Where Is Chavez Ravine, Exactly? | KCET
Title
Where Is Chavez Ravine, Exactly?
Chavez Ravine does exist.
More about Chavez Ravine
Glance at the USGS' topographic map of Los Angeles, and you'll find a narrow canyon labeled "Chavez Ravine," a steep-walled arroyo that arcs down from the highlands of Elysian Park toward the floodplain of the Los Angeles River.
And yet, most Angelenos are unaware of this canyon – or at least its name.
For many, "Chavez Ravine" recalls a night of baseball under a warm Los Angeles sky; it was the only name a proud Los Angeles Angels team used for Dodger Stadium, their temporary home from 1962 to 1965. To others, the words "Chavez Ravine" recall news photographs of four sheriff's deputies dragging a defiant Aurora Arechiga Vargas out of her family's condemned Malvina Avenue home. And for a few surviving residents, "Chavez Ravine" brings to mind that bucolic-Mexican American community -- actually three distinct neighborhoods named Bishop, La Loma, and Palo Verde -- nestled in the Elysian Hills.
But despite their strong associations with the name, none of those memories is located in the actual landform known as Chavez Ravine. Instead, the neighborhoods of Bishop, La Loma, and Palo Verde (as well as the stadium that replaced them) actually occupied two adjacent ravines of their own -- canyons that early maps refer to as Sulphur Ravine and Cemetery Ravine.
And so when earthmovers buried Chavez Ravine the community beneath a million tons of rock, dirt, and Bermuda grass, they spared Chavez Ravine the canyon.
The ravine formed millions of years ago as an ancestral stream channel of the Los Angeles River, according to unpublished research by USC geologist James Dolan. After tectonic uplift forced the river around the Elysian Hills, the channel became a dry arroyo. The ravine acquired its name in more recent times, soon after the city granted 82 acres of nearby real estate to Julian Chaves [also Chavez] in 1844.
Past generations of Angelenos knew Chavez Ravine well as the home of the city's first arboretum (1893); then a sanatorium for tubercular patients (1902); and later still a naval reserve armory (1940).
So how did a city forget about a canyon with such a storied past?
In part, we can blame its present-day anonymity on confusion between the canyon and the nearby community that shared its name. Sometime after the first residential tract was subdivided in 1904, the community borrowed the name of the nearby canyon. (Presumably, real estate developers did not like the sound of "Sulphur Ravine.") But Angelenos were still aware of the canyon named Chavez Ravine, clearly marked on street maps by the path of Chavez Ravine Road.
Was there also a more willful forgetfulness at work? Dodger Stadium was meant to be a proud civic achievement, a modern baseball palace that signaled L.A.'s arrival as a big-league city. Images of bulldozers and forced evictions, broadcast by sympathetic news media, threatened to sour the moment. Perhaps not coincidentally, the city quietly erased references to Chavez Ravine -- both the neighborhood and the canyon -- even after bulldozers had turned the last of the houses to rubble. In March 1962, mere weeks before the first crowds poured into Dodger Stadium, the city replaced street signs along Chavez Ravine Road. When the new signs went up, they announced a new road name: Stadium Way.
Support the Articles you Love
We are dedicated to providing you with articles like this one. Show your support with a tax-deductible contribution to KCET. After all, public media is meant for the public. It belongs to all of us.
Keep Reading
-
After the screening, KCET Cinema Series host Pete Hammond sat down with director Jay Roach.
-
The U.S. currently incarcerates more people per capita than any other nation in the world. Police forces and school systems are beginning to use diversion tactics to redirect young people away from criminal records.
-
A Q&A will immediately follow the screening with editor Joel Cox and Supervising Sound Editor Alan Murray.
-
Three of KCET'S Original series were honored by the LA Press Club at the 2019 National Arts and Entertainment Awards.
- ‹ previous
- 2 of 225
- next ›
Full Episodes
-
Lost L.A.
Lost L.A.
S4 E6: Shindana Toy Company - Changing the American Doll Industry
Season 4, Episode 6
Explore the lasting impact of the Shindana Toy Company, created out of the need for community empowerment following the 1965 Watts uprising, whose ethnically correct black dolls forever changed the American doll industry.
-
Lost L.A.
Lost L.A.
S3 E1: Yosemite
Season 3, Episode 1
This episode explores how Yosemite has changed over time: from a land maintained by indigenous peoples; to its emergence as a tourist attraction; to the site of conflict over humanity’s relationship with nature.
-
Lost L.A.
Lost L.A.
S3 E2: Desert Fantasy
Season 3, Episode 2
California’s deserts have sparked imaginations around the world. This episode explores the creation of the Salton Sea; the effort to preserve Joshua Tree National Park; and how commercial interests created desert utopias like Palm Springs.
-
Lost L.A.
Lost L.A.
S3 E3: Beach Culture
Season 3, Episode 3
This episode explores how surfers, bodybuilders, and acrobats taught Californians how to have fun and stay young at the beach — and how the 1966 documentary The Endless Summer shared the Southern California idea of the beach with the rest of the world.
-
Lost L.A.
Lost L.A.
S3 E4: Ghost Towns
Season 3, Episode 4
- ‹ previous
- 2 of 5
- next ›
Comments