For decades, dozens of artists would paint images on the Crenshaw Wall with a focus on Black history and culture. Over time, the roughly 780-foot-long structure became a symbol of pride and self-determination in the historically Black neighborhood. Now, years later, the Crenshaw Wall is getting a makeover.
Why it matters: It’s all part of a long-discussed multimillion dollar redevelopment project led by the city of L.A. and the private nonprofit Destination Crenshaw to create what’s been described as an open-air museum that will include parklets and art installations throughout. The organizers of Destination Crenshaw say that with this project they hope to revitalize a neighborhood that many argue has long lacked investment.
Read more ... for an examination of the wall's history, and what it's rejuvenation would mean for the area and residents around it.
Before the Crenshaw Wall became a canvas for artists to paint depictions of Black life in the mid-1970s, Mark Steven Greenfield remembers it as a place that gang members would tag regularly.
He recalls Alonzo Davis, the co-founder of the Brockman Gallery and a teacher at Crenshaw High School, getting a bunch of young artists together, including Greenfield, to start painting.
“Alonzo took a look at that and said, ‘Well, you know, let’s go see if we can spruce up that wall on Crenshaw because if we don’t do something, the graffiti is just going to get out of hand’.”
How it started
In the early days, Greenfield describes it as a guerrilla movement in the Crenshaw District: Several artists took turns painting images of Black culture on the wall, like The Brothers Johnson, lowriders and hip-hop. At first, the LAPD hit them with citations but, Greenfield says, L.A. City Councilmember Robert Farrell had the charges dropped and gave them stipends to work on the wall.
Then the community got involved.
“Sometimes people would bring us lunch,” Greenfield says. “We really felt that the community was validating what we had done.”
Greenfield, who says he was interested in Afro-futurism back then, decided his first painting would be of a Black man with big eyes full of knowledge and insight.
“I had this idealistic view of what Black people in the future could and should be,” Greenfield says.
Over the next three decades, dozens of artists would paint images on the wall with a focus on Black history and culture. Over time, the roughly 780-foot-long structure became a symbol of pride and self-determination in the historically Black neighborhood of Crenshaw.
Now, years later, the Crenshaw Wall is getting a makeover. The L.A. Department of Cultural Affairs last week gave its approval for the plans to fix up the wall and create a new painting.
It’s all part of a long-discussed multimillion dollar redevelopment project led by the city of L.A. and the private nonprofit Destination Crenshaw to create what’s been described as an open-air museum that will include parklets and art installations throughout.
The organizers of Destination Crenshaw say that with this project they hope to revitalize a neighborhood that many argue has long lacked investment.
“The history of disinvestment and displacement is a source of trauma for our community in Crenshaw," says Jason Foster, president and COO of Destination Crenshaw. "What we're working to do is to cement the culture and the identity of our community."
A call to restore the Crenshaw Wall
Eric “Cre8” Walker, an artist with the graffiti collective Rocking The Nation (RTN), grew up in South Central in the ‘80s and dreamed of painting on the Crenshaw Wall as a teenager. He recalls seeing all kinds of artwork — from intense murals that reflected the horrors of the crack epidemic to vibrant art that wished passersby happy holidays. Ice-T’s Rhyme Pays album was featured on the wall with dollar bills floating around and a character with a gold chain. Some artists paid tributes to friends who had died. For Walker, the wall was also a gathering place for the community to hang out.
In the early 2000s, Walker finally got his big chance to paint when he and other artists gathered funds for a mural project: One large Black history timeline called “Our Mighty Contribution.” It was a fresh attempt to spruce up the appearance of the wall that still exists today.
“We came at it in the sense of a cultural historical presentation,” Walker says. “We talked about the beginning of time and what we perceived to be the future of the end of time. We knew about our culture and our roots in history.”
When you drive by the wall now, starting from 49th Street and Crenshaw, you’ll first see an image of a Black woman blowing wind, or "life," into the universe in the beginning of time. Throughout the next few blocks, you'll see depictions of Africa, enslavement and activists like Frederick Douglass.
