It’s not Those People’s Park

It might be a clean, literal, and clean chapter of Berkeley history. The University of California is clearing the trees around People’s Park three blocks from its main campus.

A landmark added to the U.S. Register of Historic Places in May, People’s Park has been an oozing sore on the face of Berkeley, California since 1969. Berkeley is an example of the living cliché. This 2.8-acre parcel of land was the scene of a long battle of wills that saw scores of mentally unstable bystanders as collateral damage.

The University of California acquired the plot in 1967 on the cheap using eminent domain. First, the school wanted to construct dormitories, offices and a soccer pitch, but it ran out of funds. The Free Speech Movement veterans, mostly local activists, came to the rescue and quickly organized a community. With freedom of speech on campus but a distant memory in woke America, People’s Park survives as the sole remnant of 1960s-Berkeley radicalism.

Because of its proximity to Berkley’s campus, the 2500 block of Haste Street was ideal for staging rallies. After a meeting with neighbors to discuss the possibility of taking over the land from Berkley, activists planted a garden on the property.

Acting as though the property belonged to them, they polled faculty and students. They found that there was interest in making the land a public park. They then decided to bargain with the Regents. They were then informed that they would not be notified and began to hissy fits.

The standard narrative states that the activists were busy at People’s Park. Take a look at Robert talking passionately to Mary and his comrades while Mary makes soup for the homeless. The thought was that they must have been the people who sat on People’s Park’s lawn.

But the property is not owned by any political organization located near campus. The University of California owns it, as well as the citizens of California. The Regents make decisions about property. They were elected by the governor, confirmed by state senators and appointed by them. The school’s rights and those of taxpayers would be violated if a political group was allowed to make use of the land.

Activists claimed that their theft was justifiable because, according to Frank Bardacke (a lifelong community organizer), “A group of people stole some corporate land that used to be a parking lot, and made it a park. Then they said that we’re using it better than you did; it’s ours.” It is not true that the near-campus communists used the land better than Californians. They had the ability to accept it and they lost their nerve.

Activists staked the parcel and relocated some homeless persons onto it. After the homeless were evicted and the area cleared of shrubs, the activists summoned 6,000 rioters. They set fire to a fire hydrant, and then threw stones and other objects at city police officers and highway patrolmen who were patrolling the area. Some officers were chased by the mob, and a police car was set on fire. Before the end of the day, 800 policemen in full riot gear were pursuing the demonstrators with tear gas.

Officers shot and killed James Rector, a protestor. One policeman was stabbed in the chest and 128 Berkeley residents were admitted to hospitals. Ronald Reagan declared an emergency and called in the National Guard. The Regents decided to continue construction on a dorm for married students after the riots had been subdued. However, they didn’t go through with it.

Though the days of 6,000 rioters are over, homeless squatting in People’s Park is the norm. Every time the university plans a new use for the land, dozens of protesters descend on the site.

Today People’s Park can be described as a place for people to relax in the afternoon sunshine or a stage for revolution, but it’s a symbol for contemporary California. It is also a home for homeless men. It’s a place of insanity and lawlessness.

When I first went to People’s Park there was an old, grungy kid that I’ll refer to as Lucy. Lucy, who had just dropped out from Berkeley, was now living in a couchsurfing lifestyle. One time, she hitchhiked across the United States “to clear her head.” But she said she could not go home to her parents because she’d hit her mother the previous visit. Because she would not have been swept up in Berkeley’s scene, and she would be able to graduate medical school, she admitted that she wishes she had chosen a different college.

Lucy seemed overbearing and boring, so there were no couches left to surf. One time, my bridesmaid saw her walk down Telegraph with her feet a little jiggled. It turned out that Lucy had been sleeping in People’s Park when a homeless man assaulted her. After self-medicating using heroin, she overdosed and suffered a stroke. The foot shuffle is a result of that. Due to her medical issues, she owed several hundred dollars to the club she was using to get her fix. That was almost 20 years ago. I’m sure she’s long dead.

Berkeley has a lot of homeless people and untreated mental illnesses. It’s an epicenter for these issues. The park’s ongoing disaster didn’t alter the attitude of the community toward harm reduction and property rights. In fact, these attitudes were strengthened. In the ’60s, the California Assembly started deinstitutionalizing the mentally ill. In the aughts, the voters decriminalized drugs and stopped prosecuting property crimes under $900. In the new legal environment, cartels organized gangs of addicts to “boost” stores, laying entire neighborhoods to waste.

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It took tragedy to shift the attitudes towards development. In 2016, 36 people perished in Oakland when a fire erupted at a show in an illegally converted warehouse called the Ghost Ship. In socio-economic terms, the deeply shaken Bay Area dealt with the tragedy in the best way it could. The Ghost Ship was too costly to rent, so people lived in it and enjoyed the Ghost Ship’s shabby living conditions. Housing is expensive, because there aren’t enough. This is the second.

If it was the case that every East Bay construction proposal had been rejected in previous decades, then suddenly high-rise condominiums took their place. Since U.C. Berkeley admits almost every high school graduate in California, so these students must be accommodated. Three blocks from the university is a logical location.

The current People’s Park proposal would give half the area to a memorial pathway, which is an open-air shrine to radicalism in local communities. The complex would include both a 1,100-unit student housing and a smaller homeless shelter — not ideal situation, but a compromise activists should find easy to accept, even if they are not accustomed to compromises. In 1969, they mustered the will to take the land and they will never give back voluntarily. They won’t give up without fighting.