By Katrina L. Spencer
Los Angeles’s Leimert Park Village, known by many as the city’s “hub of Black arts,” has entered a new era. It’s both a residential and commercial area in South L.A., near Crenshaw & 43rd Street, and some might say it has been what Harlem has been to New York City, what the Greenwood District was to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and what Vinegar Hill once was to Charlottesville, Virginia.
As Leimert Park approaches its 100-year anniversary, culminating in 2028, a blend of yesterday and today is fully on view.
It has been known for its drum circles, rap cyphers, wafting scents of burning incense and peppery jerk chicken and its mix of brick and mortar merchants and canopied vendors selling their wares.
Several of the younger business models on-site are fresh and inventive, offering ice cream amidst hip-hop décor, bike repair accompanied by safety lessons and a plant nursery that also showcases local artists’ work.
“Right now we’re in a Renaissance period is what I like to think of it as. That’s what I hope it is,” said Milan Dwimfo, 41, and owner of Sika by Queen Midas Gold.
Dwimfo’s store, found on Degnan Boulevard, sells jewelry, African arts, sculptures, clothing and apothecary items, like hand-whipped shea butter prepared with coconut, jojoba and grapeseed oils and mango essence that she said sells out every week. The skincare product uses her late father, Sika’s recipe. She inherited the store from him and, established in 1992, hers is the eldest business on the strip. Having grown up in the area, she has a long vision of Leimert’s yesterday and aspirations for its tomorrow.
Some of the challenges of making the commercial zone thrive have hovered about the area, however, for quite some time.
“The mental health issues, homelessness, drug issues, gang presence,” Dwimfo said, making a list, are among them. “You can tell that we’re just going through something very serious here. And a lot of people don’t like to talk about it, but I don’t think it serves us to not speak about it.”
While there are two cafés, Ora and Harun, a bookstore and event space called Lore and an apparel and lifestyle shop, Sole Folks, all on Degnan, not everyone who comes to Leimert Park does so to frequent the shops.
“It’s a place folks come for comfort,” Adé Neff, owner of Ride On!, a bike shop also on the block, said.
Neff is from Haiti and started his shop in 2014. Every year, several bikes are abandoned by students on college campuses, and with some repairs, they are rideable and useful for new owners. That’s how he got his start. His business is a bit of an anomaly for Los Angeles, a city notorious for its car-centric culture, the county being home to over 7 million cars, trucks and motorcycles, according to Los Angeles Almanac.
Amongst the business-related traffic are those who go to Leimert Park to hang out. However, Dwimfo expressed concern that some shoppers may be intimidated by seeing groups of people congregating in parking lots and they may inadvertently deter potential customers from the stores.
Some go there to park. Dwimfo said that the city refuses to ticket vehicles in the area. So, people come there, park and depart for the day, detracting from the already limited parking space available.
As of 2023, California Assembly Bill 2097 prevents cities from requiring business areas to have a minimum requisite number of parking spots, particularly when housed near transit stops. A train stop on the Metro K line was built in Leimert Park in 2022.
And while some of the street vendors within the village are communal and cooperative, according to Genelle Brooks-Petty, 49, owner of All Chill, an ice cream shop in Leimert Park, and vice president of the Leimert Park Village Merchants’ Association, some do not participate in the efforts of maintaining the space.
Brooks-Petty got keys to her business in 2020 and the amount of time merchants spend asking for basic resources, she said, is a sign that the area is struggling.
Neff added that some of the street vendors, too, participate in an “extraction economy.” They bring their goods from Riverside, Long Beach or San Diego, he said, finding the market to whom they want to sell at Leimert Park, and then take their earned dollars elsewhere. The money does not recirculate locally in Central L.A.
For those who do come to shop, not all of the shops housed in old buildings offer 21st century amenities. The lack of air conditioning during Los Angeles’s 2026 heatwaves, this year extending into October, was noticeable.
“We create a cross-breeze with our fans,” Dwimfo said. “It’s too expensive to get AC.”
And then there’s the unofficial soundtrack of Leimert Park. While reporting this story, it was Carlos Santana’s Suprantural from 1999, blasted from loudspeakers, outdoors, in between businesses, unregulated by merchants, played by visitors, and unsolicited by all. It’s a great album that interfered with quality conversation and forced a business’s door to be closed.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done,” Neff said.
“We need to have a better community agreement,” said Brooks-Petty. She wants to raise the standard for what is expected by people who share the spaces at Leimert Park, she said. “A common community value or understanding should be you don’t throw trash on the ground in the community.”
People dump their trash in Leimert Park, Brooks-Petty said, and the standard of sanitation needs to be higher.
It’s not the business owners alone who are noticing the changes and the challenges. Kyle Winston, 40, an architect by trade and president of the Black Planners of Los Angeles (BPLA), said part of the concerns surrounding Leimert Park are existential.
“We call it ‘root shock.’ This sort of idea of like a collective trauma and fear of being displaced,” Winston said.
For many communities across the nation, gentrification is a looming threat, and Leimert Park is no different. It has already taken root in Leimert’s residential area.
“I don’t mind a community evolving, but I do mind displacement,” Brooks-Petty said.
“The community’s stake in [Leimert Park] feels consistent. There is very much a constant heartbeat of Black people that live and work in Leimert and they are very consistent about making sure they are able to preserve that” Winston said.
Winston, also from South L.A., said that one thing Leimert has done well is advertising to its own. The community’s Instagram page is covered in colorful, digital flyers announcing its first Saturdays communal gatherings. One improvement could be increasing the transparency of the availability of storefronts for rent throughout the Crenshaw Corridor, Winston said.
“Leimert Park is definitely a community,” Neff said.
“This is the last safe Black space,” Dwimfo said.
“There is a need to preserve spaces we feel safe in,” Brooks-Petty said.