Dodger Stadium’s Decade Long Battle Over Chavez Ravine
Nestled in an isolated valley just a few miles away from Downtown Los Angeles sits the Dodger Stadium, home of the Dodgers, the seven-time and current World Series Champs. Angelenos will tell you going to a game at the stadium is a right of passage. However, most don’t know the history of the land and the residents who first called it their home base.
Gary A. Vasquez/USA TODAY Sports published in Dodger Blue
Before Dodger Stadium was built, Chavez Ravine was home to over 1,000 Mexican-American families. The three neighborhoods that made up the area were Palo Verda, La Loma, and Bishop. The families of the communities grew their own food, raised livestock, ran their own community functions, and many owned the title to their land. It was such a tight-knit community that most people left their doors unlocked during the day.
Chavez Ravine residents were self-sufficient, but the city saw the area as a prime location for redevelopment due to the majority of people who were living without electricity or indoor plumbing. When LA City Officials were given money from the Federal Housing Act of 1949, they began plans for a giant public housing project in Chavez Ravine. Only one thing stood in the way -- the families that lived there.
Photo by Leonard Nadel, courtesy of the Photo Collection, Los Angeles Public Library as seen in KCET.
In 1950, LA authorities sent out letters to Chavez Ravine residents stating that under eminent domain, they were to sell their land to the city in exchange for “fair compensation” and a promise of first dibs on the new homes being built. Developers used a low-ball bargaining strategy that offered the highest compensation to the residents who immediately sold their land and offered the remaining residents less. Residents feared that the longer they held out, the worse deal they would get for their land. Many residents succumbed to the city's strategy and took the unjust compensation under the premise they could return to Chavez Ravine when the project was complete.
In 1953, mayoral candidate Norris Paolson strongly opposed the housing construction and used the Chavez Ravine controversy as a platform for his campaign. After his election, Paolson canceled the project and left the former residents with demolished homes and broken promises and reduced the once-thriving community of Chavez Ravine to a ghost town.
Only a few families remained while the land sat idle, pending potential projects. Behind closed doors, LA City officials devised a plan to negotiate with Walter O’Malley, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, to build a stadium that would entice the team to come to LA. In 1958 the project was greenlit and the construction of Dodger Stadium began. The few remaining residents in Chavez Ravine prepared to meet the city with resistance.
On the day known by former residents as “Black Friday,” the remaining families were alerted by the flashing lights from LA County Sheriff’s deputies arriving to evict them. Bulldozers stood waiting as the sheriff’s deputies forcibly removed the families and movers hauled out their last bits of remaining furniture. Minutes later their homes were demolished. As the families of Chavez Ravine screamed out in defiance, people watched the live broadcast of the groundbreaking of the new “crown jewel” of American’s favorite pastime from the comfort of their homes.
Thumbnail Photo by Pedro Marroquin