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This place was once called Palisades Del Rey, and it had developments full of fancy seaside homes. The arrival of the airport forced the people out--first through noise and air pollution (in an age before environmental laws), and later through eminent domain.
In the beachside community's early years, Cecil B. DeMille lived there. After LAX, it became first a bad investment, then a ghost town, and a target for vandals that had to be fenced off. Officials started removing roads/bldgs and restoring the sand dunes. southbay.goldenstate.is/paradise-lost-… 
The last public access to the place ended with 9/11, when authorities closed the beach below the low-flying airplanes. Now rare blue butterflies (the first insect designated as endangered) and apparently burrowing owls live there.
The radically changing use and reclamation of that 3 mile tract beside LAX make for an interesting story as we debate the boundaries of what's possible with environmental legislation. It also happens to be just up the beach from a giant oil refinery.
correx: they didn’t close the beach; it was the last open part of the developments property—the dunes across the road where people watched the planes take off—that got closed. The South Bay story has this right; I just mangled it.
