CRENSHAW CENTER qualifies as America's first regional-class, suburban shopping hub. It was built along with The Broadway store and originally encompassed only the southern half of the development. May Company, and its adjacent CRENSHAW DISTRICT store strip, were built as a separate entity, but were eventually operated as part of the complex. The collective parking lots accommodated 7,000 autos.

CRENSHAW CENTER TENANTS 1949:

THE BROADWAY (with beauty salon, public auditorium and garden center) / F.W. WOOLWORTH 5 & 10 (with luncheonette) / Alpert's Fabrics / Arthur Murray Dance Studio / Children's department store / Lerner Shops ladies' wear / Leeds Qualicraft Shoes / Owl-Rexall Drugs / Sav-On Drugs / Security-First National Bank / Silverwoods apparel / Von's Market (with fountain luncheonette)  

OUTPARCELS:

Barker Brothers Furniture / MobilGas service station & car wash / Pacific Telephone & Telegraph accounting office

CRENSHAW DISTRICT TENANTS 1949:

MAY COMPANY (with coffee shop, children's playroom, children's barber shop, sewing school and public auditorium) / J.J. NEWBERRY 5 & 10 (with luncheonette) / S.H. KRESS 5 & 10 (with luncheonette) / Grayson's ladies' wear / Kay Jewelers / Richman Brothers men's wear / Roe Shoes 

  

Our CRENSHAW CENTER logo montage features trademarks of ten charter stores. These opened for business between 1947 and 1949. When fully-leased, the complex (including the May Company-Crenshaw District) included two major department stores, three 5 & 10s, two drug stores and a large Von's supermarket.  

In a northward CRENSHAW CENTER view, we see Lerner Shops, Children's Department Store, Woolworth's and The Broadway. The May's Crenshaw building appears in the distance.

Photo from "California Highways & Public Works" magazine / May-June 1948

Desmond's, a Los Angeles-based clothier, opened a CRENSHAW CENTER store in March 1953. It took the place of a shuttered Owl Rexall Drugs.

Drawing from Desmond's

By the 1980s, CRENSHAW CENTER had been eclipsed by several newer, larger -and fully-enclosed- shopping venues in its trade area. Here we see a dowdy-looking section of the strip center, as it appeared in its final days.
Photo from www.theotherstream.com / Richard Longsteth
  

Most of the 1940s-vintage shopping center was demolished in the late 1980s, leaving its two anchors intact. These were worked into a 2-level, fully-enclosed mall, which extended over West Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard and connected into the May Company store on the north side. A new name for the complex was bestowed; BALDWIN HILLS-CRENSHAW PLAZA.

A regional shopping center becomes a bona fide mall. The new BALDWIN HILLS-CRENSHAW PLAZA (in medium gray) was officially dedicated in November 1988. It encompassed approximately 850,000 leasable square feet and included a shiny new Sears anchor store.