Wilshire Park, Los Angeles, California

Wilshire Park is a residential district in the Mid-Wilshire region of Los Angeles, California. Subdistricts include Longwood Highlands and the Park Mile.

Geography

The boundaries of Wilshire Park are Wilshire Boulevard on the north, Olympic Boulevard on the south.Wilton Place on the east and Crenshaw Boulevard on the west.

Windsor Square and Hancock Park are to the north, Country Club Park is to the south, Country Club Heights is to the east, Windsor Village and Miracle Mile District are to the west. Major thoroughfares include Olympic Boulevard and Crenshaw Boulevard. Most of Wilshire Park is in ZIP code 90005 but also includes a small area of 90019.

Description and landmarks

Wilshire Park is a neighborhood of one- and two-story historic Dutch Colonial, Spanish Colonial, American Craftsman, Victorian-Craftsman Transitional, Colonial Revival, Traditional, California Bungalow, and Mediterranean style single-family homes and duplexes on tree-lined streets of mature magnolias, oaks, and sycamores.

The first recorded residence in Wilshire Park was built in 1908; this transitional Victorian-Craftsman is an example of the work of noted architect Frank M. Tyler. The neighborhood also features at least twelve other Tyler-designed residences. As of 2007, the City of Los Angeles has designated three Wilshire Park homes as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Landmarks, including the Weber House built in 1921 and designed by Lloyd Wright (honored in 2002), the A.W. Black House built in 1913 and designed by John Frederick Soper (honored in 2005) and the William J. Hubbard Residence built in 1923 and designed by Allen Kelly Ruoff and Arthur C. Munson (honored in 2006).

A few of the notable earlier residents of Wilshire Park include popular star of the silent movie era Mildred Harris (who became notorious as the 16-year-old child bride of Charles Chaplin), headline-making Ziegfeld beauty and screen actress Helen Lee Worthing who appeared with John Barrymore in the film Don Juan, an executive secretary to 29th U.S. President Warren G. Harding, a CEO of finance for the City of Los Angeles, the director of the Los Angeles County Hospital, Ziegfeld Follies performer and RKO Studios dance director/choreographer Pearl Eaton, and legendary trumpeter and bandleader Harry James and his wife Louise Tobin, who sang both with Benny Goodman and Bobby Hackett in 1939. Other former residents include acclaimed novelist of White Oleander and Paint It Black Janet Fitch, Oscar-winning motion picture sound expert Arthur Piantadosi, multi-Oscar winning motion picture writer-directors Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Jules Dassin. Another former resident is London, England-born art director, Grammy-winning album cover designer, graphic artist and documentary film producer-director Kosh, born Arthur Kosh, who created the famed covers for Abbey Road, Who's Next?, as well as for such recording artists as Linda Ronstadt, The Eagles, Rod Stewart, and Spinal Tap.

Contemporary residents of note include record-breaking long distance swimmer and National Public Radio sports commentator Diana Nyad and Jennifer Nairn Smith, a former featured dancer on stage and in films under the direction of such choreographers as Balanchine, Michael Bennett and Bob Fosse.

The area has served as a film and television production location, dating back to the days of the 1925 Buster Keaton comedy classic Seven Chances. With the 1960s, one Wilshire Park home attained TV immortality by serving as the exterior for 'the Douglas family home' on the long-running series, "My Three Sons". Since then, Wilshire Park has served as a location for such films, TV shows and music videos as Cold Case, a PBS documentary on Emma Goldman, and the 2008 feature film Crossing Over starring Harrison Ford and Sean Penn.

Other area landmarks include historic Los Angeles High School, alma mater of composer John Cage, author Ray Bradbury, actor Dustin Hoffman, writer/poet Charles Bukowski, singer Mel Tormé, Oscar-winning screenwriter Budd Schulberg, attorney Johnnie Cochran, and Charles Francis Richter, who invented the Richter Scale. Wilshire Park Elementary School opened in 2006.

