Broken Promises: Chavez Ravine in the Urban Renewal Era
“The housing shortage continues to be acute. As an immediate step, the Congress should enact the provisions for low-rent public housing, slum clearance, farm housing, and housing research, which I have repeatedly recommended. The number of low-rent public housing units provided for in the legislation should be increased to 1 million units in the next 7 years. Even this number of units will not begin to meet our need for new housing.”
– Harry S. Truman, State of the Union Address, January 5, 1949
The war over, and having thus made it known that the provision of public housing was a Federal priority, the Congress soon set events in motion with passage of the American Housing Act, extending to local government the powers of “eminent domain” and funding to be used for the construction of thousands of new public housing units. In the City of Los Angeles, planners working for the newly formed Housing Authority would choose an area known as Chavez Ravine as the site for one of the first and most ambitious of such developments. The ravine was not unoccupied however, and three neighborhoods of families who had been settled there for generations would be forced to move. This essay considers the justifications given for this decision, the chain of events that followed, and the resulting distribution of costs and benefits in order to better understand this period of planning history and what lessons it may hold for planners today.
Named for Julian A. Chavez, an early member of the Los Angeles City Council, the land known as Chavez Ravine was first granted to him in 1844 as a plot of 83 acres, situated 1.5 miles north of downtown (Becker). In the hundred years since, the land would come to be home to a community of predominately poor, Mexican-American families. Though sparsely populated enough to retain a rural character, where residents grew vegetables and raised small livestock, the land still contained enough residents to be organized into three distinct neighborhoods – La Loma, Bishop, and Palo Verde. The city did not provide public services infrastructure to the neighborhoods, but there was a church and public school, and the beauty of the homes and streets regularly drew artists from the local college (Mechner). The architects who would be chosen for the redevelopment would admit “it was a ‘charming’ neighborhood, and that its people seemed ‘happy’ and had great pride in, and identified with, their community” (qtd. in Hines). As a young photographer, Don Normark would visit often, and the photographs he would take and fond reminiscences of area residents (now collected in a commemorative book and film) confirm the vibrancy and happiness of the community that once was (Normark). Seen through other eyes however, the neighborhoods and people of Chavez Ravine appeared quite differently.
In a 1949 study undertaken by the newly formed City Housing Authority to identify “blighted” areas, Chavez Ravine was cited for “improper use of land, poor street patterns, a high proportion of substandard housing, poor sanitation, juvenile delinquency, and the presence of tuberculosis” (Normark, 18). Frank Wilkinson, one of the lead planners of this project later remembered, “Chavez Ravine was one of the prime places that we found, simply because it was predominately vacant – so you could build without displacing so many people” (qtd. in Mechner). Seeing in their analysis that only about 40% of the land was occupied, and it being situated in such close proximity to the city’s downtown core, it made sense to planners as a logical place for increasing urban density. They likely reasoned, “Why should an area so close to the center of a city that desperately needed housing not be available to more people? Why not use the Housing Act to develop the area, without - it was hoped - destroying its rich assets?” (Hines). The site was therefore chosen to be the location of the biggest, most high-density development of public housing projects then being planned.
The project would be called “Elysian Park Heights”, and modernist architects Richard Neutra (from Austria) and his partner Robert Alexander were hired to provide the designs. When completed, their plans included housing and facilities for approximately 17,000 people, encompassing “481 one-bedroom units; 1,922 two- bedroom units; 742 three-bedroom units; 202 four-bedroom units, and 18 units of five bedrooms, for larger families” (Hines). Obviously influenced by Corbusier’s “towers in the park”, Neutra designed 24 thirteen-story towers and 163 two-story buildings to be located within Chavez Ravine. Frank Wilkinson recalled, “They had beautiful plans. We had playgrounds, church, school, everything! We were completely idealistic, feeling that what we were offering was not just good for the city of L.A., but good for the people who were being displaced” (qtd. in Mechner).
Indeed, “the project seemed to offer city planners and designers an ideal opportunity to improve the lives of low-income residents” (Normark, 18). The displaced residents were promised first pick of the homes to be developed; the rental rates of which were to be based on income, and the housing was to carry a policy of no discrimination by race (a fairly new practice, made necessary by discriminatory housing policies common in prior years). Frank Wilkinson says that he himself prepared a certificate to every family he visited, and when he visited them, he told them personally, “‘when the project is built, you and your family will be the first priority, you get to pick the part of the project that you want to live in’” (qtd. in Mechner).
