The Two Faces of Fox Hills

A new collaboration between Culver City Patch and eight reporters at the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at USC will focus a journalistic lens on a single square mile in and around the Westfield Culver City Mall and the surrounding Fox Hills neighborhood. This week's dispatches kick off with our crime and community relations reporters, Massiel Bobadilla and Shotgun Spratling, examining how old perceptions still linger in the shiny new mall.

Is it the location in town with the shady past, where rumors of gang shootouts mix with cautionary whispers? Or is Westfield Culver City–formerly the Fox Hills Mall—the glittering, family-friendly behemoth that plays host to giggling children and urban trendsetters?

"It's both, actually," according to Jennifer Dionne Henry, a Culver City nursing assistant. "I've been coming here for more than 30 years. I loved it when it was Fox Hills, but I'm glad they updated it."

Westfield Culver City lies at the southernmost end of Culver City, tucked between Westchester to the south, and the bustle of the 405 freeway to the west. Before its $180-million renovation in 2009, which added such shops as a Coach women's accessory boutique and a Disney Store, the mall was largely dismissed as being a hyperlocal hangout for lower-income residents.

Many online forums, even a Westfield Culver City Facebook page, chronicle an ongoing debate on the mall's true character. Locals rise to defend the shopping center. "Love the new look of the mall!" gushed Tambusi S. Green. 

Compared with places like the Grove, Westside Pavilion or Century City, Westfield Culver City is the poster child for ethnic diversity. Predominantly black and Latino, the demographics in the square mile around the mall don't necessarily mirror those of Culver City as a whole.

Inside the mall, life appears comfortably ordinary.

On a Saturday afternoon, a mother and grandmother sit in the food court to fawn over the family's newest addition. Young boys jockey for free sushi samples before running off to join their parents. Throngs of teenage girls walk the mall's crisscrossing hallways as if they're walking the runway.

With images like these, one can't help but wonder why Westfield can't seem to shed Fox Hills Mall's bad reputation.

Yet this question can't realistically be answered without addressing issues of race and class.

Crime–for better or worse—has fused itself in the public perception of Fox Hills. This perception lingers in online forums, such as city-data.com: "Since when is Fox Hills not a gang territory?" asked one skeptical poster. "Have you been to the area?" shot back another.

As we embark on covering the issues of crime and police-community relations in the Westfield Culver City square mile, here are some questions we want to consider going forward: Has crime decreased since the renovation? Are the new, high-end stores trying to wash away parts of Fox Hills Mall's past? Were the old mall goers displaced when Westfield moved in? And how is the neighborhood around the mall responding?

Stories that combine both elements will be the most effective in portraying Fox Hills and Westfield Culver City accurately. 

In the long run, our goal with this beat will be to uncover—as best as possible—the root of Fox Hills Mall's lingering bad reputation, and contrast it with the reality of the neighborhood.

"It all depends on what you mean by 'bad,' " Westfield concierge Justin Mason said about the old mall. "There were a few fights here and there, but it was the really low revenue that was making this place so run-down.

"After the renovation, things started to pick up and it just got new life. The way you see it now–where parents bring their little kids—this is how it always is."