The End of People's Park

Power to the People!

We still have Tightwad Hill.

I remember.

I don't know, it's just a lame little one-block park with little going for it, other than it's "history".

The college, located in a very urban setting without many options, desperately needs more student housing, and they're saying that at least some of the housing built on the site will be for low-income/homeless types.

We all want everything, but we don't want to give up anything, and we sure as hell don't want THOSE people in OUR back yards.

Ultimately, it's not that great a park, and the university needs more affordable housing for it's students, who will, you know, get edumacated and maybe actually DO something in the world.

I say get out of the way of progress, which is what this really sounds like to me.

I don't know how many people still remember or care<<<

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLXtHU_HGXs

I don't remember, but do care ... and also believe history is important.

At the same time, the "realist" in me knows how these things invariably play out.

I intentionally walked through an open field in town yesterday that is earmarked for a big hotel and couldn't help but think of all of the other similar lots I used to cut through that have long since been developed; in brick in mortar, as well as my mental landscape of no longer viewing it as an empty field any longer.

If People's Park were some sort of war memorial, would there be the same outcome?

Didn't something like this happen in the early 90s, but it got resolved in favor of the park somehow?

"Governor Ronald Reagan had been publicly critical of university administrators for tolerating student demonstrations at the Berkeley campus. He had received popular support for his 1966 gubernatorial campaign promise to crack down on what the public perceived as a generally lax attitude at California's public universities. Reagan called the Berkeley campus "a haven for communist sympathizers, protesters, and sex deviants."  Reagan considered the creation of the leftist park a direct challenge to the property rights of the university, and he found in it an opportunity to fulfill his campaign promise."

Reagan's Chief of Staff, Edwin Meese III, a former district attorney from Alameda County and alumnus of Berkeley's law school, had established a reputation for firm opposition to those protesting the Vietnam War at the Oakland Induction Center and elsewhere. Meese assumed responsibility for the governmental response to the People's Park protest, and he called in the Alameda County Sheriff's deputies, which brought the total police presence to 791 officers from various jurisdictions.

Under Meese's direction, police were permitted to use whatever methods they chose against the crowds, which had swelled to approximately 6,000 people. Officers in full riot gear (helmets, shields, and gas masks) obscured their badges to avoid being identified and headed into the crowds with nightsticksswinging.

As the protesters retreated, the Alameda County Sheriff's deputies pursued them several blocks down Telegraph Avenue as far as Willard Junior High School at Derby Street, firing tear gas canisters and "00" buckshot at the crowd's backs as they fled.

Authorities initially claimed that only birdshot had been used as shotgun ammunition. When physicians provided "00" pellets removed from the wounded as evidence that buckshot had been used,[33] Sheriff Frank Madigan of Alameda County justified the use of shotguns loaded with lethal buckshot by stating, "The choice was essentially this: to use shotguns—because we didn't have the available manpower—or retreat and abandon the City of Berkeley to the mob."  Sheriff Madigan did admit, however, that some of his deputies (many of whom were Vietnam War veterans) had been overly aggressive in their pursuit of the protesters, acting "as though they were Viet Cong."

James Rector was visiting friends in Berkeley and watching from the roof of Granma Books when he was shot by police; he died on May 19.

A carpenter, Alan Blanchard, was permanently blinded by a load of birdshot directly to his face.

At least 128 Berkeley residents were admitted to local hospitals for head trauma, shotgun wounds, and other serious injuries inflicted by police. The actual number of seriously wounded was likely much higher, because many of the injured did not seek treatment at local hospitals to avoid being arrested.  Local medical students and interns organized volunteer mobile first-aid teams to help protesters and bystanders injured by buckshot, nightsticks, or tear gas. One local hospital reported two students wounded with large caliber rifles as well.  

MORE THAN 50 years ??  Oh you gotta be fuckin kidding me,, only in fucking California.

Out here they just Eminent Domain your ass and you're gone in a month.

So not from.

Lived in Santa Cruz for a few years tho,  that was plenty  long enough in your land of fruits and nuts and those who are too self absorbed.

Troll trolls.

"a haven for communist sympathizers, protesters, and sex deviants."  

It's quite obvious that many are trying to make sure that there is space for communist sympathizers and protesters in the reality of today. Nary a world about the sex deviants. Who is going to stand up for them? 

Jim Jordan.

 >>>>>those who are too self absorbed.

Lol.

Where did Mandy leave that mirror?

your land<<<

^ when I lived there in the mid 80's I watched it go from gorgeous serine well balanced people slice of heaven to over run with lost drug and alcohol damaged vagabonds and homeless hippies who stole everything that wasn't nailed down. It was tragic, I'm out.

What was the historical significance of peoples park anyway ? Kerouac take a shit there once ? 

Read and learn, grasshopper.

creating housing   - including units for low income and homeless -  with a public roof top park/garden doesn't seem so terrible.

Preserving  open space is also desirable but the humans living in squalor at the run down park might actually be better off if housing was created. And it might be an improvement for the neighborhood which is already 'gentrified' 

^ sorry laddy but its way past time to move on.

