The Long Walk Down Crenshaw

From Victoria Avenue, Dulan's on Crenshaw looks like a short walk on the map. At a neighborhood meeting on July 30, Gregory Dulan, who opened the restaurant in 1992, said it has stopped being short for some of his regulars: "When I see my senior customers struggling to walk down to my restaurant from Victoria Avenue with their canes and their walkers, that's what impacts me."

The stretch he was talking about is the 1.3 miles of Crenshaw Boulevard along Metro's K Line. The LA Times and The LA Local reported that Destination Crenshaw was supposed to turn it into an art-filled gathering space. Capital & Main describes the project as an outdoor museum, park and cultural space, and reports that its budget rose from $100 million to $150 million. Even its start date is disputed. A 2023 architectural fact sheet cited by the Times puts the groundbreaking in February 2020 and the public opening in February 2024. The councilmember's spokesperson dated the start of construction to November 2021. Capital & Main now reports that completion has moved to 2028. That leaves a corridor under construction and one open question: who the street will serve once it is finished.

The meeting was called "Keep the Promise." Jeanette Parker, chief executive of Today's Fresh Start Charter School, said, "They took all the parking from the cars," and that trucks speed down the street. KimMarie Johnson-Roussell, president of the Park Mesa Heights Community Council, said the council represents 50,000 people. She said she now feels it has no power to protest anything built on Crenshaw Boulevard. In this city, losing parking usually counts as small talk. On this block it came up at a public meeting.

According to the Times, no representatives from Destination Crenshaw attended. Afterward, Terrii Young, identified as chief of staff, wrote in an email that "construction is moving forward and crews are on site to complete the final phase of work at Sankofa Park." Capital & Main reports that Councilmember Harris-Dawson quickly pledged more action after the meeting, which so far has meant removing fencing and other obstructions.

The fencing came after the train. The K Line opened on October 7, 2022, with two stations in Leimert Park: Martin Luther King Jr. and Leimert Park. That fall, Dulan told the Times what the decades before had looked like: "For 20 years, there was no interest. There was no investment. There was no job creation. Nothing." Victoria Fortson, owner of Right Choice Caribbean Market, put a number on the change around her: "The building beside me is now $2.5 million; a couple of years ago it was $535,000." Both accounts echo research by UCLA urban planning professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris. She found that census tracts closest to transit stations were much more likely to gentrify, especially where housing prices were already rising.

The new numbers show up in addresses along the line. At 4345 S. Crenshaw Blvd., near the Leimert Park station, a Venice Community Housing affiliate has filed to build five stories with 56 apartments, ground-floor commercial space and 11 parking spaces. According to Urbanize LA, every unit except a manager's unit would be reserved for low- and moderate-income renters. On Degnan Boulevard, a 2022 Times column described a commercial building priced at $6 million, roughly double what the owner had wanted a few years before. Tenants who tried to buy it together could not agree.

Jackie Ryan, 89, ran Zambezi Bazaar, an African-themed shop and cultural center in Leimert Park Village, for more than 20 years before it closed. She told Capital & Main that she imagines the finished corridor from a train seat: "I picture people looking out the window, whizzing by all the art." She said the project "doesn't have us in mind." Damien Goodmon of the Crenshaw Subway Coalition called it artwashing, citing a figure of his own rather than the $150 million budget Capital & Main reports: "Could you imagine another underserved corridor in America where the lack of response to real problems like gentrification is a $125 million outdoor art project?" Ryan also pointed to something that worked. The city-owned Vision Theater, dark for more than 30 years, has reopened and is now run by WACO Theater Center.

The neighborhood's own calendar still holds. The Leimert Park Crenshaw Corridor Business Improvement District says the weekly craft and food market on Degnan Boulevard has run for 40 years. This year a running club moved its 5K from Leimert Park to Elysian Park after backlash over its promotion and its possible effect on the Sunday marketplace.

On Thursday nights, Project Blowed, the hip hop open mic that started in 1994, meets at 43rd Place and Leimert Boulevard. In Ryan's picture, the train keeps going.

“I picture people looking out the window, whizzing by all the art.”

1. LA Times / The LA Local: Destination Crenshaw delayed, neighbors air grievances (Aug. 10, 2026)
2. Capital & Main: In Crenshaw, Residents Lose Patience With a Stalled Vision for Black L.A. (Oct. 13, 2026)
3. Urbanize LA: Affordable housing coming to 4345 S. Crenshaw Blvd.
4. LA Times (2022): For historic Black community, Crenshaw/LAX Line is a blessing and a curse
5. LA Times (2022): Black business owners fight Leimert Park gentrification
6. Yahoo News: Run club moves 5K from Leimert Park
7. Wikipedia: Leimert Park, Los Angeles