For years, RTN artists called for restoration as the Crenshaw Wall started to fade and peel.
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“We can’t show the whole movie, so it was more like an edited version of our history as Black civilization,” Walker says.
Rocking the Nation finished the mural, but the collective struggled to gather funds to maintain the integrity of the wall and keep it from deteriorating. The weather has been harsh and so have the vandals. In 2018, swastikas were spray-painted on the faces of the Black Panthers by unknown suspects.
“Our mission was to beautify,” Walker says. “But throughout the many years, we had people that didn't care about preserving anything. There were many days and weeks that we had to go back once again and touch it up with our own materials that we were working with.”
As the wall started to really show its age, fading and peeling, RTN artists started calling for a bigger restoration almost 10 years ago. Now after several delays, it's finally starting to happen — and Walker and the RTN crew will once again have a hand in beautifying it.
The makeover begins
First, work needs to be done to reinforce the wall. Once that construction is finished, it’ll be up to RTN to paint a new mural. Now that The L.A. Cultural Affairs Commission has given its blessing to the new artwork, the group is excited to get started, Walker says.
“I think it's only fair and it's only right to be able to have us as artists from the first go round who really didn't get the proper support, to be able to manifest what we really wanted to do,” Walker says, “When people see the wall, they're gonna be even more blown away than the first time.”
The new mural, named “The Saga Continues," will include images of The Great Migration, Black Hollywood figures and the Rodney King Uprising of 1992.
The digital rendering of a new mural "The Saga Continues" on the Crenshaw Wall
A digital mockup featuring a section of the RTN Crew’s new proposed artwork on the site of the current Crenshaw Wall. Additional construction is planned for the Wall, including a viewing platform above it, as part of Destination Crenshaw.
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A digital mockup featuring a section of the RTN Crew’s new proposed artwork on the site of the current Crenshaw
Wall. Additional construction is planned for the Wall, including a viewing platform above it, as part of Destination Crenshaw.
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Image by Perkins&Will
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All of this reconstruction is expected to last for six months as Destination Crenshaw installs a viewing deck and a pocket park. The stairs that go to the top of the wall are being redirected and strengthened. The organizers also say the new mural will be treated with a special coating to better protect it against stormy, windy weather.
Walker hopes that people would want to tape music videos, commercials and documentaries around the wall.
Joy Simmons, a senior art and exhibition advisor for Destination Crenshaw, says the project’s mission is to “revitalize” the wall and to keep it fresh.
“We want to keep people engaged with what's happening in the community and what's happening in the world,” Simmons says. “I think it has always been the plan that this mural would evolve.”
A Black cultural space for many generations
Ask most people in and around L.A. about Crenshaw and the first thing that probably comes to mind is that it’s the late rapper Nipsey Hussle's neighborhood. He’s remembered by many for his love of the area and how invested he was in having residents not only survive, but thrive.
But outside of Hussle’s relatively recent legacy, the Crenshaw District has been recognized as a culturally significant Black neighborhood for decades.
Starting in the 1960s, the now-closed historic nightclub Maverick's Flat, also known as the “Apollo of the West," hosted acts like The Temptations and Marvin Gaye. The L.A. Sentinel, the largest Black newspaper west of the Mississippi, has its headquarters on Crenshaw Boulevard. And for nearly 40 years, the Kingdom Day Parade, which celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King’s life, has been celebrated in the neighborhood.
But there’s been a lot of change.
The Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, one of the largest shopping centers in the region and major economic hub for the Black community, was sold to a developer. Metro’s new K-Line, which will connect Inglewood to LAX, is now running and has created some concerns from community members about who will be coming in and out of the area. And now the Destination Crenshaw project is finally underway.
All this change has brought the inevitable worries over gentrification and community members getting priced out of the neighborhood. Property values in many historically Black neighborhoods in South L.A. have doubled in the last 10 years, which has led to shifting demographics.
L.A. has lost a significant amount of Black Angelenos, as they move to suburban areas outside of the city — a pattern that mirrors what’s happening in cities around the country.
