Chavez Ravine, 1949: A Los Angeles Story

In 1949, photographer Don Normark walked up into the hills of Los Angeles, looking for ?a good view. Instead, he found Chávez Ravine, a ramshackle Mexican-American ?neighborhood tucked away in Elysian Park like a "poor man's Shangri-la." Enchanted, he ?stayed for a year in this uniquely intact rural community on the city's outskirts. There, ?Normark photographed a life that, though bowed down by poverty, was lived fully, ?openly, and joyfully. That ended in 1950, when the residents of Chávez Ravine were ?forced to abandon their homes to make way for Dodger Stadium. The past 50 years have ?not erased the memories of the uprooted descendants of Chávez Ravine. This haunting ?book captures their images, their stories, and their bittersweet memories, reclaiming and ?celebrating this lost village from a simpler time.