Not long ago I watched a Wagon Train episode about native Californians, people who had lived for generations in the state before manifest destiny , who were forced off their lands, burned out mostly,  made to live in the mountains becoming what authorities called Bandits because they harrassed wagon trains from the east just to survive. It was a shameful period in our history, but this episode delt with this one particular family who ended up getting their land back. Very cool ending. Now if that park of yours had a similar story that might be worth something. As it is, well it's time to get over yourselves kids.

He was playing on the sidewalk 

For passing change

When something strange happened

Glory Train passed through Him

So He buried the coins He made

In People's Park

And went looking for a Woman

To court and spark

Troll keeps trolling 

Now if that park of ours had a similar story<<<

Fuckin lefties, must be nice to think you're so entitled to everything.

Don't cry, the entire state is your God damm park.

Go say a prayer, Ras. You still used your lord's name in vain, even if you capitalized it. I guess being a christian is, as usual, only when situationally convenient.

>>> "creating housing   - including units for low income and homeless -  with a public roof top park/garden doesn't seem so terrible." <<<

It doesn't seem so terrible if it were to be built on another plot of land, in fact it sounds great. But this land has been fought for since at least 1968 to stand as a park for the People. 

>>> "Created, maintained and loved by regular folks for over five decades, it is an acre and a half of living history—of a time when the powerful and the greedy were called to answer for their destruction and devastation. I believe this symbolism is what the University and its allies wish to destroy; that this is the reason they insist on building new housing in the Park when multiple other properties exist for such construction."“This is not about housing, it never has been.”“This was a symbol of freedom.” <<<

If you can't control the people... how can you maintain the flow of your power and money?

In 1968 and '69 I lived in Berkeley on California St. in a house next to the empty land that had been stripped of housing, set aside for BART construction. During the struggles to keep what became People's Park free, Berkeley was overrun by County Sheriffs, City and University Police, and possibly the National Guard. The helicopters and busses carrying armed L.E. (and military?) disgorged their troops onto the land next to my house. Armed. The helicopters circled overhead, landing when they did, the busses emptying, it sounded and looked like war. These men (I didn't see any women) were serious about their jobs, to keep the people out of the Park. The Park was maybe a mile away? Berkeley was swarming with ants in blue jump suits carrying rifles.
I was a school bus driver during that time, driving kids from the State of California Schools for the Deaf and the Blind located in Berkeley. (Not long after they became the site of another disputed land acquisition by the University, fought by the City, which also wanted some of the land.) The kids I was driving were terrified by the lines of armed sheriffs, etc., set up at intersections we drove through to get them home. Much worse was the tear gas that we had to drive near and even through. They were scared and I was pissed. They didn't understand what was going on. Burning tears obscured my vision and theirs. It was hard to drive, you know?

In fall of '69 I left Berkeley and moved to Arcata, Humboldt Hill and then Loleta. Let's just say it was a lot calmer and less contentious than where we'd left.

LOL LOL LOL LOL fuckin stale crust zoners, its like shootin fish in a barrel 

You really should listen to that zappa tune I posted Turning Again, it accurately describes you and your total lack of ability to laugh at yourselves,,  it also pretty accurately describes your haven. 

How long that park been around you say ? 

News Flash -- 1967 Drug Crazed Youths Discovered Vagrancy As A Way Of Life - FZ

Hahaaaaaa gfy's 

Troll admits trolling 

Sorry slack but w/out at least a small amount of fuck with, the place turns into, how you say, a boring piss hole.  And there's really nuthin I dislike more.  Now go crank some frank, a calif guy with a funny bone. Oh wait he's like me,  an east coast boy, What's New In Baltimore

The peoples park, you act like it was on the underground fuckin railroad for Christ's sake. Sorry, couldn't help it, I'll cease and desist now.

Where will zippy sleep?

Seattle last I heard.

So the GREAT EVIL University of California gets no credit at all for allowing "the people" to use the university's rightful property for more than 50 years, and are now and forever evil for finally wanting it back, to use for useful & needed purposes.

And they're evil because "the people" have been using it in such useful & needed purposes themselves.

Or not.

I admit that I know nothing, but it's my uneducated opinion that this is a classic example of why so many people disregard liberals.

Because they spend so much time fighting for things that don't matter, which distracts from the fight for the things that do.

But I suppose it's nice that the fat lady might still have a place to get high in Berkeley.

 they spend so much time fighting for things that don't matter, which distracts from the fight for the things that do.<<<

Who gets to determine what "matters"?

Green space in urban areas doesn't matter

especially for developers and button pushers who commute from Discovery Bay to their state university jobs

the bureaucracy must expand to meet the ever expanding needs of the bureaucracy 

Besides, climate change is a hoax anyways

If there's no People's Park, where will the know-nothing people plant their heads in the sand?

Sounds like those who wanted it saved had more than 50 years to pull something off, but couldn't even manage a decent fundraising effort. Fuckin worthless stoners, unlike their predecessors who knew how to get shit done.

Save The Clocktower !!

When I first moved to SF in '92, I was eager to see the famed People's Park, envisioning a beautiful hippie and counter culture enclave. Boy was I naive. 

 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/plan-for-iconic-california-park-pits-h...

< beautiful hippie enclave

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

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