The Unknown City: Contesting Architecture and Social Space

Claiming Women’s History in the Urban Landscape
21.4 | Celia Alvarez Muñoz, artist with The Power of Place, If Walls Could Speak/Si Las
Paredes Hablaran, 1991.
tributed free to several thousand people, including union members, retirees,
and students. 11
At the same time, architect Brenda Levin proposed the re-creation
of two traditional showcases in front of the Embassy Theater to carry historical
text, as well as sculptural representations of the workers’ sewing machines,
spools, and hammers, while union logos were to be pressed into a
new concrete sidewalk. In a storefront adjoining the sidewalk, the faculty
hoped to open the “Luisa Moreno Reading Room” for students interested in
social history. It was a disappointment to us all that although the permanent
art was fully funded, plans by the owners, USC, to sell the building prevented
installation. Then the January 1994 earthquake hit the building so