Rating: 
Summary: First-rate photography, and a window into a vanished world
Review: As a long-time resident of LA (though not a native), one hears the occasional whisper about Chavez Ravine. It's widely known that Dodger Stadium was built atop these old neighborhoods, in millions of cubic yards of landfill.Oh, but at what a price. Normark, who says in his introduction that he grew up in a town in Washington state peopled by Swedish immigrants that felt similar to these three warm communities, was in exactly the right place, at the right time, to capture on film the places and the homes and the people who lived in them that we now know were doomed to either be destroyed (the buildings) or ripped from their roots (the people). His black and white photographs, made on a knockoff of a Rollei in medium format, have the tonal range very typical of this period -- all those fine shades of black and white that film noir fans should love. But the people he's illustrating aren't sinister like those movies at all. They're deeply human, alive, a family both "nuclear" and extended. You see a young girl, her Sunday dress on, a soft smile on her lips, with a book titled "Enchanting Stories" on her lap. You see games of stickball in the street. Confirmations at the church. Families at their meals. Goats grazing on the grassy hills. All this in a small community maybe two or three miles, at most, to the northeast of LA City Hall. These pictures are married to the recent reminiscences, like the other reviews here, of both former Ravine residents and their families. Seeing this book, one understands why, 50 years later, Los Desterrados -- the Uprooted -- have a picnic every year in Elysian Park, just behind their former homes. The most haunting image, in some ways, for me: Palo Verde School. It wasn't razed for Dodger Stadium. The roof was taken off, and then the landfill came along. So the school is still there, buried under the Stadium somewhere. So if any of my fellow Dodger fans ever hear kids playing in a schoolyard as we walk back to our parked cars... It might be well to listen to those voices just a bit more closely. And look to this book to see the children's faces.
Rating:
Summary: First-rate photography, and a window into a vanished world
Review: As a long-time resident of LA (though not a native), one hears the occasional whisper about Chavez Ravine. It's widely known that Dodger Stadium was built atop these old neighborhoods, in millions of cubic yards of landfill. Oh, but at what a price. Normark, who says in his introduction that he grew up in a town in Washington state peopled by Swedish immigrants that felt similar to these three warm communities, was in exactly the right place, at the right time, to capture on film the places and the homes and the people who lived in them that we now know were doomed to either be destroyed (the buildings) or ripped from their roots (the people). His black and white photographs, made on a knockoff of a Rollei in medium format, have the tonal range very typical of this period -- all those fine shades of black and white that film noir fans should love. But the people he's illustrating aren't sinister like those movies at all. They're deeply human, alive, a family both "nuclear" and extended. You see a young girl, her Sunday dress on, a soft smile on her lips, with a book titled "Enchanting Stories" on her lap. You see games of stickball in the street. Confirmations at the church. Families at their meals. Goats grazing on the grassy hills. All this in a small community maybe two or three miles, at most, to the northeast of LA City Hall. These pictures are married to the recent reminiscences, like the other reviews here, of both former Ravine residents and their families. Seeing this book, one understands why, 50 years later, Los Desterrados -- the Uprooted -- have a picnic every year in Elysian Park, just behind their former homes. The most haunting image, in some ways, for me: Palo Verde School. It wasn't razed for Dodger Stadium. The roof was taken off, and then the landfill came along. So the school is still there, buried under the Stadium somewhere. So if any of my fellow Dodger fans ever hear kids playing in a schoolyard as we walk back to our parked cars... It might be well to listen to those voices just a bit more closely. And look to this book to see the children's faces.
Rating: 
Summary: Lost Community
Review: It makes me so proud to see my Dad's old Mexican-American community captured in a book of photos. It's great to see my Aunt Sally Anchando quoted in the book. I recently saw my Aunts and Uncles who lived in Chavez Ravine (unfortunately, it was after my Mom's funeral). They passed around the book and talked about old times. I will pass this book on to my children, neices, and nephews so that they don't forget that their forefathers sacraficed a lot to create a better life for themselves and those who followed.
