South Menlo Ave. Mapping Project

The South Menlo Avenue Mapping Project (Menlo Mapping) is a participatory mapping project seeking to preserve Westmont/Athens through settler and descendant histories, with an ethic of care. This place, Westmont/Athens/Harbor Gateway North was/is a Black settlement, home to several generations of Black families seeking freedom, respite, and community. Before the 1950s when the first Black family settled in the area, Westmont/Athens was farmland, home to Greek immigrants who relocated to the area for work in and around the ports to the south, one reason for the area’s moniker. By 1970, Westmont/Athens was 80% Black, among the highest concentrations in Los Angeles County, with Bernice and H.C. Guyton among its residents. The richness of Black placemaking coincided with a violent period of state terror. Between a period of unrest marked by the 1967 Watts Riots and CalTrans construction on the 105 freeway in 1982, many descendants have left the area. 

Building on Dr. Andrea Roberts’ work with the Texas Freedom Colonies Project and the methodologies of MJ Biazar that undergird the Texas Freedom Colonies Atlas; along with inspiration from local scholars such as Marques A. Vestal, Ph.D (UCLA); Eric Avila (The Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City); Watts, P. R. (”Mapping narratives: the 1992 Los Angeles riots as a case study for narrative-based geovisualization.”), Menlo Mapping seeks to preserve the places of Black interiority as well as the commons to honor their legacy and reterritorialize Westmont/Athens, one block at a time, beginning with South Menlo Avenue. It has three key focus areas:

1. Fortifying the Archive: As we grieve the loss of Black archives on an enormous scale with the fires in Altadena, CA, we will fortify the wealth of material in alt ^home using the 3-2-1 method of preservation. This pathway toward heritage recognition unlocks public and private resources to preserve the history of the neighborhood. Further, as we hone alt ^home’s archival practice, our archival studio will support Black families with their own archival efforts. We have gathered resources about archival processes and will engage with them in community through a book club format. 

2. Mapping Place Through Descendant Histories: We will capture oral histories through hosting first, second, third, and fourth generation descendant gatherings/reunions and soliciting stories through digital submission.Through the inputs we receive from descendants, elders, and the archive itself, we will create a new map of Westmont/Athens ripe with the Black institutions, homes, artists, and artifacts as nodes of this Black place beginning with South Menlo Avenue. We will utilize geographic information systems (GIS) to visualize this network of Black settlement.

3. Physical and Digital Installation: The map, collection of oral histories, photos and other media, and neighborhood and home artifacts will be on rotating display in alt ^home. We hope to seek additional funding in the future that will support the return of descendants for a block party formally commemorating the launch of the physical and digital installation.