“The Monument Is There”: The White Point Hot Springs Resort and the Hotel Somerville as Urban Placemakers in Los Angeles

Borrowing from Natalia Molina’s concept of urban “placemakers,” this paper examines the role of hotels and sites of tourism and leisure that catered to the Black and Japanese populations in Los Angeles. The White Point Hot Springs resort and hotel in San Pedro served as a space for the Japanese community during the interwar years. The discovery of natural sulfur springs near the base of the coastal bluffs led Japanese entrepreneurs to begin operating resort facilities surrounding the springs by 1917, including, a restaurant, a hotel, and a saltwater plunge. By the early 1920s, the resort attracted a substantial Japanese clientele, particularly well-to-do Japanese businessmen and their families, during weekends and in the summer months. Yet white patrons also enjoyed the natural hot springs, beach front swimming hole, and later, the new swimming pool in the back of the resort. Similarly, the Hotel Somerville (later Dunbar hotel), a Black owned and operated first-class hotel, became a center of respite and empowerment for the Black population in Los Angeles who had previously been restricted from the services of first-class hotels. Beyond filling the practical needs of accommodating Black visitors to Los Angeles in need of a hotel room, the Dunbar also cultivated valuable urban public space in South Los Angeles, forging an epicenter of multiethnic cultural interactions. The hotel later became a landmark of the Central Avenue corridor, stimulating business activity nearby through the 1930s and 1940s. This paper considers the origins and legacy of these critical spaces of hospitality in the context of the racialized neighborhoods of Los Angeles.