Authorities had pushed out most of the 1,800 families who lived in the Mexican American neighborhoods of Chavez Ravine to build a public housing project called Elysian Park Heights to house 17,000 people. But at the height of anti-communist hysteria, real estate interests, seeing their profits threatened by public housing, launch a successful campaign against it, financing opposition groups that call it “socialist housing.” The project is scratched, and Mayor Norris Poulson promises that no new ones will be approved.
A bulldozer razes the Arechiga family home in Chavez Ravine on May 8, 1959. Homes were removed to make way for Dodger Stadium.
(Los Angeles Times)
After having their homes destroyed by bulldozers on May 13, 1959, Chavez Ravine residents lived in a trailer.
(Los Angeles Times)
This story originally appeared on LA Times