Why gentrification is a worry
There’s been some distrust in the community. Construction on the wall was supposed to begin in August, but now it is scheduled to begin sometime in September, after Destination Crenshaw receives a final permit from Metro. It was also delayed, in part, because of conflicts between officials and the Bethesda Temple Church Apostolic Faith Inc., which is located directly behind the wall.
The issue, according to Shirley Green, an administrator at the church, was over the impact the reconstruction of the wall would have on the church parking lot. It's going to eat up 22 parking spots, leaving older people and children to walk longer distances to the church. But now a new plan has been proposed that'll hopefully satisfy everyone's needs: Members will be able to park at Crenshaw High School on Sundays. Once permits for all this are complete, the restoration of the wall will officially begin.
Still, not all concerns have been addressed, says Bethesda’s pastor Kyron S. Shorter. Shorter says he has been talking to Foster, the Destination Crenshaw CEO, about the project since 2020, but he was concerned about the lack of transparency. All he sees is that this is a huge sacrifice for his church.
“What it will do is it'll probably raise the property value for us to sell and move out of the community,” Shorter says.
In response to concerns, Foster and the other Destination Crenshaw officials say their goal is to cement and preserve Black culture with this project, promising a one-of-a-kind permanent arts and cultural landmark. Through this project, organizers also say they hope to boost Crenshaw’s economy by giving locals jobs and supporting neighboring small businesses.
City Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson, the city official leading the project in his district, sees Destination Crenshaw as an opportunity for the area. He says for as long as Black people have lived in L.A., their communities have not had the same level of investment as other areas. This disinvestment, he says, affects not only the quality of health care and education for Black residents, but also how much money people can borrow to fix up their home or start a business.
“You see the long-term impacts everyday,” says Harris-Dawson. And as someone who grew up in South Central, he sees the redevelopment of Crenshaw as an effort to improve how investors see the area. “It’s the location where we express ourselves, where we make our contributions to the world,” he adds.
Back in 2016, when Harris-Dawson first started having meetings with other Black leaders in L.A., including Nipsey Hussle, to come up with a plan to revitalize the area, they looked to New York’s Harlem neighborhood as an example of what they imagined.
“When you get off the train in Harlem, you know you’re in Harlem,” Harris-Dawson says. “You still see Black folks there, you still see varying people of varying incomes. Part of the reason that scholars think Harlem held, is its cultural assets that were impossible to move.”
Greenfield, one of the Crenshaw Wall’s original muralists, says while the project’s success remains unseen and uncertain, he says he sees what Harris-Dawson and Destination Crenshaw are trying to do.
“I think to the city council person's credit, what he is attempting to do is actually put this cultural footprint down before the gentrification goes into full swing,” Greenfield says. “Because if what I've seen has been any indication in another 30 or 40 years, you'll never know Black people live there.”
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA team.
Published May 2, 2026 5:00 AM
Steve Campos sits on a bench he calls the "LA Bench" that approriates the logo used by the Dodgers in a statement of civic pride.
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Courtesy Steve Campos
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Topline:
LA welder-artist uses the well-loved "L.A." logo to create an “LA Bench” to spark civic pride. It may look like a tribute to the Dodgers, but it's more complicated.
Why it matters: Steve Campos is a second-generation welder born and raised in L.A. who is using his training and education to create work with more artistic designs.
Why now: The Dodgers’ success is making their logos ubiquitous. But the team's success, some Angelenos say, came at the cost of mass displacement after World War II of working class communities where Dodger Stadium how stands.
The backstory: The interlocking letters of the L.A. logo were used by the L.A. Angels minor league baseball team before the Dodgers moved to L.A. in 1958.
What's next: Campos is offering the LA Benches for sale and hopes he can get permission from the Dodgers to install a few at Dodger Stadium.
It’s about the size of a park bench and made of steel and wood. The bench’s arm rests are formed by the letters “L” and “A” in a design that’s unmistakable to any sports fan. But the welder-artist who created it says it’s not a Dodgers bench.
“This is about civic pride, L.A. pride. I made a design statement saying that it has nothing affiliated with the Dodgers,” said Steve Campos.
