Hyde Park, Los Angeles, CA

Hyde Park is one of the older corners of South Los Angeles, a former railroad stop that incorporated as its own city in 1922 and joined Los Angeles the next year. Today it runs along Crenshaw Boulevard south of Leimert Park, a corridor long described as the center of Black commerce in the city. Homes are mostly early twentieth century Craftsman and Spanish-style houses on regular city lots, with later postwar bungalows and low apartment buildings mixed in. Owners and renters split the housing close to evenly. Many streets still show original details, and remodels tend to happen one house at a time. Van Ness Recreation Center on 2nd Avenue is the main park, with two indoor gyms, outdoor basketball courts, barbecue areas and three baseball diamonds. For longer walks, the trails at Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area are a short drive northwest, and the hilltop streets of View Park are close by for a hilly loop. Woody's Bar-B-Que on Slauson Avenue is the neighborhood's best-known kitchen, a generational family business on the same stretch for decades. Milton's Jamaican Restaurant on Slauson handles Jamaican plates, and Hilltop Coffee + Kitchen is a short hop west on Slauson in View Park, a popular coffee and brunch spot. Groceries otherwise mean Ralphs or Vallarta on Slauson. The Hyde Park Miriam Matthews Branch Library is on Florence Avenue. The K Line has stations at Hyde Park and Fairview Heights, which puts LAX and the E Line a short ride away, and Destination Crenshaw has been adding public art and green space along the boulevard. The tradeoff is that most commercial streets are still spread out, so errands usually take a car, and Crenshaw and Slauson carry heavy traffic. What stands out about Hyde Park is how much of old Los Angeles is intact here, with porches, palms and small corner businesses that have outlasted several waves of change.