Preservation of Two Los Angeles Garden Cities
The following Garden cities were designed by African American architect Ralph Vaughn after World War II. Vaughn and his team of architects used Baldwin Hills Village as a model.

Lincoln Place Apartments (2006)
Lincoln Place Apartments was declared a California State Landmark in 2006, but the owner/developer has evicted most of the tenants. At the present, this 38 acre community is mostly boarded and fenced in. The developer may in the future demolish the site (as it is located in prime coastal real estate) and build high-rise condominiums.

Lincoln Place Timeline (PDF-28k)

Chase Knolls Apartments (2001)
PDF--16.9MB
Designated a Los Angeles City Landmark when the owner/developer planned to demolish it in 2000. The residents with the Los Angeles preservation community have worked hard to keep this site intact. Later, a new owner/developer was successful in having plans made to fill the open spaces with additional buildings and thus compromising the Garden city concept.

Barry Cullison's notes on Chase Knolls Apartments
(PDF-208)

Note: The Baldwin Hills Village's Landmark research contributed to Lincoln Place Apartments' California Landmark status. LandmarkWatch will continue to monitor these two garden cities, which are important Afro-American cultural resources in the city of Los Angeles.

The Nation's Endangered Planned Communities
The National Trust has documented the continual compromise or destruction of historic communities and also planned communities across the nation. A major factor is developers' insatiable economic need to build on any available open spaces.
The National Trust has established a website that address this situation and also to provide solutions.

The website is:
http://www.nationaltrust.org/teardowns

Dorothy Fue Wong
October 2007

Updated February 2010