Campos grew up near Dodger Stadium, raised by parents who were die-hard Dodgers fans. So much, that they named him after Steve Garvey but that legacy doesn’t keep him from confronting how the Dodgers benefitted from the mass displacement of working-class people from Chavez Ravine after World War Two. That’s why he calls it an L.A. Bench, and not a Dodgers Bench.
The logo may be synonymous with the city's beloved baseball team, but the design of the interlocking letters was used by the L.A. Angels minor league baseball team before the Dodgers moved to L.A. in 1958.
“The monogram was here before the Dodgers,” Campos said.
A second-generation welder
Welding is the Campos family business. His father created gates and security bars for windows and doors for L.A. clients. That was the foundation for the work Campos has done for two decades since graduating from Lincoln High School, L.A. Trade Tech College, and enrolling in a summer program at Art Center in Pasadena.
The inspiration for the L.A. Bench came last year while he was playing around in his shop creating versions of the L.A. logo. A friend he hangs with at Echo Park Lake asked Campos to make him a piece of furniture.
“I was trying to figure out what my friend Curly wanted. He liked Dodgers and drinking and getting into fights, so I was like, 'Let me make something with the LA monogram,'” he said.
Welder-artist Steve Campos created whimsical steel sculptures with the LA logo.
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It didn’t design itself. He said he had to lengthen the legs on the “A” and lean the back of the “L” in order to make the bench functional. In the process, he’s made a piece of furniture with a ubiquitous logo that he’s embedded with his own L.A. pride, as well as city history past and present.
LA civic pride travels to Japan
Campos vacationed in Japan the last week of April and took advantage of the trip to reach out to people who may be interested in the L.A. Bench. He was caught off guard by people’s reaction when he showed them pictures of it.
“They look at it and they go, 'Oh, Ohtani bench,'” he said.
For them, it’s still a bench embedded with pride, he said, but centered around Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, an icon in his native Japan.
I would love to get a couple of them installed at Dodger Stadium.
— Steve Campos, welder-artist
Campos has made four L.A. benches and is selling them fully assembled, he said, for $2,500 each — taking into account his labor and how costly the raw materials have become. For now, he’s offering the metal parts as a package for $500, which requires the buyer to purchase the wood for the seat and the back — an easy process, he said.
While he has no plans to mass produce the L.A. Bench, he does have one goal in mind that shows how hard it is for him to separate L.A. civic pride and the Dodgers.
“I would love to get a couple of them installed at Dodger Stadium,” he said.
The former Snapchat buildings on the Venice Boardwalk are now pop-up art spaces, free for all to visit.
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Topline:
A new art installation on the Venice Boardwalk features local and international artists, pop-up evening performances, and projects that explore the themes of childhood and home.
Why it matters: The Venice Boardwalk is usually a daytime playground, but a new art installation and performance pop up aims to breathe new life into the evening scene at the beach.
Why now: Two formerly vacant buildings with spaces facing the Boardwalk have been turned into free art installations after a new owner took over the former Snapchat-owned buildings.
The backstory: Stefan Ashkenazy, founder of the Bombay Beach Biennale, brings some of his favorite collaborators into a new space on the Venice Boardwalk, giving a chance for tourists and locals alike to check out projects from artists including William Attaway, James Ostrer, Greg Haberny, Robin Murez, and more.
Read on ... to find out how you can visit.
The Venice Boardwalk after sunset has generally been a no-go zone for tourists and locals alike, as the beachside bars and restaurants close on the early side and safety is often an issue. Now, a group of artists is out to bring some vibrancy to the creative neighborhood with a series of new installations that will include live evening performances – and even a “Venice Opera House.”
“Let's play with light and let's play with sound and give people a reason to come to the Boardwalk after sundown,” said artist and entrepreneur Stefan Ashkenazy, who is curating the project and owns the buildings housing them. “I mean, let's just be open 24 hours a day.”
The concept doesn’t have an official name yet, but he’s been calling it “See World.”
Artist James Ostrer's space looks out from a bed through the fence to the ocean at Venice Beach.
