Nickerson Gardens

Nickerson Gardens is a 1,066-unit public housing apartment complex at 1590 East 114th Street[2] in Watts, Los Angeles, California.

Nickerson Gardens
Nickerson Gardens in 2019.
General information
Location	1590 East 114th Street, Watts, Los Angeles, California, United States
Status	1,066 units
Construction
Constructed	1955[1]
Other information
Governing body	Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles

Nickerson Gardens consists of 156 buildings with townhouse style units made up on single bedroom units. It was completed in the year 1955, and the original architect was Paul Revere Williams. It was named after William Nickerson, Jr., the founder and former CEO of Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company. The complex is owned and managed by the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles. Nickerson Gardens is the largest public housing development west of the Mississippi River.

The complex occupies the blocks northeast of the corner of Imperial Highway and Central Avenue, and southwest of 111th St and Compton Avenue. It is on the border of both Watts (a district of South Los Angeles) and the Census Designated Place (CDP) of Willowbrook.

In the mid-1970s, Nickerson Gardens was 95% African American, by 2004 the African American population had decreased to 75% and continues to drop to this day.[3]

Nickerson Gardens was occasionally known as the recognized birthplace of the Bounty Hunter Bloods gang. A Los Angeles Times article on November 17, 2007 detailed that they were gangs which had patrolled in and around Nickerson Gardens.[4]

The complex was one of the many locations featured in the action-thriller film To Live and Die in L.A. (1985).[5]