Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook

This guide to the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook in Los Angeles opens with a question about what's poured into the two hundred eighty-two steps beneath your feet, then traces the hill's history as a Gabrielino lookout point, an oil field, and, by the late 1990s, a fenced-off site graded for two hundred new condominiums. It follows the fight between neighbors, conservationists, and state officials that reached a head in 2000. Climb slowly on the deliberately uneven steps, and look west from the top for the clearest view of the Pacific and the basin below.