Rating:
Summary: Lost Community
Review: It makes me so proud to see my Dad's old Mexican-American community captured in a book of photos. It's great to see my Aunt Sally Anchando quoted in the book. I recently saw my Aunts and Uncles who lived in Chavez Ravine (unfortunately, it was after my Mom's funeral). They passed around the book and talked about old times. I will pass this book on to my children, neices, and nephews so that they don't forget that their forefathers sacraficed a lot to create a better life for themselves and those who followed.
Rating:
Summary: Brought my father's childhood stories to life!
Review: My father, Albert Elias (born - Los Angeles General Hospital in 1931), always told us stories of his childhood. It seemed unbelievable, to live so close to downtown Los Angeles, and yet he remembers running through the hills, trees, and swimming in the L.A. river! Every chance he had as we would drive through that area he would point out landmarks of his youth. We could only imagine, because all we could see was the Dodger Stadium, the parking lots, the freeways, and as for the "river"... to us it was a cemented canal. This book made me cry to see how truly beautiful this area once was, the harsh reality of the poverty, yet the incredible strength of the families that had the fortunate opportunity to experience living in the Chavez Ravine. How wonderful that Don Normark found this wonderland, and photographed it so well as a young man, and now like a miracle, fifty years later Don presents us with a museum quality photography books that tells a powerful story. We the readers can almost hear the "echos" of these neighborhoods in the L.A. hills through the incredible, hauntingly beautiful photographs, and relive the memories from those who once use to live there. This book made me feel extremely proud of my heritage.
Rating:
Summary: Brought my father's childhood stories to life!
Review: My father, Albert Elias (born - Los Angeles General Hospital in 1931), always told us stories of his childhood. It seemed unbelievable, to live so close to downtown Los Angeles, and yet he remembers running through the hills, trees, and swimming in the L.A. river! Every chance he had as we would drive through that area he would point out landmarks of his youth. We could only imagine, because all we could see was the Dodger Stadium, the parking lots, the freeways, and as for the "river"... to us it was a cemented canal. This book made me cry to see how truly beautiful this area once was, the harsh reality of the poverty, yet the incredible strength of the families that had the fortunate opportunity to experience living in the Chavez Ravine. How wonderful that Don Normark found this wonderland, and photographed it so well as a young man, and now like a miracle, fifty years later Don presents us with a museum quality photography books that tells a powerful story. We the readers can almost hear the "echos" of these neighborhoods in the L.A. hills through the incredible, hauntingly beautiful photographs, and relive the memories from those who once use to live there. This book made me feel extremely proud of my heritage.
Rating:
Summary: California noir
Review: Nestled in the hills between downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena is Chávez Ravine, site of Dodger Stadium and its acres of parking lots. Few baseball fans here could tell you that long before the Dodgers left Brooklyn, Chávez Ravine was the home of three communities of Mexican-American laborers and their families. Don Normark, a young photographer in 1948, was climbing in the hills looking for postcard-shot views of LA when he discovered La Loma, Palo Verde, and Bishop. Each neighborhood was a rambling cluster of buildings, dirt streets, and footpaths. The wooded slopes of Elysian Park overlooked the ravine, and beyond were the peaks of the San Gabriel Mountains. He felt he had found another world -- a kind of Shangri-La. For many months, he returned to take pictures of what he saw and of the people he met there. He didn't know that he was recording on film the daily life of a place and its people that was about to disappear. The pictures, of course, are black and white, a rich range of gray tones and contrasts under the cloudless southern California sky. In a casual street scene, two men stand talking on the hard dirt, and a third, his back to them, leans across a low concrete wall. All is in sharp focus from the dusty tire track in the foreground to the pointed tower of City Hall nudging up over a darkly wooded ridge in the distance. The mid-afternoon light reflects brightly off one man's tee shirt and from the front of a small white house farther on. Meanwhile, the shadows cast by eaves, palm fronds, parked cars, and the men themselves are deeply dark. There are many pictures of people, of all ages. Some look into the camera. Most are busy working, walking, talking, playing. A young girl wears her confirmation dress. A boy watches his father repair a car. Two men spar under branches thick with bougainvillea blossoms. An iceman stands in an open gateway, tongs slung over one shoulder. A young woman arranges flowers on an altar. A workman returns home along a winding footpath at the end of the day (see book jacket above). Fifty years later, Normark gathered together his pictures and began looking for the people who had once lived in Chávez Ravine. This book is an album of those pictures, with commentary by the people he found, in their own words. Normark writes simply and clearly about himself and his experiences. Like his photographs, his writing style is sharply focused. In the opening pages of the book, he describes the forced relocation of the people of Chávez Ravine during the Fifties, and the various public and private interests contending for control of its development. Normark's book is both handsome and beautifully written, a fine example of text and image illuminating each other.
