27th Street Historic District, Historic district in South Los Angeles, United States.
The 27th Street Historic District is a residential area in South Los Angeles made up of Victorian-era houses built in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The homes line a small number of consecutive blocks, giving the area the feel of an early Los Angeles neighborhood.
The district's oldest houses date from the 1890s, among them several Victorian Queen Anne residences built in 1895 on East 27th Street. The Crouch Memorial Church was built in 1895–1896 for the Haven Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Gothic Revival Salem Congregational Church followed in 1906. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009 as part of a multiple property submission for African Americans in Los Angeles.
The two church buildings show how congregations succeeded one another as the neighbourhood changed. The Romanesque Revival Crouch Memorial Church, at 27th and Paloma, was built in 1895–96 for the Haven Methodist Episcopal Church and hosted temperance meetings in 1902; since about 1950 it has belonged to the Church of God in Christ. The Gothic Revival church at 28th and Paloma, built in 1906 for the Salem Congregational Church with seating for 1,000, is now the Nueva Iglesia Bautista en Cristo.
The district is easy to explore on foot since the historic houses are spread across only a few consecutive blocks. There are no access restrictions, so a short walk through the streets is enough to take in most of what the area has to offer.
The district's YMCA building is named in the National Register listing alongside its two churches, but the sources record no architect, no completion date and no details of its use. What the registration form does note is that the churches passed through several congregations, tracing the neighbourhood's changing population.
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