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William Attaway, a longtime Venice artist, created a gallery space filled with various paintings and sculptures.
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The pair of modern buildings on the Venice Boardwalk at Thornton Ave. – with their big balconies, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and seven open garage-style retail spaces – have sat mostly empty since Snapchat vacated their beachside offices in 2019. Ashkenazy recently bought the building and recruited artists to fill those front-facing spaces with creative work until a full-time tenant comes in.
Over the past several weeks the installations have been created in real-time, in public.
Venice Boardwalk art pop-ups The installations are open now and can be seen from the Boardwalk for free 24/7. They will be up for several months and evening performances are ongoing.
All of the projects are loosely along the theme of “home,” with each artist claiming a “room” in the two buildings that stretch across a full block on the Boardwalk. Several local Venice artists are featured, including William Attaway, whose intricate mosaic work is recognizable on the Venice public restrooms along the beach. Attaway’s space features a floating larger-than-life-sized statue and various works in a mini-gallery. In the next room is Robin Murez’s pieces, featuring carved wooden seats from her beloved neighborhood Venice Flying Carousel.
Ashkenazy is no stranger to wild (and wildly successful) art ideas. He’s the owner of the Petit Ermitage hotel in West Hollywood, a longtime haven for visiting artists, and the founder of the decade-old Bombay Beach Biennale, where artists install all kinds of work in an annual event near the Salton Sea. Many of the artists from that community are featured at the Venice project.
A "Venice Opera House" will host pop-up music events throughout the summer.
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New York-based artist Greg Haberny's paintings on the wall of his Venice space.
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New York-based artist Greg Haberny and London-based artist James Ostrer have brought some of their work in the Bombay Beach Biennale to the Venice project. Their windows on the Boardwalk both speak to a child-like sense of wonder and creativity.
“I think it's just kind of exploring and playing a little bit, to have the freedom to be able to do that,” Haberny says of his imagined child’s bedroom space, which includes a fort made out of puffy cheese balls. “It's a big space, too. It's beautiful.”
Ostrer is experimenting with a performance art idea where he sits in bed amongst a room full of his own artwork, which he describes as “happy art with an edge.” Looking out at the ocean from the bed, he’s invited passersby to sit and have chats with him about his work or anything else they want to talk about.
“It’s a very intimate space, so you have a different kind of conversation,” he said. “I use art to channel human creativity, and [talk about] dark things.”
While there are open fences that block off the spaces, they aren’t sealed up at night. Both Ashkenazy and the team of artists seemed open to the idea that anything could happen and that the installations are a conversation with the public – and with that comes some risk.
Greg Haberny (right) works with his assistants on an installation featuring kid-inspired graffiti art and a "cheesy puff" fort.
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“I don't really know if I [would] say worried, but I guess it's just the cost of doing business,” Haberny said. “I don't really make things to get damaged or broken, sure. But I have done [things like] burned all my paintings and then made paint out of ash.”
While he’s felt safe – and even slept overnight in the installation – Ostrer has been collaborating with a local female artist who performs in a pig mask in front of his installation some nights. Watching her perform, he said, has taught him about the vulnerability of women in public spaces like the Boardwalk. “I've started to, on a very fractional level, have seen how scary that is. Because I've sat in the bed behind her performing at the front here… the way in which men are approaching her and shrieking at her … it's shocking.”
Ashkenazy says he will keep the artists in the space, potentially rotating new ones in, until a fulltime tenant takes over.
“This is an experiment … and after acquiring the building, the intention wasn't, ‘let's open a bunch of public art spaces,’ he said. “It is kind of …what the building wanted and listening to what the Boardwalk needed. Let's play, let's have the artists that we love and appreciate have a space to play and engage and give the locals and the visitors to the Boardwalk something to experience.”
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Fiona Ng
is LAist's deputy managing editor and leads a team of reporters who explore food, culture, history, events and more.
Published May 2, 2026 5:00 AM
Elephant Hill in El Sereno.
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Topline:
A new trail across the beloved natural area of Elephant Hill in Northeast Los Angeles officially opens this weekend.