All of these decisions were apparently made without ever consulting the community then living in the path of development. Instead, a form letter was sent out on July 24, 1950, simply informing the people of Chavez Ravine that “a public housing development will be built on this location for families of low income. The attached map shows the property that is going to be used. The house you are living in is included” (Letter to Residents of Chavez Ravine). To make room, the long-time residents would be forced to sell their property or be evicted after having it condemned. Inspectors would come to estimate the value of their property, and whether they took the amount offered or not, they would have to leave. To understand how so little actual consideration was given to the so-called beneficiaries of this low-income housing plan, it is instructive to examine further the social climate of the time, and of race relations in particular.
Beginning around 1942, just a few years before this project was set in motion, news stories of violent incidents involving young Mexican men began to stir public fears of Mexican gang violence. “Juvenile delinquency was a growing national preoccupation as fathers, brothers, and uncles went off to war and mothers, aunts, and older sisters filled their places in the workforce in dramatic numbers” (Garcia). The Los Angeles police force was likewise depleted by wartime recruitment, and there was fear that those left remaining would be unable to maintain order. At the same time, a youth culture inspired by jazz music began to grow more visible. This was an unwelcome development among many conservative adults, in part because it was seen to threaten the norms of racial segregation. “Not only did couples racially mix on the dance floor, they often verbally and physically challenged racial boundaries on the streets” (Garcia). The “zoot suit”, a jazz-related fashion then popular among Mexican youth, thus became a visual symbol of this “dangerous” element that could easily be targeted by police, and increasingly by military men on leave.
In June of 1943, as thousands of servicemen swarmed into Los Angeles, racial tensions came to a head and violent confrontations on the street snowballed into a week of bloody fighting that became known as “the Zoot Suit Riots.” At one time, a mob of at least 5,000 soldiers and civilians gathered downtown from as far away as San Diego, roaming the streets searching for Mexicans to attack, while taxi drivers offered free rides to riot areas (Garcia). A Navy report stated, "Groups vary in size from 10 - 150 men, and scatter immediately when Shore Patrol approaches. Men found carrying hammock cues [clubs], belts, knives and tire irons..." (qtd. in Garcia). LAPD reportedly did nothing to stop the fighting, explaining "You can say that the cops had a 'hands-off' policy during the riots. Well, we represented public opinion. Many of us were in the First World War, and we're not going to pick on kids in the service" (qtd. in Garcia).
Appearing to many as essentially a “pogrom” aimed at the Mexican community as a whole, this event was met with nationwide condemnation, and denounced a week later as a “race protest” by none other than Eleanor Roosevelt in her weekly column (Chiodo). Unabashed, Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Bowron staunchly defended the LAPD, and the L.A. Times responded by accusing the First Lady of blindly stirring race discord and even going so far as to imply she had communist leanings (Los Angeles Zoot Suit Riots). Given the prevailing feeling of the general public and local government towards Mexican Americans at this time, perhaps it is not surprising that a plan to seize their land could easily gain approval and even be seen to serve the public interest. At the same time, private interests were being threatened, and as the project gained momentum, these interests began to make their presence felt.
“Red-baiting” as even directed at the President’s wife, was becoming more common at this time. Anti-communist paranoia was on the rise, and it would rear its ugly head again as the Chavez Ravine plan began to take shape. Many residents had by this time moved out, having simply “done as they were told they must”, and the project was moving forward (Normark, 18). Frank Wilkinson recalls, “We had tremendous support for the program. We’d pretty well finished the engineering and the architectural work. The only people were who were opposing it, were what is commonly called ‘the real estate lobby’” (qtd. in Mechner). Undoubtedly seen as a threat to their personal business interests, a cluster of groups, institutions and individuals, “including the powerful California real-estate lobby, the Home Builders' Association, the Chamber of Commerce and, most critically, The Los Angeles Times” now rose up to attack the housing project as “‘creeping socialism,’ if not rampant communism - subverting from within the American values being defended in Korea” (Hines).
