Vivian Bowers works in a neighborhood that has gone undercover.
"Are there still businesses over there?" people ask when she mentions her dry-cleaning shop on South Central Avenue near East Adams Boulevard.
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Community struggles in anonymity
Without a name to anchor it, the area L.A. once called South Central has become all but invisible.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday, July 08, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 46 words Type of Material: Correction
South Los Angeles: A photo caption with an article in Monday's California section about the area formerly called South Central L.A. said a mural depicting the neighborhood's once-thriving jazz scene was at 25th Street and Adams Boulevard. The mural is at 25th Street and Central Avenue.
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Five years ago, the city expunged the name "South Central" from its maps and replaced it with the more general "South Los Angeles." The change was meant to erase the stigma of riots and blight that marred an area south of the 10 Freeway and along Central Avenue, a place renowned in the 1940s for its thriving black culture -- restaurants, jazz clubs and businesses.
But an unintended consequence was to make core neighborhoods around Central Avenue disappear from Angelenos' mental map -- arguably none so much as Newton, a patch of nowhere east of the Harbor Freeway.
Now Bowers and others trying to revive this place are finding their first challenge is to explain where it is. "I try to make it 50 words or less," said Capt. Dennis Cremins of LAPD's Newton station.
"Namelessness matters," said Josh Sides, professor of California history at Cal State Northridge. "A nameless place doesn't exist. . . . Speculators, developers, want to invest in a place that exists."
Government workers say it is more difficult to organize people who aren't unified by a geographic name. Advocates say lack of identity makes it more difficult to attract resources and develop services. A developer said it's one reason this area is a kind of last frontier for new construction.
"Don' nobody wanna come this side of town no more," said Lloyd Robertson, 71, who has lived at East 27th Street and Naomi Avenue since 1937. "It's just like nothin' over here."
The words "South Los Angeles" are used to refer to anything from the Crenshaw district to Carson and sometimes beyond. South L.A. sprawls over at least 50 square miles and contains three-quarters of a million people.
Many areas have become lost in this vastness, especially the part bordered by the 10 Freeway, the Harbor Freeway, Alameda Street and East Florence Avenue.
Patrolled by the Newton Station, the area has the highest poverty rate of all Los Angeles Police Department divisions and is typically among LAPD's top four divisions in homicides. The population is about 14% black and 83% Latino, largely Spanish-speaking and ethnically Mexican.
The area is home to century-old homes in the Queen Anne style, many of them hidden beneath a slather of stucco.
