The Forgotten Landmark Rotting on Crenshaw

(Image courtesy of r/Regular_Ad_1195)

1025 S. Crenshaw Boulevard is on the edge of three neighborhoods - Oxford Square, Country Club Park, and Koreatown.

Formerly home to a car rental service (and apparently another one before that), it's closed for business now.

From 1970 to 1972, it was the Crenshaw Women's Center. This modest property provided support for feminist groups, women's mental health, self-help, and hosted programs supporting gay women. According to the landmark nomination:

Using other women’s centers across the country as models, the Crenshaw Women’s Center offered a speakers’ bureau, bookstand, counseling, a volunteer switchboard, and a Women’s Liberation School to teach women practical skills and encourage them to be more self-reliant. The Crenshaw Women’s Center was also the site of Women’s Self-Help One established by Carol Downer and Lorraine Rothman in 1971, which taught women about contraception, their bodies, and reproductive systems and became a model for the national Self-Help movement. In addition, the Crenshaw Women’s Center was the weekly meeting place for Gay Women’s Liberation, the first lesbian feminist group in Los Angeles. The Gay Women’s Liberation (later called Lesbian Feminists) hosted a lesbian suicide hotline, supported the medical needs of lesbians, and generally sought to include lesbians in work surrounding women’s health and well-being. Another program hosted at the Center was the Anti-Rape Squad, which supported victims of sexual assault and worked to change public perception of violence against women.

(And the city refused to landmark the building - which wasn't damaged at the time - only the site. Meanwhile, Harry Hay's house, the Mattachine Steps, and Tom of Finland's house are all landmarked. But I digress.)

In just a few years, this squat 1920 duplex-turned-commercial building went from decent condition to a trashed mess in a weedy lot. The screenshot below, showing the same building around the time the online reviews stopped, is from three years ago.

Redditor Regular_Ad_1195 dubbed it a "Homeless fire waiting to happen". It very likely is. In the drone shot at the top of the post, you can clearly see holes in the roof (probably from a previous fire in 2023) and no shortage of other damage.

Why would the owner of this property let it get so trashed?

Jamison Services has plans to build apartments on this former commercial site. Which is not a bad thing, don't get me wrong, but that's not a reason to let a property go unsecured.

Now, I can understand why some property owners don't want to spend anything or make any effort on something they plan to demolish. But this is blight and a fire risk, and the last thing LA needs is another fire risk, especially in its denser neighborhoods.

As for the lack of progress, the initial application was submitted to the Planning Department over a year ago and accepted for review in November. Nothing has been approved yet.

LADBS has received multiple complaints about this building in the last year (three for it being abandoned and unsecured, one about it being in danger of collapse).

An Order to Comply was issued last year (after the redevelopment plans were submitted to the city), and an abate order has been issued.

Will the city require the owners to safely demolish this sad wreck of a building before it goes up in flames? Probably not. Which is especially concerning since its next-door neighbor is a GAS STATION.

My job is in the automotive field. I just updated my annual safety certifications, which include automotive chemicals and fire safety. This makes me very, very nervous.

1025 S. Crenshaw Boulevard, Oxford Square/Country Club Park/Koreatown.

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