The “tremendous support” Wilkinson believed he had was apparently not unanimous among the local elected officials, because on December 26th, 1951 the City Council voted (8-7) to cancel its contract with the Housing Authority for completion of the redevelopment project (Normark, 18). Questioning the legality of such a decision, the Housing Authority asked the California Supreme Court for a ruling on the matter. In response, the Council then called for a voter referendum to be held on June 3rd, 1952 in order to ask the public. Reaching a decision in April, before the referendum could be held, the Court ruled that regardless of what voters decided on the matter, the City Council could not in fact cancel its contract. When the referendum vote went through anyway, around 600,000 voted 3-2 against public housing (Normark, 18). Seeking then to sidestep the Court’s ruling, California Senators Richard Nixon and W.F. Knowland then began a push for Federal legislation that would allow the City’s contract cancelation to be made legal. Obviously, despite the strong support of President Truman, the public housing project had powerful enemies.
In the Fall of 1952, just about the same time as Frank Wilkinson and others from the Housing Authority were involved in a disagreement with a wealthy downtown businessman over the value of some property he owned in Chavez Ravine (he demanded $100,000), they were summoned to appear before the California House Un-American Activities Committee. “Out of nowhere, this lawyer for the property-owner turned to me, and he says, ‘now Mr. Wilkinson, I want to ask you, what organizations, political or otherwise have you belonged to since 1931?’ He didn’t say ‘are you a communist?’ he said ‘what have you belonged to?’ I just turned to the judge and said ‘I refuse to answer to that question’” (qtd. in Mechner). All three upper level Housing Authority members would plead the 5th Amendment, and as a result were subsequently fired. Despite his never admitting to being a communist, Frank Wilkinson was publicly denounced as one in a widely distributed propaganda film called “Operation Abolition” and sentenced to jail for a year (Mechner). In the film, Gordon H. Scherer, a U.S. Representative from Ohio can be heard saying, “One of the top communist agents assigned to ‘Operation Abolition’ is Frank Wilkinson, recently convicted for contempt of congress for refusal to answer questions concerning his Communist Party membership and activities” (qtd. in Mechner).
Having hereby effectively taken out the top leadership of the Housing Authority and managing to paint both the public housing initiative and Mayor Fletcher Bowron with the same “red” brush in the local media, the 1953 mayoral campaign of Norris Poulson was well positioned to capitalize on this publicity and anti-communist sentiment. Poulson was a candidate backed by the L.A. Times and the ad hoc organization Citizens Against Socialist Housing (CASH). In his campaign, he promised to end “Federal domination of the City” and “Un-American” projects such as public housing (Normark, 21). After taking office in June, he was unable to completely kill the City’s public housing program as promised, but through renegotiating the contract with the now weakened Housing Authority, he got the two largest projects to be abandoned – including the Elysian Park Heights project in Chavez Ravine. Just like that, the promised low- income housing that had been the reason so many were forced to leave their homes - it disappeared with the stroke of a pen. The housing they had never wanted or asked for, which was supposed to be an improvement on the beloved homes their fathers had built by hand, where they had been born and raised – was no longer to be.
Only a month after his election in July 1953, the U.S. Congress passed legislation that would absorb the difference of cost between what the Housing Authority had paid for Chavez Ravine and what it would get from selling it to the City of Los Angeles. In August, the deal went through, with 170 acres of Chavez Ravine land being sold to the City for 1.25 million dollars (a loss of over 4 million to the Federal Government). Congress authorized the purchase on the condition that Los Angeles must use the land “for public purposes only” (Normark, 21). For a few years, the last holdouts were able to remain in their homes, while the empty homes of their neighbors were set on fire to be used as practice for L.A. firefighters or sold at auction to be stripped of reusable materials (Normark, 18). The City tried and failed to attract a suitable option for another public use (a horse show facility, a cemetery, and opera house were each considered), and the land became a “white elephant” (Saldaña).
