Posted on 12/11/2016 1:34:21 PM PST by SteveH
Max Ohr considered himself the creative director, the “go-to guy,” the “camp counselor” at the Ghost Ship warehouse, and on that Friday night, he was also the doorman.
He had spent the day getting ready for an electronic music party upstairs, arranging the sound system and cleaning up the fantastical bohemian space where he and about two dozen of his fellow artists lived. Before 9 p.m., the lanky jewelry maker with a scraggly beard and crescent tattoo on his cheekbone began welcoming visitors. They arrived in small groups, more than 100 guests in all from a tight-knit music and art scene — a transgender barista, a 35-year-old therapist who helped at-risk kids, a father of twin daughters, a couple in their 20s, he with a pencil-thin mustache, she with green glitter sparkling on her cheeks.
As they entered this one-of-a-kind sanctuary to Oakland’s creative culture, they followed the pulsating beat to the second floor, up the single-file staircase made of scrap wood and pallet planks to a dance party promising good vibes and good friends.
(Excerpt) Read more at eastbaytimes.com ...
Yup.
I think your point about cities being desperate for people to develop these abandoned areas is very important. When Soho was developing (in NYC) I know they were pretty lax on things. However, I have to admit they’re often lax on things in NYC, either because of incompetence, political connections or bribes.
Oakland is a lot smaller and probably pretty desperate for income to support its welfare population, so I think we’ll find eventually, if it’s ever reported, that there was sort of an informal agreement to let the “Ghost Ship “ stay in business.
“Artists, Democrats, free-spirited people and liberals don’t have to comply.”
And they have just learned a very valuable lesson, being “Artists, Democrats, free-spirited people and liberals” does not guarantee survival when betting against common sense and fire codes
Thanks for posting this. It’s very sad, but this was a good article.
“Apparently the city did not make this place abide by safety regulations.”
There’s a lot of heads that should be rolling in Oakland, starting with that despicable, self-absorbed man who was running the place.
I read elsewhere how much $$$ the “public servants” in Oakland are making, and it’s a joke. The head of the sheriff’s department (or some job like that) made over 600K last year. They make more than the president of the united states! Another Democrat run hell hole, but thank goodness Trump hasn’t been inaugurated or this would all be his fault.
Don’t misunderstand, I feel very, very sorry for the people who died, that has nothing to do with politics. But I have the strong impression that Oakland is a very corrupt city and this is where corruption leads, to a grisly end. It’s long past time for the one party rule of Dems to end. If they ever did anything for their constituents it ended a long time ago.
I saw the video tour what it looked like before the fire. The place was a dump and resembled a rat's nest.
Fred Sanford's place looked cleaner and more habitable.
I will be posting this to my kids. You can’t trust others to watch out for you - you need to take care of yourselves. From getting into a car where the guy says “Oh - I’m okay to drive” to going into a building that looks risky. Pay attention to your surroundings, the people. Think of the worst possible situation (fire, terrorists, etc.) Always look for the alternate exits. (Even in “normal” buildings during a fire, most people crowd out where they came in - even if their is a well-marked exit near them!)
Prayers for these victims and families. I hope that some heads roll and city-wide changes are made.
Exactly. You get inspected, you clean it up. Oakland appears to have had no inspectors, per se, and no regular inspection schedule. It was left up to the local fire station, which generally didn’t have time for it.
I first thought - since the building hadn’t been inspected for 30 years, even though it was known that people were living and working in it - that bribery may have been involved, and also that maybe the city was so glad to have any kind of activity in that bleak neighborhood that it just looked the other way. But now i think it was more likely just incompetence, combined with utter stupidity and greed on the part of the artist-owner. And now the incompetent fire chief, a black woman, is saying that they’re just picking on her because she’s black. How about it’s because she’s another incompetent part of a completely incompetent city government?
If the owner was getting $5000 in rent, the sole lease holder was subletting to the 24 “artists” for an average of $500 each. So he in turn was getting $12k a month, a $7k per month profit.
That’s how it’s done in the anti-capitalist, socialist utopia.
What astonishes me is the way this situation is being treated by the Bay Area media, as if it’s a recent phenomenon.
I lived in the Bay Area 40 years ago, during the time of the “flower children.”
Blighted housing, squatters, warehouse artist/ hippie communes were commonplace then. Not just a few, either-—entire neighborhoods were officially unoccupied, while the landlords were raking in the dough.
Blighted rent-controlled units were snapped up by enterprising “artists” who sub-let them at market rates.
Nothing was up to code and nobody took responsibility.
The Fruitvale area, the wharves, West Oakland, Chinatown were full of rickety warehouses and leaky old ships and houseboats. Any space that could precariously hold 2 people invariably had 12.
There were people living in beer vats-—huge, windowless concrete cylinders-—as well as stacked railway cars and condemned office buildings. None of these people were “homeless” or squatters. They were all paying rent to various landlords.
Code inspectors knew this 40-50 years ago.
What’s surprising is that this tragedy didn’t happen before now.
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