Walking L.A. #9, Leimert Park Village: Preserving African-American Business and Culture, 2.8 miles.

A great weekend for Barbara and me to explore Leimert Park, Curbed L.A.'s 2016 Neighborhood of the Year, an area John Singleton called "the black Greenwich Village." The village occupies one block along Degnan Blvd., east of Crenshaw and about a half-mile south of Martin Luther King Jr Blvd. We started at a Starbucks one mile north, for a stroll south on Degnan Blvd through a charming neighborhood of well-kept 1950s post-war homes and 1940s duplexes. Builder Walter Leimert developed Leimert Park in 1928. Eventually, the small village on Degnan between 43rd St. and 43rd Place became a culture focal point for jazz and art patrons and artists, including Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Charles, Leimert Park residents in the 1940s. First stop, the Fernando Pullum Commercial Arts Center, a non-profit center for kids 5-20 years old, founded by educator and musician Pullum, father of the first music magnet program in So. L.A. We passed jazz singer Barbara Morrison's 2009 Jazz & Blues Museum, detoured for an amazing mural facing the Vision Theater parking lot, then into the alley across the street for the LAST STAND: UNITE mural of African anti-colonial leader Patrice Lumumba and jazz musician Eric Dolphy. Sika's is a jewelry, clothing, and collectible shop owned by the "sage of Leimert" (rumored to be the best nose-piercer in town.) Next door, part of the 20,000 sq. ft. campus of Art + Practice, a non-profit education and cultural center for So. L.A. foster youth. East on 43rd Place to the remarkable Vision Theater, a 1931 L.A. Historic-Cultural Monument by the architects who designed the El Capitan and Mayan theaters. Across the street, Leimert Park Plaza and it's landmark fountain, the end of our route and the destination of tomorrow's MLK Day Parade. I had heard that Leimert Park had culture and class, but a sidewalk tour tells the real story. A community treasure!