00:00:00
I had to scream that all those hills had
00:00:24
been leveled the house is torn down I
00:00:27
saw it in my dream and exactly the way I
00:00:31
saw it that's a way it happened this is
00:00:34
the tragedy of my life absolutely I was
00:00:39
responsible for uprooting I don't know
00:00:43
how many hundreds of people from their
00:00:45
own little Valley than having a whole
00:00:47
thing destroyed it's sort of taken on a
00:00:50
mythical sense in people's memories and
00:00:54
then with the feeling that it was
00:00:55
unfairly taken from them so it's no
00:00:58
wonder that that people have strong
00:01:00
feelings about it
00:01:02
he said please your sons and baseball
00:01:05
team let's go to the Dodgers as a family
00:01:08
I'll never go again I hated it I didn't
00:01:12
enjoy it it was like dancing on a grave
00:01:17
[Music]
00:01:18
1962 and Chavez Ravine a few miles from
00:01:22
downtown Los Angeles baseball fans crowd
00:01:25
the bleachers of the brand-new Dodger
00:01:27
Stadium to welcome their team from
00:01:29
Brooklyn the stadium sits on 170 acres
00:01:32
of freshly cleared land land that chests
00:01:35
12 years earlier was home to over 300
00:01:37
families the neighborhoods of La Loma
00:01:40
palo verde and bishop the neighborhoods
00:01:43
of Chavez Ravine
00:01:46
[Music]
00:01:53
me myself I loved it there I loved it
00:01:57
because we used to run up and down the
00:02:00
hills and we know every little trail
00:02:02
around there in the neighborhood I don't
00:02:06
think anybody when I move out of your
00:02:07
neighborhood when you've been them in
00:02:08
there so long and you know everybody
00:02:10
like a big family Elysian Park was our
00:02:14
playground you know the whole park was
00:02:16
right next to it we have to go down
00:02:19
there and swim naked in the LA River we
00:02:22
used to make dams you know with rocks
00:02:25
you know make holes and then swimming
00:02:28
that dirty water we won a lot of
00:02:30
trophies there in Elysian Park believe
00:02:32
me we did football you name a baseball
00:02:35
basketball we were good we will get to
00:02:38
the playground play the opponent they
00:02:40
would come up with a brand new uniforms
00:02:42
and here we look like those goddamn East
00:02:44
Side kids you know raggedy-ass kids
00:02:47
playing baseball that other team you
00:02:48
know he said how could these guys beat
00:02:50
us there were great times for me
00:02:52
beautiful time the processions the
00:02:58
lighted candle the men would dress like
00:03:02
Roman soldiers they had this big drum
00:03:05
boom boom boom got through the hill
00:03:09
it was unbelievable when I seen all
00:03:11
these pictures I was really surprised
00:03:15
and I never seen anybody with that
00:03:17
camera who would take these pictures
00:03:20
nobody wouldn't go up the hill and take
00:03:22
pictures and nobody could afford a
00:03:24
camera I was just I was looking for a
00:03:28
kind of a postcard view of the Los
00:03:30
Angeles I had a friend who had a car and
00:03:33
we drove around looking and found this
00:03:36
hill and walked up the hill and but then
00:03:40
they looked down the other side of that
00:03:42
hill I was standing on and and there was
00:03:44
this community below me looked like a
00:03:46
village dirt roads and I was just going
00:03:50
up the roads and and people walking
00:03:52
around
00:03:56
but he'll still exist right there he
00:03:58
proceeded up and top with it so I was I
00:04:00
was up there someplace when I took the
00:04:03
shot yeah he was up I'm up I speak
00:04:07
yolibeth I made photographs in 48 and
00:04:16
most of them in 1949 and I had very
00:04:20
little luck and in showing them or
00:04:22
getting anybody to even look at them
00:04:25
[Music]
00:04:48
fifty years later Don found a publisher
00:04:51
who thought his photograph should be a
00:04:53
book and for the first time they were
00:04:55
seen by the people of Chavez Ravine got
00:04:59
a card table a couple of chairs with a
00:05:02
box full of photographs from 1949 and a
00:05:07
crowd formed around and who were
00:05:09
exclaiming and some burst into tears
00:05:14
it was quite marvelous it was pentagram
00:05:17
Oh every time I see a bouquet I feel
00:05:20
like crying okay I could see the house
