The Dodger Stadium Story

1. The Dodger Stadium Story

2. Dodger's Game! This Saturday we are going to a Dodger's baseball game in Los Angeles. The Dodger stadium is very, very large. It covers 315 acres which is about the size of five Dunn School campuses. The stadium can seat 56,000 people !

3. Stadium History Built in 1962, the Dodger Stadium is the third oldest stadium in Major League Baseball. It is set in a beautiful location—Chavez Ravine—that overlooks downtown LA to the south and the San Gabriel mountains to the north.  Every stadium takes a lot of money, energy and planning to build, but the Dodger Stadium's history has a sad side to it.

4. The Community Before the stadium was built, there was an tight-knit Mexican-American community in Chavez Ravine. Most people had lived with their families in the area for 40 years or more.  The community was very healthy and happy. Chavez Ravine was different from other places in Los Angeles because it felt like the countryside: people grew gardens, had chickens, herded sheep, and were friendly with their neighbors.

5. LA was Changing • But many people living in Los Angeles did not appreciate the community. They thought the area was poor and old. They wanted to build new buildings to make Los Angeles a "world-class" city like New York.

6. Forced Out The city of Los Angeles decided to tear down people's houses so they could build new apartment buildings. They tried to convince people to move out of their homes. When people did not want to move, the governmenttricked or forced people to move. The city promised people that they would have new homes…but the new housing was never built. Many people who moved out of Chavez Ravine were left homeless. Their neighborhood was destroyed.

7. Fighting Back The people of Chavez Ravine fought the Los Angeles government for a long time. But they did not win. In the end, 1,200 families had to move, and their homes were destroyed. Their schools were torn down and people had to move away from their friends. For some families, it took three generations to recover from being driven out of their home.

8. No New Housing Although there were plans to build new housing, the housing was never built. Instead, the city of Los Angeles decided to give the land to the Dodgers to build a stadium.

9. People Remember People who were forced to leave their homes were very angry. Some of the people whose homes were destroyed have never attended a Dodger's game, and the sad story of how people were evicted from their homes is still told in many families today.

10. Things to Think About What did the stadium bring to the city of Los Angeles that was more important than the community's needs? Why is this story significant? Describe another example of a government over-riding a community's needs. Can you think of a solution that would have been better for everyone? Describe your solution.

11. Things to Think About 2 If you were a city planner, what kinds of things do you need to consider in order to take care of everyone's needs? Do you think the Chavez Ravine community would have survived if the new housing had been built?

12. Sources http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/chavezravine/cr.html http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/2009/05/eric-avila-is-an-associate-professor-of-chicano-studies-history-and-urban-planning-at-ucla-his-book-popular-culture-in-the.html http://articles.latimes.com/print/2008/mar/29/sports/sp-ravine29