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West Adams is a neighborhood in the South Los Angeles region of Los Angeles, California. The area is known for its large number of historic buildings, structures and notable houses and mansions. It contains several Historic Preservation Overlay Zones as well as designated historic districts. History West Adams is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city of Los Angeles, with most of its buildings erected between 1880 and 1925, including the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. West Adams was developed by railroad magnate Henry E. Huntington and wealthy industrialist Hulett C. Merritt of Pasadena. It was once the wealthiest district in the city, with its Victorian mansions and sturdy Craftsman bungalows, and a home to Downtown businessmen, as well as professors and academicians at the nearby University of Southern California. 1880s - 1890s In 1887, the Los Angeles Herald announced that the forthcoming St. James Park neighborhood would have a stone entrance to "rival the Arc de Triomphe" and would be eventually be surrounded by "the most costly residences yet erected on this coast". Named by George King and his wife, the couple donated the parkland to the city in commemoration of their many trips to London. The gated community of Chester Place was developed in 1889 On October 24, 1901, Edward L. Doheny purchased number 8 Chester Place for $120,000 cash. In 1890, "St. Margaret's School for Girls" moved from Pasadena to the city of Los Angeles. On October 1, 1890, the school opened at the corner of 23rd and Scarff Streets. Occupying the empty Marlborough Hotel, the school adopted the name of its new location and was renamed the "Marlborough School for Girls". It remained in West Adams for 26 years before relocating to Hancock Park in 1916. 1900s - 1910s In 1906, residents of the "exclusive West Adams" section experienced a water shortage because the new pipe from the Ivanhoe reservoir was not completed on time. The new reservoir would hold nearly "a billion gallons" of water. In September of that year, a Los Angeles Times reporter wrote: "The growing popularity of apartment houses is causing them to encroach on grounds heretofore exclusively reserved for high-class residences". He was reporting on "one of the handsomest apartment-houses in the city", which was designed by Thornton Fitzhue and was to be built on the southern side of St. James Park. . Landowner John R. Powers completed another apartment building in St. James Place in 1909, with an entrance also on Scarff Street. Designed by George W. Wryman, it was divided into four apartments of seven rooms each; the venture represented an investment of $35,000. In 1913, the Times announced that the Monarch Hotel was to be built in the "fashionable residence district" of West Adams. By 1916, the Los Angeles Times stated that the area was "already known for its private parks and handsome homes". At that time, improvements to the boulevard were being spearheaded by five prominent residents including Isidore B. Dockweiler, William May Garland and Edward L. Doheny. After convincing thirty-five other residents to help with funding, the old street paving between Figueroa and Hoover streets was replaced with asphalt surface. Adams Boulevard was now 65 feet wide and in the middle were a series of islands planted with flowers, shrubs and mature palms. Six-cluster electroliers were installed on both sides of Adams Street, which were exact duplicates of those that lined Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. Adams Boulevard was now a "magnificent concourse" and "one of the most popular drives in Los Angeles". 1920s - 1930s In 1921, the Automobile Club announced that it would build a new headquarters at Figueroa and Adams. ArchitectsSumner Hunt and S.R. Burns designed a building of "attractive Spanish design" that would be a "distinctive structure for the West Adams district". In 1927, during the prohibition era, the Times reported that the vice squad raided a "luxurious fourteen rooom mansion in the exclusive West Adams district". The mansion, located at 2234 Adams Street, contained "the most extensive and elaborate moonshine production plant" they had seen in many months. In 1931, during the Great Depression, the recently organized "West Adams Relief Committee" provided work for twenty men for ninety days. Married men with families who lived in the district would and were registered voters would be paid $2 a day. Though West Adams had previously been described as "fashionable" and "exclusive", in 1937 the Times wrote: "St James Place, Chester Place, Scarff Street - those place-names mean little to present day Angelinos. Yet they spell an aristocratic Los Angeles of the past, and to a good extent, the present. They are of the wealthy Los Angeles of a past generation, and a visitor to the neighborhood will find evidence of its elegance, if somewhat frayed and faded in spots." 1940s - 1950s African-Americans began to move in around this time. Notable residents included Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company president Norman O. Houston, actress Hattie McDaniel, civil rights activists John and Vada Sommerville, actress Louise Beavers, band leader Johnny Otis, performers Pearl Bailey and Ethel Waters. In December 1945, some of the white residents filed a lawsuit against 31 Black residents—including Hattie McDaniel. McDaniel held workshops to strategize for the case and gathered around 250 sympathizers to accompany her to court. Judge Thurmond Clarke left the courtroom to see the disputed neighborhood and threw out the case the following day. He said, "It is time that members of the Negro race are accorded, without reservations or evasions, the full rights guaranteed them under the 14th Amendment to the Federal Constitution. Judges have been avoiding the real issue too long." McDaniel’s case would go on to set a precedent that later impacted the 1948 Shelley v. Kramer Supreme Court Ruling which in summary states that “holding that state courts may not enforce racially restrictive covenants.” In 1949, the headquarters building of the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company, a late-period Moderne structure designed by architect Paul Williams opened. It was once described "…as the finest building to be erected and owned by" African-Americans in the nation" 1960s - 1970s Starting in 1961, construction of the ten-lane Santa Monica Freeway (Interstate 10) tore through West Adams' core, with the freeway routed east to west just north of Adams Boulevard. Its construction resulted in the taking by eminent domain, and demolition, of numerous West Adams homes, including a number of mansions owned by African Americans. The construction resulted in substantial displacement of West Adams residents, including the relocation of much of the area's affluent Black families. As the Los Angeles Sentinel reported:The road could have been built without cutting through the so-called Sugar Hill section. However, in order to miss Sugar Hill,.... Discover the Jett Loe popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Jett Loe books.