STEALING HOME RY COODER'S 'CHAVEZ RAVINE' ALBUM IS THE LATEST PROJECT EXPLORING THE HUMAN COST OF BUILDING DODGER STADIUM.

Byline: Fred Shuster Music Writer

More than 50 years on, the municipal land grab at Chavez Ravine remains an open wound for some Los Angeles residents who vow never to forget the tight-knit Mexican-American village uprooted and bulldozed into dust in the name of urban renewal.

The true story of how downtown officials used the power of eminent domain to clear Chavez Ravine of its three barrios - Palo Verde, La Loma and Bishop - for what eventually became Dodger Stadium still rankles. And it's especially timely in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision that local governments have the authority to seize private land, not just slums, and hand that property to private developers for economic development.

To be fair, there were probably some tendrils of good intentions at the root of the Chavez Ravine calamity explored in three remarkable projects - Ry Cooder's new ``Chavez Ravine'' album, a PBS documentary titled ``Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story'' and in Don Normark's book of photographs he took of the enclave in 1949.

But the tangled string of back-room deals leading to a home run for both the Dodgers organization and the tax collector has left a bitter taste in some mouths.

``I bump into families on a regular basis that will never attend a Dodgers game because they are so resentful of what happened during that period of time,'' said Gloria Molina, chairwoman of the county Board of Supervisors.

The Chavez Ravine creative projects, along with a musical performed by the Latino comedy group Culture Clash at the Mark Taper Forum in 2003, reveal a self-sufficient shantytown built on 300 acres a stone's throw from downtown and the Pasadena Freeway, a rare example of small-town life within a large urban metropolis. For decades, residents ran their own schools and churches and grew their own food before the death knell started in 1949, when postwar money was granted for thousands of new housing units. But instead of low-cost housing, a 56,000-seat stadium was ultimately carved into the hilltop.

``The ways in which this community ceased to exist almost overnight is compelling and frightening,'' said filmmaker Jordan Mechner, who wrote and directed the half-hour ``Chavez Ravine'' documentary, which was narrated by Cheech Marin, scored by Cooder and shown recently on PBS' ``Independent Lens'' series.

It was Normark's poignant book, published in 1999 by Chronicle, and Mechner's resulting film that sparked Cooder's acclaimed musical project, issued last month by Nonesuch Records. The album casts veteran Chicano singers and players in an intriguing song cycle evoking the times and political maneuvering that razed the ravine and brought the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles. With Thee Midnighters vocalist Little Willie G., late Pachuco patriarchs Don Tosti and Lalo Guerrero, and accordionist Flaco Jimenez on board, Cooder's tuneful, frequently danceable album is a lot more fun than it might sound to the uninitiated.

``It's a new day in Los Angeles,'' said singer-guitarist Cooder, a Santa Monica native. ``Chavez Ravine couldn't happen now. We've got a Latino mayor, and with so much light shed on the workings of government - people are a lot more hip to what's going on. The handoff that took place, the way they got around the issue of public land, couldn't take place so blatantly today.''

The Chavez Ravine eviction, beginning in July 1950 when residents of the canyon received letters from the city telling them that they would have to sell their homes in order to make way for the proposed Elysian Park Heights, got scant media coverage at the time. Some homeowners relocated, but others resisted and were labeled squatters; most received little or no compensation for their property.

By summer 1952, a decade before the $23 million ballpark opened, Chavez Ravine was essentially a ghost town, and in the ensuing years, the houses were sold, auctioned and even set ablaze, used as practice sites by the local fire department. After a highly political battle connected to the 1955 mayoral election, the original low-cost housing plan for the site was abandoned.

Legend has it that when Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley was negotiating with the city of Los Angeles in 1957 over the deal that would take the Dodgers out of Brooklyn, he and a county supervisor took a helicopter ride over Los Angeles to look for potential stadium sites. Flying over the empty 300-acre lot at Chavez Ravine, surrounded by freeways and within sight of the downtown skyline, O'Malley is said to have pointed and asked, ``Can I have that one?''

The supervisor replied, ``No problem.''

Normark's photos, which appear in Mechner's film and in Cooder's CD package, capture the last enchanting images of a romanticized ``poor man's Shangri-La.''

``I remember being so surprised when I first stumbled on the place in '49, finding the little homes on dirt roads overlooking downtown,'' said Normark, who tracked down and interviewed surviving former residents for his ``Chavez Ravine, 1949'' book. ``I spent a year there, getting to know the people and taking pictures. They had no idea of the upheaval to come, and I had no idea what had actually happened there until years later.''

Although Cooder was not even 10 when the evictions began, he recalls newspaper photos of bulldozers tearing up the canyon's ramshackle homes under the banner of ``progress,'' while residents threw rocks at the drivers. One vivid song on ``Chavez Ravine'' is sung from the viewpoint of a truck driver (``It's Just Work to Me'').

``I wanted to point out that the bulldozers were driven by poor white truckers who were really no different from the people they were displacing,'' Cooder said.

Although some say Chavez Ravine represents the dawn of Latino political awareness in Los Angeles, East L.A. singer Willie Garcia, who sings throughout the album, said most evictions were carried out in the dead of night with police standing by and reporters kept at bay.

``It was difficult to rally the troops, so to speak,'' he said. ``It was very painful and unbelievable to think we were living in America, and seeing this happen. Television was in its infancy, but I still remember very graphic black-and-white footage of bulldozers, National Guard, LAPD - and the faces of little old ladies and families, the pain etched on their faces as they were being removed from their property.''

Considering this harsh imagery, it was ironic for several reasons when the county Board of Supervisors honored Cooder with a civic proclamation in mid-June to commemorate the release of an album ``chronicling the tragic and largely forgotten postwar history of the Chavez Ravine neighborhoods of East Los Angeles'' - a tragic history set in motion within those very county hallways.

Irony mounted when it was realized that the Board's chambers were named for Kenneth Hahn, the supervisor who frequently trumpeted that he helped grease the wheels that brought the Dodgers to L.A. in the wake of the Chavez Ravine scandal. And in yet another coincidence, it was Hahn's son, James Hahn, who lost the mayoral election to Antonio Villaraigosa, the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles since 1872.

As Cooder and a handful of musicians from the ``Chavez Ravine'' album crowded before the Board's podium, there was no attempt to obscure what took place 50 years ago just a couple of miles away.

``Let's not forget what happened ... as a reminder to all of us that hopefully we'll never let it happen again,'' Molina said. ``We need to respect the values of people who live in our community, understand their property rights and, more importantly, understand the kind of impact (the power of eminent domain) has on these neighborhoods ... and the destruction it creates.''

Something to chew on during the seventh-inning stretch.

Fred Shuster, [phone]

fred.shuster(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

5 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Looking back on CHAVEZ RAVINE

The uprooting of the Mexican-American community, remembered in song, film and photos

(2) Don Normark's photographs of Chavez Ravine in 1949 include this shot of a man looking over the Pasadena Freeway toward Los Angeles City Hall.

(3 -- 4) Ry Cooder, whose new album tells the story of the uprooted residents

(5) Both Sanita Munoz and her doll seem to have their guard up in this photo from Don Normark, one of many he took of Chavez Ravine and its residents in 1949.