Community

Wilshire Park has its own website (www.historicwilshirepark.com), newsletter, and active neighborhood association, Wilshire Park Association. The Association consists of owners and renters who work closely with the police and other city organizations in such efforts as traffic abatement, crime prevention, and tree planting. In recent years, the area has enjoyed highly accelerated increase in property values, fueled not only by Los Angeles' real estate boom but also by buyers attracted to the area's charming old fashioned ambiance and by the historic nature of the homes. Historic preservation and restoration of the urban tree canopy are among the many concerns of the neighborhood residents. By the Spring of 2007, working with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's "Million Trees for Los Angeles" initiative, Wilshire Park had reached the one-third mark in its goal to plant 200 new trees on its public parkways.

Wilshire Park is racially diverse, including Caucasian, Hispanic, African-American and Korean residents. The neighborhood is part of Council District 10 under Councilman Herbert J. Wesson and is a member of the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council.

Progress and preservation

In the 1980s, Wilshire Park Association worked in active cooperation with surrounding neighborhoods in major urban planning issues. First, the Association was instrumental in preventing the construction of the Red Line subway on Wilshire Boulevard. Many residents of the area support the possibility of the Red Line's extension as traffic congestion takes its toll on the city's quality of life, but not at the expense of the engineering and safety issues that were of great concern. Also, such an extension would have displaced many families and destroyed fine homes that have stood since the early years of the 20th century. Also, in partnership with Hancock Park, Wilshire Park Association successfully lobbied the city's planners to impose height limits and mandatory free parking on commercial buildings being constructed on the "Park Mile," a stretch of Wilshire (between Highland and Wilton) that had been one of the last undeveloped parcels in Mid-Wilshire.

Residents have advocated for the creation of a Historic Preservation Overlay Zone, a protection for historic homes which currently exists in 22 other areas of the city as Melrose Hill, West Adams-Normandie, Whitley Heights, Carthay Circle, and Lafayette Square, in order to prevent unnecessary teardowns of irreplaceable older residences to instead build condominiums or oversized, out-of-character dwellings where new construction is clearly designated only for single-family homes and duplexes. In December 2006, the City of Los Angeles instituted an Interim Control Ordinance in Wilshire Park as the area moves toward designation as a historic district. In 2008, the ICO was renewed.

2006 saw the welcome addition of the new Wilshire Park Elementary School. On June 2, 2007, Wilshire Park joined with affiliate neighborhood West Adams to sponsor the first Wilshire Park Home and Garden Tour as a fund-raiser for historic preservation.

The neighborhood association Wilshire Park Association hosted in August, 2008, at the National Register of Historic Places Art Deco landmark Wiltern Theater, a public meeting for all residents regarding the neighborhood's proposed designation as an Historic District known as a Los Angeles Historic Preservation Overlay Zone. City officials of the Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources held a forum as part of the event attended by over 120 residents.

In September, 2008, a subsequent public meeting on the proposed HPOZ was held at the Mission Revival-style landmark the Los Altos Apartments (a former home of film star Marion Davies). One week later, another public forum and hearing was held at the Ebell of Los Angeles. Both venues have been named to the National Register of Historic Places.

External links

* [http://historicwilshirepark.org Wilshire Park Official Website]
* [http://www.ci.la.ca.us/PLN/complan/specplan/sparea/parkmilepage.htm Park Mile Specific Plan]
* [http://www.larchmontchronicle.com/ArchiveDetail.asp?ArchiveID=654 Larchmont Chronicle Article on Wilshire Park Elementary]
* [http://www.larchmontchronicle.com/ArchiveDetail.asp?ArchiveID=581 Wilshire Park Association 2006 Calendar]
* [http://www.larchmontchronicle.com/ArchiveDetail.asp?ArchiveID=462] Tree-Planting Event
* [http://www.larchmontchronicle.com/ArchiveDetail.asp?ArchiveID=200 Weber House]
* [http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=2309&IssueNum=109 LA CityBeat article on the expansion of Koreatown]
* [http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/39/features-berkowitz.php LA Weekly article on the 1980s Red Line controversy]