AT Shorts: Saving La Placita

Alva Torres describes the efforts to preserve La Placita during Urban Renewal in the 1960s and 1970s.

This excerpt first ran on Arizona Public Media as part of The Buzz.



VO: By the end of the 1960s, urban renewal had leveled most of Tucson's historic downtown Barrio. Families, mostly Mexican-American, were already displaced and their homes and businesses were gone. But, the bulldozers did not reach La Placita, until the tail end of the renewal project. La Placita, the plaza, gazebo, and surrounding businesses, like El Charro, was in many ways, the heart of the Barrio. Alva Torres, then a young mother, heard about La Placita's impending demolition from a relative.

TORRES: Mr. Rodolfo Soto. He always loved history, and I loved him. And, we were at a family party and he comes up to me and he says Albita, you know they're going to knock down the Placita, he said. No I said, I didn't know that. Yes, he says, and someday they won't even know we were ever here. I couldn't believe that they were going to go into the Placita. It just was beyond my-- like no, they wouldn't do that. We were caught unaware, and I wanted to talk to somebody about it.

VO: Alva wanted to see if La Placita could be preserved. She talked to the local press, to city officials, and to other groups charged with historic preservation. But, those groups were largely composed of white Tucsonans, who did not grow up in the Barrio, or see the emotional significance of La Placita.

TORRES: You know, the memory of it. It wasn't just that it was Mexican. It was that it was our baby. I would have fought just as hard had they been Jewish, Chinese, black, and Indians. But, we weren't--we were all of that. It was like watching somebody kill your children. And some of it should never have happened. Even now, I think about it.

VO: Alva and several friends formed La Placita committee to advocate for preserving the area. They were only partially successful. Broadway was realigned, and most of the buildings surrounding La Placita were razed. But the gazebo, and original El Charro building were saved, albeit entombed by the faux-Mexican La Placita Village. Today, the La Placita Village itself, has met the wrecking ball, and apartments will soon rise around the remains of the La Placita Torres remembers. But even though the La Placita committee failed to preserve the area, Torres thinks they changed the conversation about preservation in Tucson, and who gets to have a voice at the table.

TORRES: Somebody even close to me said you didn't accomplish a lot. And I said OK, but we were the catalyst, because before that there wasn't this going on in Tucson, at all. Not even teeny weeny bitty. Because they don't think is worth saving, we have to teach them that it is worth saving because that's what makes Tucson different from all these other cities. You don't want to go to a town where they all look like. You want to know what that town is offering. You don't want all your children to be identical like robots. This is what makes life, life.

ShortsAengus Anderson