Why it matters: The route is years in the making, and it's a big milestone in the decades-long conservation efforts to preserve this local jewel in the community of El Sereno.
What's next: The trail is part of a decades-long effort to preserve the entire 110 acres of Elephant Hill. Read on to learn more.
The route is years in the making, and it's a big milestone in the decades-long conservation efforts to preserve this local jewel in the community of El Sereno.
The hiking trail connects one side of Elephant Hill to the other — from the corner of Pullman Street and Harriman Avenue all the way across to Lathrop Street.
It's 0.75 miles in total, but packs a punch.
"It's a pretty straight shot, but because of the terrain — the trail is kind of twisty and curvy. There's switchbacks — and great views," Elva Yañez, board president of the nonprofitSave Elephant Hill, said.
People have always been able to access the 110-acre green space, but Yañez said the new trail provides a safe and easy way to navigate the steep hillsides.
The El Sereno nonprofit has been working for two decades to preserve the land. Illegal dumping and off-roading have damaged the open space over the years. And the majority of the 110 acres are privately owned by an estimated 200 individual owners.
Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) joined the efforts in 2018, spurred by a $700,000 grant from Los Angeles County Regional Park and Open Space District, in part, to build the trail. The local agency received some $2 million in grants from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to add to the 10 acres of Elephant Hill it manages and conserves. This year, MCRA acquired an additional 12 parcels — or about 2.4 acres.
And the spiffy new footpath — with trail signage, information kiosks and landscape boulders — is not just a long-sought-for victory but a beginning in a sense.
"We know that it means a lot to the community," Sarah Kevorkian, who oversees the trail project for MRCA, said. "We're wrapping up the trail, but it really feels like the beginning of all that is to come."
A hint of that vision already exists — for hikers traversing the new route, courtesy ofTest Plot, the L.A.-based nonprofit that works to revitalize depleted lands.
"They're able to see at the end of the trail, at the 'test plot' — exactly what a restored Elephant Hill would look like," Yañez said.
Josie Huang
is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.
Published May 2, 2026 5:00 AM
Battery storage hubs are used to stabilize the energy grid but have led to lithium battery fires.
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AFP via Getty Images
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Topline:
San Gabriel Valley residents are rallying today against a battery storage project in the City of Industry. They warn it could bring environmental and health impacts and pave the way for more industrial development, like data centers.
The backstory: City leaders approved the 400-megawatt Marici battery facility in January. But residents in nearby communities say they were not adequately informed and are concerned about safety risks.
What's next: Some local activists have challenged the approval of the battery facility under the California Environmental Quality Act.
The rally: Protesters will be at the Peter F. Schabarum Regional Park in Rowland Heights from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
A coalition of residents from across the San Gabriel Valley are mobilizing over a battery storage project and possibly more industrial development in the City of Industry they say could pollute communities next door.
WHAT: Protest against battery storage facility in the city of Industry
WHERE: Peter F. Schabarum Regional Park in neighboring Rowland Heights
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Because of the City of Industry’s unusual, sprawling shape stretching along the 60 Freeway, it borders on more than a dozen communities, meaning what happens there can have far-reaching impact.
“Pollution does not end right at the border,” said Andrew Yip, an organizer with No Data Centers SGV Coalition. “Pollution travels.”
Beyond environmental concerns, locals have also been frustrated with how decisions are made by officials in the City of Industry, a municipality that’s almost entirely zoned for industrial use and has less than 300 residents.
Organizers say they’ve struggled to get direct responses from city officials whom they say have replaced regular meetings with special meetings, which under state law require less advance notice.
A city spokesperson has not responded to requests for comment.
Today’s protest is taking place at Peter F. Schabarum Regional Park in Rowland Heights across the street from the Puente Hills Mall, a largely vacant “dead” mall, which activists fear could be redeveloped into a data center and bring higher utility costs and greater air and noise pollution.
Yip pointed out that industrial developments make a lot of money for the City of Industry.
“But none of these surrounding communities receive any of those benefits,” Yip said. “Yet we have to put up with all the harmful effects and impacts from this city that does all this development without really reaching out.”