00:05:22
where I was born like my daughters were
00:05:23
going there my daughter was born my wife
00:05:26
[Music]
00:05:34
when I was a kid nice to model airplanes
00:05:37
kite nice to fly went up a hill it was
00:05:39
so clear many years back you could see
00:05:41
cloud del rey santa monica and st. peter
00:05:44
just the city hall was the titleist
00:05:45
building and it was very nice up to me
00:05:48
it was just like a little ranch my
00:05:51
grandchildren I'll take him up there for
00:05:53
Isis dad was he born up here says yeah
00:05:55
and they see the pictures on a book it
00:05:57
says Jesus poor kids I said yeah that's
00:05:59
the way it was in those days you know at
00:06:02
Birth put it and hand-me-down clothes
00:06:05
and books and what-have-you but uh you
00:06:09
know what we were happy we're happy
00:06:10
people I used to make like sleds out of
00:06:13
cardboard boxes from Kelvinator or
00:06:16
gaffers sattler and that the stoves or
00:06:20
whatever it came in and just slide down
00:06:21
it was like a toboggan except it wasn't
00:06:24
grass 20 minutes to get up there again
00:06:28
that was a recreation when I seen all
00:06:32
these pictures and I was excited about
00:06:35
seeing him but then I was kind of mad
00:06:39
resentful about what happened when we
00:06:43
had to move out in July 1950 the city of
00:06:49
Los Angeles sent letters to the
00:06:50
residents of Chavez Ravine notifying
00:06:53
them that they would have to sell their
00:06:54
homes to make way for low income public
00:06:56
housing Frank Wilkinson of the City
00:06:59
Housing Authority led the project
00:07:03
our city was the first city in the
00:07:05
nation to get the first hundred and ten
00:07:07
million dollars billion dollars in
00:07:09
today's money for public housing in LA
00:07:11
what we were going to build ten thousand
00:07:13
units in Chavez Ravine was one of the
00:07:17
prime places we found simply because it
00:07:19
was predominantly vacant so you could
00:07:22
build without displacing so many people
00:07:25
it was something that really hit him
00:07:30
hard you know something like that that
00:07:33
happened I mean it's when they're gonna
00:07:35
throw you out they were forcing us out
00:07:37
really and they would tell us you don't
00:07:41
sell we're gonna condemn your property
00:07:44
you won't get anything out of it so that
00:07:46
scared us a lot of people think the
00:07:50
Housing Authority as a public entity has
00:07:53
the right to buy your home they'll pay
00:07:57
you a fair market value and then you are
00:08:01
required to sell that's the power that
00:08:03
we had and I prepared a certificate to
00:08:06
every family so I visited there and I
00:08:08
visited all those people saying when the
00:08:10
project is built you and your family
00:08:12
will be the first priority together you
00:08:14
can pick the part of the project you
00:08:15
want living that never happened
00:08:17
they never build anything like that they
00:08:20
did went ahead and build a Dodger
00:08:21
Stadium and Richard Nitro and Robert
00:08:26
Alexander were picked as the architects
00:08:29
for the site and they worked for months
00:08:31
designing writing doing beautiful plans
00:08:34
as we had playgrounds Church fueled
00:08:37
everything we were completely idealistic
00:08:41
I'm feeling that what we were offering
00:08:43
was better good for the city of LA but
00:08:46
good for the people who were being
00:08:48
displaced we were gonna have first crack
00:08:51
at moving into those projects now if you
00:08:54
could imagine a hundred acres of lush
00:08:56
green beautiful hills and a handful of
00:08:59
Mexicans living there with vegetable
00:09:01
gardens and a few pigs and goats and a
00:09:04
little church and you know being all
00:09:06
condensed in a little postage sized
00:09:09
tenement it just doesn't make any sense
00:09:11
it simply doesn't wash
00:09:13
we were ripped off
00:09:15
my dad made a mistake you know the guys
00:09:19
from the city came and knocked on the
00:09:20
door and they offered him 9600 so my dad
00:09:25
said wow you know I really made some
00:09:29
money you know I've made a killing
00:09:30
that's what he thought so when we moved
00:09:33
out of there and my dad had to buy
