nisei presence in Crenshaw is almost entirely gone after the exodus that started in the 1970s. However, locals still often gather at the Square's remaining eateries, notably Tak's Coffee Shop, a longtime neighborhood spot tucked in the back of the building. , , A Sign of the Times , One of the most distinctive things about Crenshaw Square is its towering Japanese-style sign with distinctive lettering, described by some as the neighborhood's "Eiffel Tower." It was refurbished in 2007 after years of deterioration. The Japanese influence extends to the streets around Crenshaw Square, evident in the bonsai-style landscaping that marks the apartments and homes that were once rented and owned by Japanese American families.