Just got my new Baldwin Hills apt, moving from NYC, now I'm SCARED! (Los Angeles: apartment, neighborhood)

[bananaguyc]

Hey FoxyRox007, here's a link to very recent (May 8, 2008) Los Angeles Times article that gives the real lowdown on the exact neighborhood that you dropped a deposit for: Los Angeles police agressively target hard-core gangs

Sounds like you got suckered in by a shady landlord who mis-represented the neighborhood in the ad. They OFTEN do this to sucker in people that are new and unfamiliar with the area on sites such as Craigslist. Since many bad areas of Los Angeles are adjacent to better areas, often with similar names,they will often "accidentally" fudge the name of the area in the ad, knowing full well what they are doing. (e.g., replacing the hardcore-ghetto specific neighborhood name "Baldwin Village" with the more vague "Baldwin Hills" that really covers a broader area including more expensive and nicer homes, or for instance referring to the ghetto North Hollywood as just "Hollywood", or saying that a place located in east L.A. ghetto is "Minutes from Beverly Hills", etc. - you get the picture.)

Basically, if a place in Los Angeles is cheap and advertised, that should immediately raise red flags. Anything that is a good deal will be spoken for before the landlord ever even has to think about advertising it. If you really need to keep your rent under $1000 in Los Angeles, you will need to go the roommate route (even then, it can be somewhat challenging).

[SandyCo]

I hope she sees it, too! I'd hate to think of her being stuck there for a year. I looked up the street on Google Maps, and then clicked on "street view". I can see why she saw nothing wrong with the area; it's a bunch of apartment buildings that look like any other apartment complexes built in that time period (50's and 60's). I live in one myself, but it's in Sherman Oaks.

This is why the City-Data Forum is so valuable, because there are posters who do know the area in question, and can dissuade someone from out of town from making a very bad decision!

Originally Posted by katenik

thanks for posting that, sandy. i really hope that the OP returns to see these responses before she makes a huge mistake.

what's really sad about what has become of that neighborhood (well, besides those 28 murders in five years in an area about one mile square!) is that the housing stock there consists largely of those classic LA apartment buildings that belong to an architecturally style of their own. you know, the ones with a kidney-shaped swimming pool in the central courtyard, lush landscaping, and some kind of tropically-themed name scrolled across the facade that were once emblematic of LA. great retro value there, if the place could ever be cleaned up-- and the apartments are huge! for a lot of upwardly-mobile black families in the 60s and 70s, it was the final leg on the journey to homeownership up the road in baldwin hills or windsor hills/view park. today, it's more akin to the penultimate stop on the slow bus to hell.

i would sooner live in compton!

[deezine]

I am sure she will be back to check on the post. Maybe she is just reading what has already posted and researching for another area. But in any case I agree with every one else, don't take the apartment.

While I wasn't look at the Baldwin Hills area for an apartment. When I was down in LA doing my research and talking to locals. They told me, if the place was renting for a cheap price, it was in an area that you DO NOT want to live in.

Also I would follow your gut. Seems like you already got the feeling that "something is not right". Follow it!

[katenik]

from article posted by bananaguyc: "So far, crime statistics in Baldwin Village show positive results. Serious crime dropped has dropped 37% since the targeted enforcement began in 2004. The number of aggravated assaults has dropped 70%, although homicides have bounced from four in 2003 to nine last year."


wow! just think, the homicide rate in 2007 was the lowest in nearly forty years, and they still managed to kill nine people in that tiny patch of the city! i take back what i said above: it isn't a stop on the way to hell; it IS hell!

[calipoppy]

Originally Posted by deezine

I am sure she will be back to check on the post. Maybe she is just reading what has already posted and researching for another area. But in any case I agree with every one else, don't take the apartment.

While I wasn't look at the Baldwin Hills area for an apartment. When I was down in LA doing my research and talking to locals. They told me, if the place was renting for a cheap price, it was in an area that you DO NOT want to live in.

Also I would follow your gut. Seems like you already got the feeling that "something is not right". Follow it!

This is exactly right. Cheap rent in LA means that something is DRASTICALLY wrong....big red flags should start to go off in your head. I would say that anything under $1200 for a one bedroom is suspect.

[marilyn220]

Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia

What was that Chris Rock said do to if you find yourself on or near MLK Blvd anywhere in the US? That address looks way too close.

Well, now that Clinton and Disney have moved into harlem, MLK Blvd is way improved. You can't buy a brownstone for less than a million dollars now.

But unfortunately, as far as LOS ANGELES goes it still holds true.

[CESpeed]

My god sister was shot in the head with her two babies in the car visiting a friend in the Jungle. They sat in the car with her for God knows how long before someone called the police and it took them half an hour to show up. Is that really where you want to live? btw, Baldwin Village and Baldwin Hills are to different animals. And there are very nice apartments in Baldwin Hills.

[LASam]

Interesting... so The Jungles is the area between La Brea, MLK, Crenshaw, and the base of the hill?

[Koucna Duhe]

I think it depends on you not getting to close to the folks there . I myself move away b/c i had a young son . So i move to Louisiana . My mom & 2 sister still live in Baldwin Hills and they don't have any problems . I was living on Crewshaw & Florence -10th ave ...
Pray about it . B/C rent is high & it' s ruff all over ~ Take Care ~ Koucna

[streetscenes]

Originally Posted by LASam

Interesting... so The Jungles is the area between La Brea, MLK, Crenshaw, and the base of the hill?

Those are the basic boundaries for "The Jungle". Rough area that has some really nice buildings. It would be nice to see some work done to move the bad seeds out and get some good families in. The apartments in this area have lots of large units with 3 or 4 bedrooms, these are impossible to find in LA.