00:09:36
another house
00:09:37
they were 9,600 there were 15 17 18
00:09:42
thousand dollars they didn't want to
00:09:46
move
00:09:46
they didn't want to lose their friends
00:09:48
they didn't want to lose their homes
00:09:50
that they built from nothing some people
00:09:56
didn't move you know the story about
00:09:57
what happened there but the majority the
00:10:00
people moved when they got their initial
00:10:02
papers because they didn't think that
00:10:04
there was a way to fight it our
00:10:09
community our Vario was well represented
00:10:12
in world war ii and some of our GIS
00:10:15
veterans were coming home from the wars
00:10:17
and at that time that we're getting the
00:10:19
news that the people were gonna be out
00:10:22
rooted from the neighborhood and I
00:10:24
remember my uncle meeting with some of
00:10:27
these war veterans in front of my
00:10:29
grandma's house it says there's a bunch
00:10:32
of [ __ ] what they're trying to do to
00:10:33
our parents and to us our government was
00:10:37
good enough to take us out of our
00:10:39
neighborhood to fight a a war we come
00:10:42
home to what to find out that they're
00:10:45
gonna outdo us from my neighborhood does
00:10:47
a bunch of bull
00:10:49
[Music]
00:11:04
[Music]
00:11:05
meeting over the leisure park with the
00:11:09
city officials and community people and
00:11:13
my grandma got up you know and she says
00:11:16
he says you don't have no right to in
00:11:18
Spanish right he says you know I have no
00:11:20
right to buy us out or kick us out of
00:11:22
our neighborhood none of my kids learned
00:11:24
of my credential were raised and born
00:11:26
here and then she says besides you
00:11:30
bastard
00:11:31
my son died for my property can you
00:11:35
replace my son then she started crying
00:11:38
that was it it was very sad that we had
00:11:41
to move away cuz we were like a big
00:11:43
family and a lot of my friends were
00:11:49
there too my cousins and the one that
00:11:53
really heard me a lot was my grandmother
00:11:56
she we work very closely my father
00:12:01
bought property out in Lincoln Heights
00:12:03
and she couldn't go with us because we
00:12:06
were too many
00:12:10
I remember looking at my house I knew I
00:12:14
wasn't gonna see it again I just looked
00:12:17
at it once and I can I reduced to look
00:12:20
at it again because I knew I was gonna
00:12:22
break down my mother was already all
00:12:25
broken and she needed somebody to be
00:12:28
strong for her my father built that out
00:12:32
I was born there
00:12:35
it had a vine growing and it covered all
00:12:40
the roof in the in the front and in
00:12:42
spring it looked like it was wearing a
00:12:45
white crown so we moved away it was gone
00:12:53
and you know I've never felt about any
00:12:58
other house the way I felt about that
00:13:01
one
00:13:04
[Music]
00:13:07
by August 1952 palo verde la loma and
00:13:11
bishop had become ghost towns the city's
00:13:14
acquisition of the land designated for
00:13:15
the housing site was nearly complete
00:13:17
condemnation proceedings were underway
00:13:20
against a few property owners who still
00:13:22
held out it was in one of these hearings
00:13:25
that the Elysian Park Heights housing
00:13:27
project was dealt an unexpected blow we
00:13:31
had a tremendous support for the program
00:13:33
pretty well finished engineering and the
00:13:34
architecture worked the only people who
00:13:36
were opposing it or what is commonly
00:13:39
called the real estate Lobby was headed
00:13:41
up by the apartment house owners
00:13:42
association and other people like that
00:13:45
they called it creeping socialism they
00:13:48
were trying to discredit it every way
00:13:50
every way they could had petitions and
00:13:52
initiatives to try to kill the program
00:13:55
we should have been more suspicious than
00:13:58
we were as I remember it was a very
00:14:03
large site it was vacant land but the
00:14:06
owner of that property was a prominent
00:14:09
business person downtown LA and he
00:14:13
demanded I think $100,000 and we were
00:14:17
fighting for them over value he wanted
00:14:19
as much as he could get when out of
00:14:22
nowhere this Reuter for the property
00:14:26
owner turned to me and said now mr.
