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South Central

The area south of Exposition Park is traditionally referred to as South Central. Gangs, drugs, poverty, crime and drive-by shootings are just a few of the negative images – not entirely undeserved – associated with this district. Much of the area is bleak and foreboding, but there are also thriving pockets, such as the Leimert Park neighborhood, and world-class sights such as the Watts Towers.

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DETOUR: ST SOPHIA CATHEDRAL

This splendidly opulent house of worship (off Map; 323-737-2424; www.stsophia.org; 1324 S Normandie Ave; admission free; 10am-4pm Tue-Fri, 10am-2pm Sat; ) is the spiritual hub of the local Greek Orthodox community and is as rich and epic as a giant’s treasure chest. It was financed by the Skouras brothers, Greek immigrants who made it big in Hollywood as studio heads. They hired set designers to swath every inch of wall space in the main nave with amazingly accomplished Biblical-themed murals. It’s illuminated by muted light streaming through stained-glass windows and emanating from the Bohemian crystal chandelier. A visit here is easily combined with a plate of gyro at Papa Cristo’s Click here.

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WATTS TOWERS

South Central’s beacon of pride, the fabulous Watts Towers (Map; 213-847-4646; 1765 E 107th St; adult/teen & senior/child under 12 $7/3/free; tours 11am-3pm Fri, 10:30am-3pm Sat, 12:30-3pm Sun) rank among the world’s greatest monuments of folk art. In 1921 Italian immigrant Simon Rodia set out ‘to make something big’ and then spent 33 years cobbling together this whimsical free-form sculpture from a motley assortment of found objects – from green 7-Up bottles to sea shells, rocks to pottery. You can admire it any time, but to get inside you have to join a half-hour tour.

The adjacent Watts Towers Art Center (Map; 213-847-4646; admission free; 10am-4pm Tue-Sat, noon-4pm Sun) sponsors workshops, performances and classes for the community, hosts art exhibits and organizes the acclaimed Watts Towers Day of the Drum and Jazz Festival in September.

CENTRAL AVENUE

From the 1920s to the 1950s, Central Ave was the lifeblood of LA’s African-American community, not by choice but because segregation laws kept black people out of other neighborhoods. It was also a hotbed of jazz and R&B, a legacy commemorated every July with the Central Avenue Jazz Festival held outside the 1928 Dunbar Hotel (off Map; 4225 S Central Ave). Duke Ellington once maintained a suite at what was LA’s only 1st-class hotel for African Americans; it’s now a low-income seniors center and, like much of the street, a rather drab sight.

North of here, towards Downtown, the African American Firefighter Museum (Map; 213-744-1730; www.aaffmuseum.org; 1401 S Central Ave; admission free; 10am-2pm Tue & Thu, 1-4pm Sun) has the usual assortment of vintage engines, uniforms and a 1890 hose wagon. It’s in a restored 1913 fire station that, until 1955, was one of only two in town that employed black firefighters.

Further south, Central Ave takes you into Watts, the epicenter of the LA riots of 1965 and 1992 and still teeming with large numbers of kids growing up poor and angry. There are pockets of improvements thanks in part to such groups as the Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC; Map; 323-563-5639; www.wlcac.org; 10950 S Central Ave; admission free; daily), whose headquarters doubles as a cultural center. A huge bronze sculpture of a black woman called Mother of Humanity dominates the campus. Nearby, Mudtown Flats is a facade recreating iconic black LA historic sites and often used for movie shoots. The most powerful exhibit, though, is the Civil Rights Museum, which takes you through the hull of a body-filled slave ship and along a Mississippi Delta dirt road to displays about Martin Luther King and the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.

LEIMERT PARK

The soft lilt of a saxophone purrs out from behind a storefront. Excited chatter streams from a coffeehouse. The intense aroma of fried chicken and collard greens wafts into the