Baldwin Village, Los Angeles

Baldwin Village is a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California bounded by Coliseum Street and La Brea Ave. Baldwin Village is officially part of the Crenshaw neighborhood part of the city. This neighborhood has gone through some economic changes and current redevelopment.

Baldwin Village was developed in the early 1940s and 1950s. Baldwin Village is occasionally called "The Jungle" by locals because of the tropical trees and foliage, such as palms, banana trees and begonias, that once thrived among the area's tropical-style postwar apartment buildings. The Los Angeles City Council ostensibly changed the name in 1990, after residents complained that it reinforced the neighborhood's image as a wild and menacing place. They officially renamed it Baldwin Village, to reflect the affluent and peaceful Baldwin Hills neighborhood nearby, one of the most affluent African American neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

Recently, former NBA star Magic Johnson and others have begun revitalization plans for the area, which have already begun to boost the area economically and socially. While redevelopment has shown many successes, not all efforts have yielded results; development of Marlton Square, for instance, was stalled in bankruptcy after years of work and millions of dollars of public and private funds until 2012.

It is now constructing a state of the art 100,000 square foot Kaiser Permanente medical office building and outdoor plaza next to the village neighborhood, to open in 2017.

Residents of Baldwin Village are zoned to schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).

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