Aliso Tree — Los Angeles, rooted in history.
Before the LA riots; before the internment of Japanese-Americans and the massacre of Chinese-Americans; before Slavery; before this land was ever conquered by Spain, Mexico, or the U. S.; before the genocide of Native Americans… millennia after the first humans arrived on the scene, overkilling large mammals to extinction… by the river, within the community of Yang-Na, a sapling sprouted. The sycamore would grow to become a 400-year-old local landmark, called, "El Aliso." Here, a French cooper hybridized the mission grapevine with cuttings from Bordeaux, and together with the terroir, cultivated a vineyard which gave birth to California's wine industry. Indigenous villages and immigrant orchards prepared the ground for what followed: a German brewery; a boxing arena; a mule market; an Edison Electric power station; an artist colony; a gym for indoor rock-climbing; the largest railroad passenger terminal in the Western United States… While the Aliso Tree is no longer standing, it continues to stand for Los Angeles, rooted in history.
"The photographer, Robin Dunitz, was a long time resident of Los Angeles, an independent researcher on the city's murals, and tour director of the Murals Conservancy of Los Angeles. She documented Los Angeles' murals from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. The University of Southern California collection consists of more than 2,000 digitized 35mm slides of murals in Los Angeles photographed by Robin Dunitz."
"Lewis Macadams points toward the ancient smokestack of the Edison Electric Plant. Thick grids of trackage, classification and storage yards, lumber and produce depots, breweries, foundries, and slum housing. Sixty thousand blue-collar workers and their families were crowded in the stretch of downtown between the river and Alameda Street from Elysian Park to Washington Boulevard."
"When owner Walter O’Malley brought his Brooklyn team to Chavez Ravine in 1958, he did not know the historical significance of the site. (Neither do most Angelenos, unless they attended Los Angeles public schools in the 1950s or earlier, when Yang-na history was still being taught... The pobladores from Mexico were the first foreigners to settle here, by the authority of the king of Spain, and the new community was blessed with the Los Angeles name. But Chavez Ravine — the area now occupied by Elysian Park, Dodger Stadium and the Los Angeles Police Academy — was first peopled by the Yang-na Indians."
Aliso Tree — Los Angeles, rooted in history. 