Authorities have driven out most of the 1,800 families living in the Mexican-American community Chavez Ravine to build a public housing project called Elysian Park Heights to accommodate 17,000 people. But at the peak of anti-communist hysteria, real estate interests, seeing the profits of public housing threatened, carried out a successful campaign to provide financing for opposition groups, calling it “socialist housing.” The project was scratched and Mayor Norris Poulson promised that it would not receive new approvals.
On May 8, 1959, a bulldozer razed the ground and flattened the house.
(Los Angeles Times)
On May 13, 1959, Chavez Ravine residents lived in a trailer and were destroyed by bulldozers.
