Chavez Ravine

Product Description In 1949, photographer Don Normark stumbled on Chávez Ravine, a closely-knit Mexican-American village on a hill overlooking downtown Los Angeles. Enchanted, he stayed for a year and took hundreds of photographs, never knowing he was capturing on film the last images of a place that was about to disappear. The following year, the city of L.A. evicted the 300 families of Chávez Ravine to make way for a low-income public housing project. The land was cleared, homes, schools, and church razed to the ground. But the real estate lobby, sensing a great opportunity, accused the LA Housing Authority's Frank Wilkinson of being a communist agent. The city folded and instead of building the promised housing, it sold the land to baseball owner Walter O'Malley, who built Dodger Stadium on the site. Fifty years later, Normark's haunting black-and-white photographs reclaim and celebrate a lost village from a simpler time. Review "Heartfelt... well-shot and sharply edited... it's Mechner's sense of people and place, more than moral outrage, that makes his work compelling. ***" --Microcinemascene "Using historic photographs of the families as well as contemporary interviews -- and with a surprising twist -- Mechner tells a cautionary story of community, deception, and loss." --Full Frame Documentary Film Festival "An eerie foreshadowing of today's 'eminent domain' debate about the use of private property for the public good...this revelation of a shameful episode in Los Angeles history is illustrated with the hauntingly evocative pictures of acclaimed photographer Don Normark...recommended." --Video Librarian
ASIN: B001P90EQ0
VSKU: DBV.B001P90EQ0.G
Condition: Good
Author/Artist:Jordan Mechner|Narrated by Cheech Marin
Binding: Dvd
Note: Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.
Condition Notes: Individually inspected: Guaranteed to play perfectly or your money back. Case may show wear and may be in library packaging. Ships Fast!