Lincoln Heights

Lincoln Heights is a Los Angeles community off downtown just east of Chinatown. Its one of the oldest communities in the city. Previously one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city as industrial development encroached around the turn of the century it became poorer and poorer. At one point the community was home to an alligator farm, ostrich farm, motor speedway and movie studio.

Today the community is yet another struggling neighborhood in Los Angeles. However Lincoln Heights has inspired not one but two blogs and a brand new television program on the ABC Family Channel aptly titled Lincoln Heights.



The show follows an (presumedly LAPD) African-American LAPD officer - Eddie Sutton - who has been living somewhere in the suburbs (looks like Sherman Oaks or maybe Tarzana) in a cramped apartment with his wife and three teenaged children.

I say presumedly LAPD because in the pilot the cars and uniforms do not display the LAPD logo or name. Assumedly the producers did not choose to license the name and logo from the city. It is a cable show - budgets are lower. At least in the pilot its not made definitively clear that this Lincoln Heights is in Los Angeles but many of the locations used are definitely LA.

Taking advantage of a department program that provides financing to officers who buy a home in the hood (similar to the Clinton era "Officer Next Door" program) Sutton moves his family to a Victorian fixer-upper that had just wrapped duty as a crack house. Its mentioned in the script that Sutton grew up not too far from his new home.

The new home affords the Sutton family far more room and luxury than their apartment did, however the neighborhood is another story. The family gets the cold shoulder from the neighborhood (due to Eddie being a cop). Shortly after moving in their home is burglarized. And the kids aren't fitting in at school ranging from the oldest girl only finding friendship with a loner boy the other students don't know anything about, the middle child not getting time to play on the girls' basketball team and the youngest boy being extorted by other students.

Eventually the family settles in but not before a tragic event occurs that will have significant impact on Eddie. (I won't spoil it in case you haven't seen the show yet.)

It will be interesting to watch this show and see how reflective it is of the real Lincoln Heights. Not many television shows these days are based in Los Angeles, especially police related dramas. Lincoln Heights airs on ABC Family Monday nights at 7:00 p.m. (with frequent repeats throughout the week).

You can read about the history of the community at the History of Lincoln Heights web page. Below is a real life video of Lincoln Heights.