Posted on 12/12/2016 5:42:05 AM PST by BenLurkin
As Oakland’s tightknit arts community continues to grapple with dozens of deaths in the Ghost Ship warehouse blaze, it is also being roiled by heightened scrutiny over the safety of similar living spaces.
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“We’ve been in the shadows for a long time for a reason ... and it worked really great for a lot of people for a long time until this one incident,” said Scrivani, a photographer who also produces art shows. “Right now the spotlight is on us.”
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Sam Lefebvre, a music journalist who has been covering the fire for the weekly East Bay Express newspaper and who lost friends in the blaze, held back tears...
Lefebvre said warehouses “are important because for people who may inhabit nonconforming bodies or who are queer or who are in some way an affront to mainstream society — all those people can congregate there, and they can do so in a safe environment."
Just three days after the fire, Hunter Savoy Jaffe, who said she was friends with at least three of the Ghost Ship victims, warned the artist community to fight to protect itself. “This world was not built for us,” she said at a vigil for those lost. “They will denounce the way that we live, and they will dehumanize our passing and the shutting down of our spaces.”
Emotions surfaced Thursday night in a church next door to the now-gutted warehouse known as 1919 Market, which has become a cause celebre in Oakland’s artistic community. The city red-tagged the building for major safety hazards in January...
San Francisco developer Danny Haber...met in the church with former residents to discuss his plans...“to re-create the intent” of the former illegal conversion, but he was shouted down and branded an “interloper.”
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Wow. Talk about selective thought processes. It’s worked out well for them being in the shadows and that convenience only cost 36 people their lives. Even that fact doesn’t wake them up.
Safe Environment? It was a fire trap. Their worry is that the city might start enforcing the fire code on other warehouses used for this, so it's hardly an issue of preserving a "safe environment" - to the contrary.
A bunch of crazy self-pitiers.
Then again, maybe not...
A lot of other crash pads are in danger of being evicted? and that is what that warehouse was, a classic though very large old time San Francisco crash pad. I crashed in a couple of those back in 67 when it was raining. Other times I slept on Elvin Mountain, a lump in Golden Gate Park.
This is why that fire trap existed. The political pressure to allow such buildings to exist is tremendous and the politicians were in cahoots with those who own and occupy them.
Just look at the news conferences in the immediate aftermath of the fire. All of he parties were doing their best to turn attention to the mourning and divert it from the political and social culture that allowed the fire trap to exist.
He means a “socially safe” environment. You might get burned up or maybe crushed to death but there is no one there to say sociopolitically unkind things to or about you.
Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
Lefebvre said warehouses “are important because for people who may inhabit nonconforming bodies or who are queer or who are in some way an affront to mainstream society — all those people can congregate there, and they can do so in a safe environment.”
Then again, maybe not...
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So much for safe environments.
Exactly. Democrat regulations make it impossible to profitably build affordable housing. So laws are ignored when it will keep core Democrat constituencies from revolting.
He means a “socially safe” environment. You might get burned up or maybe crushed to death but there is no one there to say sociopolitically unkind things to or about you
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Exactly. It may be a fire trap, but there is no hate speech here.
If, God forbid, there is a similar incident in another building where people live illegally, and more lives are lost, these same people will denounce the city for not taking more aggressive action in the aftermath of the "Ghost Ship" catastrophe .
Safe environment was elaborated with the quotes on gays and trans.
It’s all about PC now, not literal safety...but many knew it would come to this and that there was more to this story than simple ‘party’ or high rents...
*Safe environment*??????
Where you risk burning to death?
The delusion is strong in that one.
You know what? if that's their choice, it's on their heads.
I’m in the construction business and all the equipment for sprinklers, fire alarms and smoke control in an event space that size would cost millions. The permits alone would cost hundreds of thousands.
Sure it’s “safer” now but this means only the most wealthy galleries and production companies can afford to legally display their art/music/dance.
Entire neighborhoods in NYC that used to be working art spaces that you could explore are now reduced to a few snooty chain galleries. In poorer areas you can still find warehouses like in this. However, national media hysteria may now shut them all down.
Sure, it was dangerous as hell and the buildings could have killed us any moment. But it was exciting, educational and some of greatest memories I have from being young.
Kids are meant to play in the sticks and mud. Not sit at home in bubblewrap. At what point does all this “safety” legislation start harming their mental health?
Kids are probably taking so many drugs today because every other aspect of their lives is so damn monitored, regulated and controlled. They can’t legally build racers, treehouses, go camping without permits, etc, etc. Their every move is being tracked on GPS. Dating is reduced to an algorithm. 90% of what I did as a kid is outlawed or overpriced today. The only mystery left in their lives is hiding and getting high...
As long as no one outside their little community is blamed after something happens - who cares? Let them burn in their fire traps, or maybe wise up a little after this incident and take better precautions.
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