North University Park, Los Angeles

For the Chicago university, see North Park University.

For the historic district in the same locality, see North University Park Historic District.

North University Park is a district of West Adams, Los Angeles, California, a few miles south of Downtown Los Angeles. North University Park refers to the area immediately north of the University of Southern California, bordering University Park. It includes Mount St. Mary's College's Doheny campus and Hebrew Union College, as well as several USC buildings such as the Annenberg Center and Institute for Multimedia Literacy on Adams Blvd.

The area's main thoroughfares are Figueroa Street, Adams Blvd, Hoover Street, and Vermont Avenue.

West Adams as a whole is notable for its architecture (see:Historic Architecture of West Adams), but in many of the residential areas of North University Park this architecture has been torn down to make room for apartment-style housing to accommodate USC students, notably along Ellendale Street and 30th Street.

Downtown or South Los Angeles?

Mount St. Mary's College North University Park campus

There is some debate as to whether the University Park neighorbood is a part of Downtown Los Angeles or South Los Angeles. Historically, when USC was founded next to Exposition Park (then called Agricultural Park) in 1880, it was south of the 20,000 person town of Los Angeles, which was centered around what is now Olvera Street at the northern end of the current Downtown Los Angeles neighborhood. Over the years, the area and neighborhood has been considered a part of the northern end of South Los Angeles, with the dividing line between South and Downtown LA delineated by the Santa Monica Freeway (I-10).

Since 1998, there has been a movement, supported by some businesses and organizations in the region of University Park and North University Park, to redefine the neighborhood as a part of Downtown Los Angeles, starting with the formation of the Business Improvement District by the Figueroa Corridor Partnership. The goal of the businesses and organizations making up the Partnership is to extend the definition of Downtown to make the University Park the area's southern tip, and it consists of businesses and organizations in the adjacent University Park and South Park neighborhoods (the latter is universally considered part of Downtown Los Angeles). Since that time, there has been significant construction on both ends with the Staples Center, LA Live, and luxury apartment buildings moving south from South Park and the Galen Center and other university buildings from University Park moving north; however, the possibility of merging University Park within Downtown Los Angeles remains years away.

External links

• University Park Family is an online newspaper and social network focused on North University Park, Exposition Park and the surrounding areas.

See also

• North University Park Historic District