Sub-divisions of Baldwin Hills include Baldwin Hills Estates (east of La Brea, southwest of Santo Tomas Drive, south of the Jim Gilliam Recreation Center and north of Stocker Street). It includes the so-called Dons, winding streets with "modernistic" homes, panoramic views of the city, and such names as "Don Luis", "Don Felipe", etc. The area is characterized by hillside houses with swimming pools, and some condominiums (the latter often jut out from steep hillsides, perched on stilts). The southern portion of Baldwin Hills is actually outside the Los Angeles City limits; it resides in the unincorporated Los Angeles County area that also shares its space with View Park-Windsor Hills and Ladera Heights. Stocker Street divides Baldwin Hills from View Park. The northeast face of the former overlooks the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Mall.
West of the major thoroughfare, La Brea, is Baldwin Vista, with slightly smaller homes, but a more secluded ambience. North of Coliseum Street, Baldwin Vista consists largely of the Village Green, a "garden city" housing development, which was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 2001. The units seldom have more than two bedrooms, and tend to attract seniors and younger professionals as residents.
Baldwin Hills' northeastern, flat section, between King Drive and La Brea, consists largely of two-story apartment buildings of ten or more units, often originally surrounding a swimming pool, built in the late 1950s. Called "The Jungle" because of its lush landscaping, since the mid-1980s the city has promoted use of the name "Baldwin Village". Originally occupied mostly by adults, young families not yet able to afford home purchase began to move in around the same time that de-segregation evoked white flight in the early 1960s. In the 1970s, black gangs took up illicit drug trade in the vicinity. "Sherm Alley", near Coliseum Street and Santa Barbara Avenue (now Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard), became a notorious drive-through drug market (a "Sherm" is a PCP-laced cigar in U.S. slang). By the 1990s the area had become a low-income, predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhood, its glass entryways gated, and its swimming pools filled in.
The Baldwin Hills were the site of the very first Olympic Village, built for the 1932 Summer Olympic Games, held in Los Angeles. Built for male athletes only, the Village consisted of several hundred buildings, including post and telegraph offices, an amphitheater, a hospital, a fire department, and a bank (female athletes were housed at the Chapman Park Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard). The village was torn down after the games.
African Americans make up approximately 78.5% of Baldwin Hills' population in zip code 90008,. It is one of the wealthiest majority-black areas in the United States. Prior to 1965, it was known as "Pill Hill" because a large number of doctors were believed to live there. After African Americans began moving into the area, it was given nicknames such as the Golden Ghetto and the Black Beverly Hills. It has been home to such celebrities as Ray Charles, Tina Turner, Nancy Wilson, Oscar-nominated film director John Singleton, and the late Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. Like nearby Ladera Heights and View Park -Windsor Hills, it has seen a recent influx of white, Asian, and Latino families drawn to its convenient location, large homes and historic architecture.