North Inglewood, Inglewood, CA

Edward Vincent Jr. Park fills 55 acres of North Inglewood, and the natural spring that gave the Centinela Valley its name still rises inside it. This end of Inglewood is mostly residential, with side streets spreading out from La Brea Avenue and Centinela Avenue. The park was called Centinela Park until 1997, when it was renamed for the city's first Black mayor. People come for the 1.2-mile walking loop, the pool that dates to 1929 and the skate park, and the hillside amphitheater once known as the Centinela Bowl still hosts summer events. Picnic tables fill up fast on warm weekends. Homes in North Inglewood are mostly single-story houses from the 1920s through the 1950s, with Spanish-style stucco, small bungalows and postwar designs mixed on the same blocks. Apartment buildings cluster closer to La Brea, and many older houses sit on deep lots with detached garages. North La Brea Avenue is the neighborhood's dining strip, and one small plaza there holds several Ethiopian and Eritrean restaurants side by side, including Queen of Sheba and Zula. Over on Centinela Avenue, Sunday Gravy cooks Italian-American pasta and meatballs with bread from Cadoro, a local bakery. Ralphs on North La Brea covers most grocery runs, with a Starbucks and a few quick counters in the same center. Inglewood Park Cemetery, founded in 1905, takes up a large piece of the map, so some streets back onto quiet, open lawns. The K Line's Fairview Heights and Downtown Inglewood stations are a short ride south. Outside the La Brea strip, most errands mean getting in the car, and the residential streets have few shops of their own. What they do have is the park, which works as the neighborhood's shared backyard, from morning laps on the loop to evening swims in a pool that has been open for nearly a century.