-- Hate, a People's Park regular, struggles to his feet at his campsite. UC Berkeley, which owns the park, wants to map out its future.
Posted on 06/26/2007 7:54:07 AM PDT by SmithL
People's Park is a social puzzle that has defied nearly 40 years of attempts by UC Berkeley to solve it, largely because the university and many neighbors see it as a problem but the park's most loyal users treasure it as one of the city's most vibrant open spaces.
Now the university as owner of the land is trying a new approach, using a consulting firm to patiently confer with park lovers and shunners in hopes of reaching a consensus on the park's future.
The work is as much therapy as planning -- that's how deep the divisions run over a nearly 3-acre urban rectangle that embodies Berkeley's role in the anti-war and free speech movements of the 1960s and '70s.
"This could easily turn into a war," longtime park neighbor Joseph Stubbs said.
So far it hasn't, and flickers of consensus can be seen following meetings with more than 40 small groups.
There's even been talk of adding features like outdoor movies, live theater and a dog run, and linking the park to possible new attractions on nearby Telegraph Avenue, such as a history cafe, a historic district and a museum.
Moderated by a consultant, MK Think of San Francisco, larger public meetings are being scheduled for July through fall, when classes start on campus, in hopes that agreement will develop on new ideas for the park.
Irene Hegarty, UC Berkeley's director of community relations, said the intention is to attract new ideas for the park, not to remove the homeless. "We expect it is an urban park and there will be homeless using it," she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
-- Hate, a People's Park regular, struggles to his feet at his campsite. UC Berkeley, which owns the park, wants to map out its future.
"We're human beings," he said. "We have to live. They're going to gentrify this place. They're going to get rid of the homeless element. ... They're attacking me. They want me to lie down and die."
It's even worse than that. They want you to get a job.
The media is slipping - they didn't even bother to ask for Hate's opinion on George W. Bush's War for Oil. ;)
Translation: The liberals want the homeless to be allowed to stay in the park but they never want to encounter them when they visit the park.
That's the whole problem right there. These people are not "homeless," in the sense that they somehow lost a home they had (through fire, say) and haven't found another one. They are either winos or drug addicts who live on a combination of panhandling and SSI or local welfare, and would readily take over any place in town.
When I was a kid in New York City, the cops would go along and roust these people when they tried to sleep on the subways, in the parks, etc. The result was that the average time span on the Bowery was 2 years: people either died of acute alcoholism, or they got their act together because they were tired of having the soles of their feet clobbered with nightsticks when they were attempting to sleep in Grand Central Station.
Now that being a dysfunctional wino or drug addict has been transformed into something funded by our tax dollars, and there's no social stigma at all attached to it because, after all, you're a victim of society, this has become a career. These people feel free to take over any public space and use millions of dollars a year in free medical treatment at the local emergency rooms, which are constantly trying to patch them up because of their self-induced medical problems. In response, they do nothing but harrass passers by as their way of showing their gratitude.
They're crazy; but the people who are even crazier are the ones who have enabled them.
liberal euphemism of the day: “vibrant” = “overrun with crazy, obnoxious bums”
Pave it over, cram it with “works of art” consisting of junk welded together, preferably with salient edges, and see what happens.
Yup, that’s it in a nutshell. Growing up in Berkeley, I used to stringently avoid People’s Park out of fear of its “residents.”
Telegraph Avenue was once a charming street with tasteful shops and European style cafes. Then the sixties came along and now its a patchouli-scented cesspool of willfully unemployed dirtbags - oops, I mean victims of capitalist greed.
Or, "vibrant" = "smelly"
The whole “People’s Park” thing was one of the stupidest moments of the 60s. I was living in SF at the time and saw the tear gas rising above Berkeley as the children of the privileged (because that’s what the great majority of Berkeley “hippies” were) pitched a tantrum.
Now they’ve moved on and are probably out there teaching in major universities or getting ready to retire from same, while their spiritual descendants, the Peoples Park winos, are left to “epater le bourgeois” and carry on their fragrant tradition. At taxpayer expense, of course.
They are all Roussouian savages.
And just as unkempt as well, I suspect.
I live just north of Berkeley. The city merchants have HAD IT with the bums. Berkeley just passed a new “plan” to deal with “the homeless” by encouraging them to seek services and to stop being so agressive on the street. Needless to say, the Left calls this “criminalizing poverty”.
The honest truth: 90% of Berkeley’s residents are sick of the bums. Business is down every year, as no one will come to downtown Berkeley to shop. Telegraph Ave, the main drag next to the University, has become a wasteland. Even the students won’t go anymore due to the bums and the hassle.
Oh, and the city already closed both city-owned parking garages, so it’s even harder to park. Why bother?
The only places in Berkeley that are “safe” are 4th St and Solano Avenue. Both of these areas cater to the more affluent and don’t have much of a bum problem.
As for the park - build dorms on it.
I live just west of Cambridge, MA...so I know EXACTLY what you mean.
I just cannot comprehend this. I go into Cambridge fairly often, and while the panhandlers are not as aggressive as, say, Vancouver or probably Berkeley, they are numerous and walk up and down lines of cars with their signs, stand on the sidewalk and ask for money.
These are perfectly healthy people. They ought to be ashamed, but are instead encouraged.
I saw a guy on the Boston Common recently, he was Asian, and was nearly incapaciated in a wheelchair. He couldn’t speak or move any part of his body except his arm. Between the legs of his wheelchair, he had a cooler, and next to the cooler was a box with a slot. $1.00 for a soda. If you wanted one, you put a dollar in the slot, and with his one good arm, he would open the top of the cooler. You grabbed what you wanted.
A lot of people bought soda from that guy. The point is, he WAS incapcitated, and would have been justified in begging for money...but he didn’t.
That was a hell of a thing to see. Then you contrast it with the damned bums who can sing and dance, but beg for money.
The kitchens in Paris are also a trip.
No, they always smell like that.
My personal anecdote is from ‘88 when I visited Berkley. It was literally, and I’m using the word literally correctly here, a freak show. Oh-my-gosh! A guy in his 50s is singing Sinatra and show-tunes over a kid’s Mr. Microphone. They say he does it from 9 to 5, five days a week. Another guy is off to another side of the square and is dancing his little heart out. To what I don’t know. Curiously, he is wearing one, high-top tennis shoe, and a purple TU-TU! Freaks of pretty much every type are wandering around, looking at the trinkets and tie-dyed t-shirts the hippies are trying to sell. I say keep it just as it is or make it easier for the “homeless”. Then maybe they’ll stay away from here!!
The last Flop on the Bowery closed six years ago. Now its all restaurant supply stores and nightclubs.
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