Chávez Ravine
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Chávez Ravine is the current site of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California, USA. It was named after Julian Chavez, a Los Angeles Councilman in the 1800s.
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[edit] History
Before being cleared for public housing, Chavez Ravine was made up of the three low-income communities of La Loma, Palo Verde, and Bishop.
[edit] 1940s
In the 1940s, Chavez Ravine was a poor, though cohesive, Mexican-American community. Many families lived there because of housing discrimination in other parts of Los Angeles. With the population of Los Angeles expanding, Chavez Ravine was viewed as a prime, underutilized location. The city began to label the area as "blighted" and thus ripe for redevelopment. Through a vote, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, with the assistance of federal funds from the Federal Housing Act of 1949, was designated the task to construct public housing, in large part to address the severe post-World War II housing shortage. Prominent architects Richard Neutra and Robert Alexander developed a plan for "Elysian Park Heights." The city had already relocated many of the residents of Chavez Ravine when the entire project came to a halt. Fear of communism was sweeping the United States and loud voices in Los Angeles cried that the housing project smacked of socialism.
[edit] 1950s
In 1952 Frank Wilkinson of the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles would end up being fired and blacklisted, and a few years later reported to the House Un-American Activities Committee. He was jailed when the United States Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against Frank Wilkinson's attempt to use the First Amendment to refuse questions about possible involvement in the Communist Party.
In the end, the project died. Some years later, the city made the controversial decision to sell the land to the Brooklyn Dodgers and Walter O'Malley, at a financial loss to the city, in a move to provide incentives for a migration to Los Angeles. Many cities had been subsidizing sports stadiums in an effort to bring prestige to their cities, and Los Angeles was no exception. With Chavez Ravine slated to become the site of the new Dodger Stadium, the remaining members of the Chavez Ravine community were physically forced to relocate. While some had initially left the neighborhood, voluntarily or involuntarily through either the use of eminent domain or condemnation, others stayed until the end. Eventually the sheriff's department went in with bulldozers and armed men. The poor shanties and dirt-road streets were razed and the community was buried.
[edit] 1960s
During the time when the Los Angeles Angels used it from 1962 through 1965, the stadium was called "Chávez Ravine". The site was also the stage of a housing controversy, the "Battle of Chavez Ravine", about plans for redevelopment of that site.
[edit] Present day
Today Dodger Stadium is a multi-use facility. It is the home of the Freeway Series.
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[edit] References in the arts
Chavez Ravine was an album recorded by Ry Cooder in 2005, based on a series of photographs of the area by Don Normark.