Rating:
Summary: California noir
Review: Nestled in the hills between downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena is Chávez Ravine, site of Dodger Stadium and its acres of parking lots. Few baseball fans here could tell you that long before the Dodgers left Brooklyn, Chávez Ravine was the home of three communities of Mexican-American laborers and their families. Don Normark, a young photographer in 1948, was climbing in the hills looking for postcard-shot views of LA when he discovered La Loma, Palo Verde, and Bishop. Each neighborhood was a rambling cluster of buildings, dirt streets, and footpaths. The wooded slopes of Elysian Park overlooked the ravine, and beyond were the peaks of the San Gabriel Mountains. He felt he had found another world -- a kind of Shangri-La. For many months, he returned to take pictures of what he saw and of the people he met there. He didn't know that he was recording on film the daily life of a place and its people that was about to disappear. The pictures, of course, are black and white, a rich range of gray tones and contrasts under the cloudless southern California sky. In a casual street scene, two men stand talking on the hard dirt, and a third, his back to them, leans across a low concrete wall. All is in sharp focus from the dusty tire track in the foreground to the pointed tower of City Hall nudging up over a darkly wooded ridge in the distance. The mid-afternoon light reflects brightly off one man's tee shirt and from the front of a small white house farther on. Meanwhile, the shadows cast by eaves, palm fronds, parked cars, and the men themselves are deeply dark. There are many pictures of people, of all ages. Some look into the camera. Most are busy working, walking, talking, playing. A young girl wears her confirmation dress. A boy watches his father repair a car. Two men spar under branches thick with bougainvillea blossoms. An iceman stands in an open gateway, tongs slung over one shoulder. A young woman arranges flowers on an altar. A workman returns home along a winding footpath at the end of the day (see book jacket above). Fifty years later, Normark gathered together his pictures and began looking for the people who had once lived in Chávez Ravine. This book is an album of those pictures, with commentary by the people he found, in their own words. Normark writes simply and clearly about himself and his experiences. Like his photographs, his writing style is sharply focused. In the opening pages of the book, he describes the forced relocation of the people of Chávez Ravine during the Fifties, and the various public and private interests contending for control of its development. Normark's book is both handsome and beautifully written, a fine example of text and image illuminating each other.
Rating:
Summary: Chavez Ravine, 1949 A Los Angeles Story
Review: Recapture your past! On Christmas Morning Six of us and our 92 year old Mother, Anita Salas, recaptured our youth and enjoyed the Photos of old friends in old times. La Loma, Palo Verde and Bishop are communities long forgotten in Los Angeles. In the memories of people who were born and raised there the Author recorded historical precious moments, which can be relived. It was the best Christmas Present I have ever given my brothers and sisters. A valuable record for any historian about this small enclave.
Rating:
Summary: Chavez Ravine, 1949 A Los Angeles Story
Review: Recapture your past! On Christmas Morning Six of us and our 92 year old Mother, Anita Salas, recaptured our youth and enjoyed the Photos of old friends in old times. La Loma, Palo Verde and Bishop are communities long forgotten in Los Angeles. In the memories of people who were born and raised there the Author recorded historical precious moments, which can be relived. It was the best Christmas Present I have ever given my brothers and sisters. A valuable record for any historian about this small enclave.
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