This Is Our Home: The Save New Helvetia Collection

Language of Material: English

Contributing Institution: Sacramento Public Library, Sacramento Room

Title: This Is Our Home: The Save New Helvetia Collection

Identifier/Call Number: MC 96

Physical Description: 1 Linear Feet 1 archival box, 14 acid-free folders, and a 1-terrabite Seagate external drive, 1 linear foot

Date (inclusive): 1943-2021

Abstract: The New Helvetia Historic District contains the Alder Grove and Seavey Circle housing complexes and Leataata Floyd Elementary School in Sacramento, California. Collection record types include photographs; ephemera of the effort to Save New Helvetia and reject the West Broadway Specific Plan so far as it gentrifies the area, displaces current residents, and demolishes historically significant housing on the ground where Nathaniel Sextus Colley, Esq. fought a historic civil rights battle to racially integrate said housing in 1952; correspondence; public comments to Sacramento City Council; yearbooks; newspaper clippings; and videos available on an external hard drive.

Overall, the collection provides a glimpse into the effort to retain Sacramento's racially, culturally, and architecturally significant history amidst a City Council interested in allowing its demolition. Originally World War II military housing, the New Helvetia history district includes Alder Grove and Seavey Circle. It houses many Sacramentans from a variety of backgrounds, serving as a multicultural epicenter and among the few remaining affordable housing options on a rapidly gentrifying downtown grid. Integrated by Nathaniel Sextus Colley, Esq., the site has national civil rights significance predating the U.S. 1964 Civil Rights Act. The collection includes information on social justice, civil society, racial integration, the impacts of COVID-19 on community organizing, public housing, diversity, and historic dwellings.

Records are divided, chronologically and by donor to archivist, into 14 folders. Those folders are numbered and described below.

Folder No. 1. Sandhu & Randhawa family photographs. Photographs of a South Asian New Helvetia & Seavey Circle Family in the 1970s.

Folder No. 2. Preservation Sacramento. A list of Sacramento's most "endangered places," which includes the New Helvetia Historic District.

Folder No. 3. United States Department of the Interior. National Register of Historic Places New Helvetia Historic District designation on 4/4/2014. Includes culturally, racially, architecturally, an historically significant information, such as the design firm Dean and Dean, Harry Devine, Sr., Leonard Starks and Edward F. Flanders of Starks and Flanders, lawyer Nathaniel Sextus Colley, and more. Prepared by Paula Boghosian, MS of Historic Environmental Consultants. Photographs of both Alder Grove and Seavey Circle included.

Folder No. 4. City of Sacramento Planning and Design Commission Meeting, 7/23/202. A meeting during a global pandemic to discuss the City's West Broadway Specific Plan. Includes letters from the Preservation Commission Chair, Coalition to Save New Helvetia, Preservation Sacramento, Nathaniel Colley Coalition, Sacramento Tenants Union, Mad Love Underground, Trans and Nonbinary Housing Collective, California Homeless Union, Upper Land Park Neighbors, and Land Park Community Association, as well as public comments. Also included is a Fair Political Practices Commission stipulation in the matter of Joe Yee, current Planning and Design Commissioner.

Folder No. 5. Valley Community Newspaper, Inc. Articles donated by Editor Monica Stark, photographer Steven Michael Crowley, and writer Lance Armstrong regarding the New Helvetia Historic District, including: "'Rosies' unite in support to save historic New Helvetia housing."

Folder No. 6. Save New Helvetia Press Conference. Materials include "Rosie the Riveter" recreation photographs from Donald Cox , Sacramento Tenants Union Flyer, photographs of tenants speaking up from Chris Lango and Steve Davis Productions, and Lance Armstrong.

Folder No. 7. New Helvetia Memories Project. Video stills from Chris Lango & Steve Davis Productions documenting the Save New Helvetia Press Conference on behalf of the Nathaniel Colley Coalition. In photographs are community activists Berry Accius and Kevin Carter.

Folder No. 8. Current periodicals. Newspaper pieces from the Sacramento Bee, The Sacramento Observer, ABC 10 news, KCRA, and Capitol City Public Radio.

Folder No. 9. Curator Materials. Ephemera items donated from Amreet Sandhu, collection curator and processor.

Folder No. 10. Statements from Elected Officials. Former Mayor Heather Fargo's unpublished letter to the Sacramento Bee opposing the West Broadway Specific Plan, Councilmember-elect Katie Valenzuela's Facebook post on the matter. West Broadway Specific Plan street grids included for reference.

Folder No. 11. Historic Reference. Articles and photographs on the dedication of Alder Grove (then called "New Helvetia") and Seavey Circle (subsequently called "River Oaks") as military and then affordable public housing.

Folder No. 12. Leataata Floyd Family Collection. Article and photographs from Mr. Maiu-u Sam Floyd, sixth grade teacher at Leataata Floyd Elementary School and son of Ms. Letaata Floyd, "The Queen of Diamonds."

Folder No. 13. Sacramento City Council Meeting 8/25/2020. City Council meeting held amidst the COVID-19 global pandemic to pass the West Broadway Specific Plan. Includes more than 107 public comments, largely in opposition to the plan.

Folder No. 14. External Hard drive. Contains video footage, audio, and images regarding periodicals, video news, audio interviews with River City Voices and Historian William Burg, photographs, historic photo shoot by Donald Cox, video interviews from Chris Lango and Steve Davis Productions, and Sacramento Planning and Design Commission and City Council meetings, including footage of City Commissioner Allen Warren's scathing dissent of demolition and moving forward without public participation.

Guide to the This Is Our Home: The Save New Helvetia Collection MC 96