The Boys in Blue meet the Voices of the Past

SKEPTICAL AND preparing to be bored were my feelings as I entered Dodgers stadium for the first time in 2006. I was tagging along with my new roommate (now husband) who happens to be a die hard Dodgers fan. I knew very little about baseball, the Dodgers or Chavez ravine, all I knew was that there were fireworks after the game and that we got to go on the field. By the end of the game I was excited, invigorated and hooked.


That is just one of many memories I have had at a Dodger game. I married into a long line of Dodgers fans, and we spend our summers cheering on the boys in blue either at home or at the stadium. I have watched many documentaries on the Dodgers and I was aware that before they built the stadium there were houses and families living in Chavez Ravine. However, I recently watched a few short documentaries not focused on the Dodgers but focused on the people who were displaced. I would be lying if I said that those videos will stop me from going to Dodgers games, but they did affect me. I have often tried to imagine what the Ravine would look like without the stadium and after seeing pictures and video, it has become much more real to me. I remember someone saying once that you can still see the front steps of some homes that were demolished. That image haunts me, and though I have yet to go to a Dodgers game since I have learned all f this baseball season is upon us.


This haunting feeling of Los Angeles’ past is becoming repetitive as I explore the city more and more. So many things have been torn down to make way for the modernization of the city. People have been displaced and memories have been lost. Perhaps this is what makes Los Angeles so rich with culture and mystery. There are voices of past, present and future scattered all along the city, one just has to stop a minute and reflect upon what and who was once there. This will not erase the pain those people felt when rushed from their homes, however it will keep their memory alive, and for the city’s mysterious past, memory is all it has.

--Mickala Jauregui

Photo Credit: myself (featuring my hand and finger)

The Making of El Chavez Ravine

LAST NIGHT, we watched and listened to people talk about various places in Los Angeles that no longer exist quite in the way that they once remembered them.

One of the enduring stories of "erased" Los Angeles is the story of the old neighborhood of Chavez Ravine.  Earlier this semester, I passed out a profile I wrote about a young artist, Vincent Valdez, who had the task of reconstructing the saga of the old neighborhood on the body of an ice cream truck -- a low rider ice cream truck. Yes, that's right.  Upon completion, Vincent named the truck: El Chavez Ravine.

Below is a mini-doc of Valdez at work. Remember when we saw the image of the woman being dragged out of her house last night? This little piece starts with a reenactment of the event that Valdez is filming so that he can better reproduce the action on the side of the truck.

The truck was commissioned by musician Ry Cooder, for his album Chavez Ravine, that told the story of the old neighborhood in 360 -- taking the listener from it's days as a "poor man's shangri-la" to the green turf and bright lights of night baseball, but told from the perspective of a fan whose family lived just about where third base is.
 Here are a couple of pieces that take us down the trail of the story....

The photos you see are by Don Normark who documented the old neighborhood on film. 

"Poor Man's Shangri-La"

"Three Cool Cats"

"Third Base, Dodger Stadium"

-- L.G.
image: Chavez Ravine cover via Wikipedia