SANTA MONICA: PICO & BELMAR
Construction of the 10 cut the Pico District in half in the 1960s, displacing over 600 families—nearly all of them Black. In the decade prior, Santa Monica had displaced hundreds more when it demolished the entirety of the nearby Belmar Triangle neighborhood—the heart of the city’s Black community—seizing residents’ homes and businesses through eminent domain as part of a federally-funded “urban renewal” project. The city replaced the neighborhood mostly with a parking lot for a new event space, the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium (1).
Located on what was formerly the southern edge of Downtown Santa Monica, the Belmar Triangle was one of the only places in the city where Black people were able to rent and own property before the 1960s. The widespread use racist real estate practices, such as racially-restrictive covenants (which prevented the sale of property to anybody considered non-white), closed off virtually everywhere except these two neighborhoods, giving rise to the large Black community in Belmar, as well as a diverse Mexican, Black, and Japanese immigrant community in Pico (2).
Despite official discrimination and public hostility, these communities thrived during the first half of the 20th century, with business and entertainment districts forming in Belmar and along Broadway in Pico. On the waterfront, two blocks away from Belmar was an area of beach between Pico Blvd and Bricknell Ave popular with Black residents and known derisively to the white population as “The Inkwell” (unfortunately just off camera in the historic photo)(3). This was the area in which Silas White purchased the Elks Club building with hopes of establishing the Ebony Beach Club, before Santa Monica seized the property through eminent domain as part of the same “renewal” project that destroyed the rest of the Belmar Triangle (see previous posts for more on the Ebony Beach Club, as well as the organization Where is My Land, which is presently fighting for restitution).
Given the racial restrictions outside of Belmar and Pico, very few of those displaced were able to remain in Santa Monica. Today, just 5% of the city’s population is Black.
The destruction of Belmar and its replacement with a parking lot and city-owned event space (as well as the government appropriation of the Ebony Beach Club and its resale to a white developer) is yet another instance of what Sheryll Cashin describes as “opportunity hoarding” in her book “White Space, Black Hood.” (5)
Opportunity hoarding is the process by which the white power structure in America has systematically denied nonwhite people (and Black people in particular) the same political, social, and economic opportunities that have been afforded to whites, leading to today’s differential outcomes (i.e., income disparities, home-ownership rates, etc.). Relevant to this discussion is the destruction and repurposing of Black space (and property), which has been integral to the process of opportunity hoarding. In this case, the land that the Black community in Santa Monica had owned was appropriated for white use, denying the former residents the opportunity to maintain and grow the equity and community they had built there.
In “A World More Concrete” Nathan Connolly notes, “One paradox of colored housing in the postwar United States was that, while often in bad physical shape, Black homes were usually on what city planners and commercial real estate developers were increasingly imagining to be some of the most valuable land in American cities.” (6) This was especially true in Santa Monica. Only two blocks from the beach, the Belmar Triangle was located on what had formerly been the southern periphery of the city (located, as was typical, “on the other side of the tracks”–in this case the tracks of the Pacific Electric Air Line). However after years of explosive growth, planners viewed the area as ripe for redevelopment. Given its proximity to both Downtown and the Beach, today the land is some of the most valuable in the country.
In 2021 the city officially apologized, recognizing that the “City of Santa Monica targeted neighborhoods of color for condemnation; Santa Monica African Americans who were thriving in the Belmar Triangle had homes and businesses commended and taken away by eminent domain.” While it obviously doesn’t undo the harm, it is good to see Santa Monica taking some measure of accountability. The city also announced in 2021 that it would be giving priority for affordable housing to households displaced from during “urban renewal” 70 years ago. (7)
Endnotes
1. Dillon, Liam. “Santa Monica’s message to people evicted long ago for the 10 Freeway: Come home.” LA Times, 2021. https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2021-12-26/santa-monica-to-people-long-evicted-by-freeway-come-back-home (accessed 1/19/2024).
2. Suzuki, Sapphire. “The Evolving Faces of the Pico Neighborhood.” Esri, 2021. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/ca7ae3ff29bf4a269760089529298770 (accessed 1/19/2024).
3. Jefferson, Alison Rose. “The Inkwell, Santa Monica.” BlackPast, 2012. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/inkwell-santa-monica-california-1905-1964/ (accessed 1/19/2024).
4. Schrank, Aaron. “Santa Monica tries to repay historically displaced families.” KCRW, 2022. https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/greater-la/toxins-santa-ana-edu/santa-monica-displaced-black-families-housing. (accessed 1/19/2024).
5. Chasin, Sheryll. “White Space, Black Hood: Opportunity Hoarding and Segregation in the Age of Inequality.” Beacon Press, 2021.
6. Connolly, Nathan. “A World More Concrete: Real Estate and the Remaking of Jim Crow South Florida.” University of Chicago Press, 2016.
7. Himmelrich, Sue (Mayor of Santa Monica). “Statement Apologizing to Santa Monica’s African American Residents and Their Descendents.” City of Santa Monica, 2022. https://www.santamonica.gov/blog/statement-apologizing-to-santa-monica-s-african-american-residents-and-their-descendants (accessed 1/19/2024).