Finally, in early 1957, when it became known that Walter O’Malley, then owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers was looking for a place to build a baseball stadium and relocate his team, Mayor Poulson and other civic leaders met with him to offer up a site (Normark, 21). City leaders were eager to attract the Dodgers, believing that Los Angeles would attract more businesses and raise its profile nationally by becoming a “big league city” (Parlow, 845). After seeing Chavez Ravine from the air, O’Malley expressed interest in the property (Mechner). A savvy businessman, O’Malley also met with New York officials and played each city off the other to see which would offer him a better deal (Henderson). Los Angeles apparently wanted the deal so much that in October, the City Council voted to transfer Chavez Ravine to the Dodgers, offering O’Malley 315 acres of Chavez Ravine land (more than it actually owned) , plus 50% of any future oil findings, “in exchange for the nine-acre Wrigley Field (the Dodger-owned stadium where the Angels played), in addition to paying $2 million for site grading and $2.7 million from the state gas fund to build access roads” (Parson, 340). Deciding to take the deal, a formal contract was signed in September.
This would not be the end of it however, as many of the public were outraged at this private takeover of public land and brought petitions and lawsuits against the City in order to nullify their contract with the Dodgers. In Frank Wilkinson’s opinion, “It was just a tragedy, for the people - and for the city, the most hypocritical thing that could’ve happened” (Mechner). On December 1st, the City Clerk informed the Council that the public demanded a referendum be held to decide the issue (Saldaña). The vote on “Proposition B” would be held six months later, and in the intervening time, the local papers went to work on swaying public opinion – calling all that opposed the idea “baseball haters.” The Mayor’s opinion was, “If you are not prepared to be part of this greatness, if you want Los Angeles to revert to pueblo status…then my best advice to you is to prepare to settle elsewhere” (Parson, 346). On June 1st, to clinch the deal before the vote, a five-hour Hollywood telethon with celebrities like George Burns, Groucho Marx, Jack Benny, and Ronald Reagan was held to push for “Yes on Proposition B!” (Saldaña). When the vote was held on June 3rd, 1958 it passed by a slim, less than 2% margin. However, the transfer of land would again be blocked a few days later by a preliminary injunction of the L.A. County Superior Court in order to settle lawsuits filed back in April of the previous year. “In April, the Pasadena Court spoke first, declaring the contract null and void, even implying fraud. This nullified the barely-favorable referendum held on June 3 and tied the matter up in the Courts until the fall of 1959” (Henderson). Finally, when the California Supreme Court ruled that the renegotiated contract technically met the public benefit requirement by including a 40 acre public park (to be maintained by the Dodgers for only 20 years before returning to them as private property), the matter was settled (The City of Los Angeles v. the Superior Court of the County of Los Angeles). All that remained then was to evict the last remaining families of Chavez Ravine.
On May 8th, 1959 the Arechiga family was the last to go. As television cameras rolled on, the front door was kicked in, and “Aurora Vargas, a daughter of the Arechigas and a war widow, was carried kicking and screaming from the family home, while another daughter, Mrs. Glen Walters, was later sentenced to thirty days in jail and fined $500 for resisting arrest” (Parson, p.342). As soon as the family was clear of the home, a waiting bulldozer knocked it down. The Arechiga family had lived there for thirty-six years, and were one of a coalition of twenty families who resisted over the ten years since they were first told to move (Estrada, 288).
To summarize and conclude, despite the understandable reasoning and seemingly noble intentions of naïve city planners, the project failed to deliver on its promises, and actually worsened the shortage of available housing by displacing hundreds who were previously housed quite happily. It caused the close-knit community of Chavez Ravine to be scattered to the winds, and with no affordable housing to be expected, residents from the former community had to “find alternative accommodations which included living in over-crowded living quarters, illegal dwellings, and even transient housing” (Estrada, 846). Whatever legal or moral arguments were used to publicly justify the project, the climate of racial hatred and fear allowed the affected community to be disregarded and assisted in justifying their removal. Access to huge sums of Federal funds and covetousness over the prime real estate likely also helped to gain approval. When powerful private interests became threatened by the prospect of public housing, the convenient specter of communism and tactical character assassination allowed a political regime change aimed at putting an end to it. After much resistance, and at great cost of public tax dollars, the City of L.A. got Dodger Stadium. Was it worth it? Was the public interest adequately served? How does one compare a city’s gained value of baseball games, national prestige, and economic growth against the lost value of an individual’s home, or a neighborhoods sense of community? These are “intangible goods” - unable to be exchanged or replaced, and for many, priceless.
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