Annexation The city of Los Angeles annexed the area on December 26, 1906 "in anticipation of taking over, several years later, the independent cities of
Wilmington and
San Pedro" in order to create the
Port of Los Angeles. Because of its slim shape, once likened to two shoelaces tied together with a
granny knot, the neighborhood—only a half mile wide at some points—was known for years as the "city strip," the "
shoestring strip" or simply "the strip."
1980s In 1985, the
Los Angeles City Council renamed the area as Harbor Gateway. But a
Los Angeles Times reporter noted four years later that Harbor Gateway lacks much of what makes a community a community—no
central business district, no
civic center or gathering place, no library branch, no police station ... no post office. Its largest park is a cemetery. And, despite the new name, mailing addresses of residents remain unchanged. They still say
Torrance or
Gardena, not Los Angeles. In 1989, however, Harbor Gateway was tied with the
Westwood neighborhood as Los Angeles's second-fastest-growing area,
Sylmar being first. However, the contrast between the unkempt Los Angeles side of Gardena Boulevard and the tidy Gardena side was striking. In March 1988, the
United Way of Los Angeles declared Harbor Gateway an "under-served geographic area," noting "real gaps in law enforcement" and in social services. At the same time, there became a "major drawing card for commercial development" along the 190th Street corridor where "Gleaming
high-rises with pleasant landscaping have replaced a
Shell oil refinery and manufacturing plants." By 1992, the United Way had "funneled $100,000 to the few private charities serving the area, including a small free medical clinic, a job center and an ad hoc coalition helping the homeless." It was written that "extended families crowd into single apartments, and the homeless sleep under freeway overpasses." In 1997, police, the county Human Relations Commission and neighbors organized to fight the gang and the blight. The city added bulletproof streetlight covers. Residents repaired holes in fences -- escape routes for gang members. Girl Scouts, accompanied by officers, picked up trash and painted over graffiti. More than 100 gang members -- black and Latino -- were sent to jail for parole or probation violations. Police patrols increased. Violence fell. But the campaign dissipated, and gang members slowly returned. By 1999, the Latino-on-black violence resumed. Another culprit, Ernesto Alvarez, was sentenced to a range of 238 years to life in state prison for the acting as a lookout in Cheryl's death. In 2008, another
gang injunction put many Latino gang members in jail,
2010s In 2013, it was noted that one section of Harbor Gateway had "one of the city's highest concentrations of registered sex offenders," with 86 living in a 13-block area, and so the city began a campaign to force some of them to move by building
pocket parks in Harbor Gateway and in
Wilmington. In California, such offenders are barred by law from living near schools and parks. The small park was built on city-owned land on the southeast corner of Torrance Boulevard and Denker Avenue. ==Demographics==