Photos:: Crenshaw Boulevard

The Harbor Building, former home of J. Paul Getty’s Tidewater Oil Co., is located on Wilshire Boulevard at the northern terminus of Crenshaw Boulevard in Los Angeles. Built in 1956, it was designed by architect Claud Beelman.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Metro Expo Line rail cars roll past Earlez Grille at the intersection of Crenshaw and Exposition boulevards. A new rail line is to run from the Expo Line down Crenshaw Boulevard for 8.5 miles and connect with the Metro Green Line.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

A poster outside Earlez Grille asks Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to support a Crenshaw rail line stop at Leimert Park. The district continues to lobby hard for the stop despite the Metro board’s decision not to include it in the Crenshaw Line.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

The coffee shop of the old Holiday Bowl was preserved and is now home to a Starbucks, but the main bowling alley was razed and replaced by a Walgreens. Opened in 1958 in the Space Age retail architecture style known as Googie, the combination bowling alley, pool hall, bar and coffee shop served the area’s white, black and Asian residents.   (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

The centerpiece of the enormous Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza is the 1947 Macy’s building. The shopping center, at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. and Crenshaw boulevards, was given new life with a $35-million upgrade.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

At the King of Kuts along Crenshaw Boulevard, barber Sir Williams has a steady clientele. Williams said that a Crenshaw Line stop at Leimert Park, about two blocks south of his shop, would help with economic revitalization of the area.   (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

The fountain at Leimert Park Plaza makes a relaxing lounging spot. The park was designed between 1926 and 1928 by the Olmsted Bros. firm, led by sons of the Central Park designer Frederick Law Olmsted.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Drummers and dancers make merry in Leimert Plaza Park. The neighborhood is considered the cultural heartbeat of black L.A.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Leimert Park, developed in the 1920s, is a neighborhood rich with Art Deco apartments and office buildings, Spanish colonial homes and post-war bungalows.   (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

The 1931 Art Deco Vision Theatre, which overlooks Leimert Park Plaza, is in the midst of an $11-million renovation by the city of Los Angeles.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

A resident walks by shops along Crenshaw Boulevard. Some have expressed frustration at the inability to attract retailers that other boulevards have been able to woo.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

A soul food restaurant in the Crenshaw district advertises its fare. The district has long been a power base for African Americans in L.A.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

The 1939 Academy Theater, now the Academy Cathedral, is an Art Moderne structure located just off Crenshaw Boulevard and beneath a busy LAX flight path in Inglewood. It was converted into a church in the late 1970s.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

The Hawthorne Municipal Airport on Crenshaw Boulevard covers 80 acres along the Century Freeway. Northrop Aircraft Corp. used the site as a design, manufacturing and test center during World War II and the post-war years, when aviation was a booming industry in Southern California.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

The huge SpaceX warehouse on the corner of Crenshaw and Rocket Road, just south of Hawthorne Municipal Airport, looks much as it did when it was a Northrop Grumman plant.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

A large refinery overlooks busy streets in Torrance. The site, at the intersection of Crenshaw Boulevard and 190th Street, was built in 1929 and covers more than 750 acres.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Crenshaw Boulevard’s southerly path runs through the well-to-do Rolling Hills Estates, with the South Coast Botanical Garden on its route. The 87-acre garden is built atop a sanitary landfill and features more than 150,00 landscaped plants and trees.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

The sun sets on the Pacific Ocean in a view from Del Cerro Park, at the southern terminus of Crenshaw Boulevard in the Palos Verdes Peninsula.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)