Quote:
Originally Posted by MichaelRyerson
Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality
I recently came across this interesting photograph.
"Hitchhiking Sailors-Los Angeles"
posted by Miss Magnolia Thunderpussy at http://www.ipernity.com/doc/57114/10...rd/989168/self
I believe the impressive building behind the sailors might be the Los Angeles Police Academy in Elysian Park, but I always thought it was fairly secluded.
 So where the heck is this road?
__ |
Well, these two swabbies are trying to hitch a ride with this pretty girl in the 1941 Pontiac westbound on Chavez Ravine Road (now Stadium Way) out in front of, not the Police Academy but, the Navy and Marine Corps Reserve Center. Still there, now in service to the LAFD. |
The Eastsider
Living New Deal
I recalled something about this area with the Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Center that the historic plaque doesn't include, but should have.
This building was completed in 1941 as the nation was about to enter World War II. In 1943, two years after it opened, new recruits armed
with wooden clubs emerged from the compound and swept across the city, beating up young Mexican-American youths dressed in Zoot Suits.
A 70th Anniversary
article on the riots included this account from a then 15-year-old Gene Cabral, who lived near
the naval center in Chavez Ravine:
Cabral’s house was less than two blocks from the Naval Armory where most of the mobs of soldiers began their attacks.
The assaults stunned him and his friends. “I guess all I thought is, ‘What the hell? If I go out there, someone is going to
beat me?’ ” he said. “It didn’t make sense to me. I just stayed in my house with my young mind trying to figure out
what we did wrong.”
Los Angeles Almanac
Only a couple posts about this are on NLA, probably because most of the photos associated with the riot that
I have seen are of individuals and not really location specific, but
mdiederi did a detailed post about the
Sleepy Lagoon Trial and the Zoot Suit Riots, also known as The Sailor Riots:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=2580
Although tensions had been building in L.A. for several reasons, a May 31, 1943, brawl between zoot-suiters
and sailors seems to have been the catalyst for the riots that occurred soon after.
From a book by: Eduardo Obregón Pagán:
The attack on a group of military men that Monday night was the spark that ultimately touched off an explosion of rage.
Around 8:00 P.M. a dozen sailors and soldiers strolled down Main Street, and among them was Seaman Second Class
Joe Dacy Coleman. Near Chinatown the military men spotted a group of young women on the opposite sidewalk, and
most of the men — with the exception of Coleman and a soldier-crossed the street to talk to the women. Coleman
continued ahead, and as he passed a small grouping of zoot-suited boys, he saw, out of the corner of his eye, one of
the boys raising his arm in a manner that looked threatening. The sailor quickly spun around and seized the young
man’s arm. Something struck Coleman on the head from behind, and he fell to the ground unconscious, breaking his jaw
in two places.
Whether the young civilian acted in a threatening manner or not, Coleman clearly made the first aggressive contact
in seizing the young man by the arm, and the other civilian boys responded in kind. On the other side of the street young
civilian men pounced on the servicemen from all directions, seemingly out of nowhere, swinging rocks and bottles and
fists and feet with fury. In the midst of this fusillade the military men managed to fight their way over to where
Coleman lay and drag him off to safety. The triumph of the civilian youths would be short-lived, however, for it would
ultimately provide
the sailors at the armory with all the justification they would need to take the law into their
own hands.
Here's a different look about the Zoot Suit Riots from this interesting article:
War in History of American Fashion
Zoot Suits: The Trend that Sparked a Riot
http://www.shmoop.com/history-american-fashion/war.html
From the article; mention of the Armory:
"Streaming out of the
Naval Armory with weapons that ranged from tire irons to clubs and knives, they prowled
the streets looking for zoot suiters to rough up. They even invaded movie theaters, turning on the house lights in
mid-screening to reveal Chicano youths in the crowd. The mob's first victims, guilty of nothing but bad being in the wrong
place at the wrong time, were twelve- and thirteen-year-old boys who suffered beatings. Mexican-American
adolescents responded the following evening by driving past the
Armory and shouting epithets at the guards.
That night, rampaging sailors caravanned miles across the city, into the heart of the Mexican-American barrios of East
Los Angeles and Boyle Heights, where they indiscriminately assaulted zoot-suited youths."
The following is a great link to a PBS page from a program they did on the riots.
If you click on this map it will take you to a timeline (of about two weeks) and
what happened each of those days as the riots progressed.
JUST CLICK ON THIS
LITTLE MAP TO OPEN IT:
Prev
Linear Mode