00:14:31
Wilkinson I want to ask you what
00:14:37
organizations political or otherwise
00:14:41
have you belong to this is 1931 he
00:14:46
didn't say are you a communist
00:14:48
he said what have you belong to I just
00:14:50
turned to the judge and said I refuse to
00:14:53
answer that question everyone any lawyer
00:14:56
would admit is it done irrelevant and
00:14:58
immaterial if that man had said that
00:15:00
word I would still be here today and the
00:15:03
project would have been built but my
00:15:06
lawyer said nothing not a word he's just
00:15:08
pale white he told me later Frank if I
00:15:12
had objected to that question people
00:15:15
would have known that I mean he was the
00:15:17
communist cuz I have
00:15:18
check to that place I said what about me
00:15:21
he said well you have a problem to one
00:15:25
of the top communist agents assigned to
00:15:28
operation abolition his Frank Wilkinson
00:15:31
recently convicted for contempt of
00:15:34
Congress for refusal to answer questions
00:15:37
concerning his communist party
00:15:39
membership and activities I listened to
00:15:42
this interview closely because in it you
00:15:44
will hear Frank Wilkinson a communist
00:15:47
agent explain his communist jargon in
00:15:51
the committee hearings today you were
00:15:52
called an international communist agent
00:15:54
are you a communist until they have
00:15:56
resolved this matter and declared these
00:15:59
kind of questions under compulsion to be
00:16:02
illegal and unconstitutional I've
00:16:05
refused to answer the questions away
00:16:07
from the committee just as I refused to
00:16:09
answer them correctly to the committee
00:16:11
what I've been told that was fired you
00:16:18
know I'm out destroyed destroyed
00:16:21
neutralized this way the FBI list says I
00:16:24
was successfully neutralized me crews of
00:16:28
television people arrived at the
00:16:29
courtroom walked in to take pictures of
00:16:31
those being mayor Bowen was removed he
00:16:36
would have been a shoo-in
00:16:36
in 1953 if this was very important the
00:16:39
press at the time another paper
00:16:41
crusading against the mayor powerin was
00:16:43
wiped out and the new mayor Norris
00:16:45
Poulson came in and started the
00:16:47
negotiations to turn the site not back
00:16:51
to the people but to turn over to Walter
00:16:53
O'Malley and the bushland Dodgers we
00:16:57
spent millions of dollars came ready for
00:16:59
it and the Dodgers picked it up for just
00:17:01
a fraction of that it it was just a
00:17:04
tragedy for the people and for the city
00:17:09
it was a most hypocritical thing he was
00:17:11
possibly happen the city promising you a
00:17:14
decent home for refusing to answer the
00:17:17
questions of the house on American
00:17:18
Activities Committee Frank Wilkinson
00:17:20
spent a year in jail it was the
00:17:23
beginning of Frank's own legal battle
00:17:24
against the FBI which had targeted Frank
00:17:27
as part of a deliberate effort to
00:17:29
destroy the nation's public housing
00:17:31
grams our lawsuit started in 1980 lasted
00:17:37
12 years it's lost hope and love the law
00:17:39
firm who represented me cost him a
00:17:41
million dollars in pro bono money it was
00:17:44
an ACLU test case and we finally won our
00:17:47
winning that we get a hundred and thirty
00:17:49
two thousand pages on my life from 42 to
00:17:53
80 and in the Hearst destroyer
00:17:57
self-esteem
00:18:07
Here Come Mario Mario
00:18:13
so right Louganis party
00:18:16
[Music]
00:18:27
so locator losses good
00:18:33
little Sargeras babies
00:18:36
[Music]
00:18:58
Sallu llama yeah buddy
00:19:03
[Music]
00:19:38
see that trees over there yeah it's just
00:19:41
this hill right they don't get down see
00:19:43
in the stadiums see this hill and for
00:19:46
the stadium sit
00:19:46
we're looking right there down at the
00:19:48
bottom the parking that they had a lower
00:19:58
the hill so they can have room for the
00:20:01
stadium see so they Lord they lowered
00:20:05
the hill and that dirt covered the whole
00:20:08
valley the pull of ready school it was a
00:20:14
Grammar School it was a two-story
00:20:15
building they took the roof off the
00:20:19
school you know on the floors and
00:20:21
everything and just left the walls and
00:20:24
they just fill it with dirt and
00:20:25
eventually covered it so in a thousand
00:20:30
years somebody's gonna start digging
00:20:32
they're gonna find a school now
00:20:37
when I saw the bulldozers moving the
00:20:41
land I said you know I'm never gonna go
00:20:43
see a Dodger game though I was a Dodger
00:20:46
fan I went to one reunion and they
00:20:52
handed the Dodgers olive branches
00:20:54
symbolically
00:20:55
I was two months old when the Dodgers
00:21:00
moved to Los Angeles just wanted to
00:21:03
clarify I was I was two months old and
00:21:05
and honestly when we started working
00:21:08
with the community I didn't understand
00:21:11
what took place 40 years ago I didn't
00:21:14
understand what happened in the
00:21:15
communities here and and I think the
00:21:18
lack of understanding on the part of the
00:21:21
Dodgers was was perceived as a lack of
00:21:23
caring what what kind of crap is that we
00:21:27
give you a [ __ ] olive branch it just
00:21:29
pisses me off
00:21:31
that's a beautiful steel I love the
00:21:33
Dodgers I'm a fan of them now always
00:21:40
hopefully someday I was working safe to
00:21:41
steal there's a helper character who
00:21:44
never made it
00:21:50
what is well what if they would succeed
00:21:53
it with a project that they want to put
00:21:54
there
00:21:55
you think we will still be there that I
00:21:58
have some but you know it is that
00:22:00
something that we'll never know all we
00:22:03
know is that we were uprooted from our
00:22:04
neighborhood and we went our separate
00:22:07
ways the really sad thing is that so
00:22:13
many of us don't know each other we've
00:22:16
all gone and we've done our things but
00:22:18
it's like on a vacuum it's like we lost
00:22:20
our brothers we lost our sisters
00:22:22
so there's generations of people that
00:22:24
will never know that they did know each
00:22:27
other
00:22:30
a lot of time passed I think it's about
00:22:35
a dozen years and by then Dodger Stadium
00:22:38
is built I was in town working
00:22:40
photographing on assignment and I
00:22:43
thought I would go visit the old
00:22:44
neighborhood I was driving up these
00:22:47
roads and I kept running into Dodger
00:22:49
Stadium and I just couldn't figure it
00:22:51
out and I thought there it must still be
00:22:54
there if I could find the right Road to
00:22:56
get in but I never could find the right
00:22:58
Road
00:23:00
[Music]
00:23:32
you
