First, it is a violation of trust and respect. The University snuck into the Park in the early hours with no notice to the community and long time Park volunteers. you do know they OWN the park don't you??? you stooopid cow you...
Posted on 12/30/2011 1:09:35 PM PST by SmithL
The University's recent bulldozer "maintenance" in the Park is problematic in several ways. First, it is a violation of trust and respect. The University snuck into the Park in the early hours with no notice to the community and long time Park volunteers. The Pergola, or trellis in the West End, which UC rather mysteriously decapitated, was designed and agreed upon during almost a year of meetings with University architects and the volunteers who built it. And the information that the University is providing for their recent attack is misleading, if not outright falsehood. I'll eat my hat if the Park sports a native grass and poppy prairie. And how does destroying a trellis deal with rats? please!
Secondly, UC has destroyed precious natural resources that were purchased, planted and tended by volunteers. The list of food producing plants destroyed in the bulldoze include: plum trees, native manzanita, olive, grape vines, kiwi plants, maguay, nopales cactus, and a mature rose bush as well as beautiful plants like pink amaryliss bulb flowers, pyrocantha and a palm like plant donated to the Park by Mario and Rosalinda that was growing by the entrance to their property in the back of the Park. It will take years to replace the food and beauty those plants were producing.
Thirdly, UC is trying to erase history. The incursion itself is a test to see if the People will hold this place as the sacred ground it liberated from the folly of UC in 1969 and has held all these years. Bulldozing is not user development. The Pergola trellis, that was cut in half, was made out of the old growth redwood that was recycled from the volleyball court fiasco of 1991. Also the berms that were removed were actually piles of asphalt that were ripped up by people in 1979 when the University lied, then, about a free parking lot. And the Council Grove surrounded by the plum trees has long been the Park's best meeting place. These are literally testaments of our history that were destroyed.
Also the berms created a peaceful place between two busy streets, they were a feature that good landscape designers desire. UC is trying to implement control and "security". It is up to us to decide if we want recreational areas to resemble prison yards or be living, inspiring, beautiful refuges.
Well now there is a void. I hope people will rise to the challenge and recreate with their friends and their own dreams. Viva People's Park.
Here are some beautiful pictures of the west end of the park before UC's recent "improvements" left it barren:
The incursion itself is a test to see if the People will hold this place as the sacred ground it liberated from the folly of UC in 1969 and has held all these years.This Terri Compost is kind of full of herself. I wonder if she's related to Beserkeley's Dumpster Muffin.
Let’s see - filth, rats, disease, garbage, human waste (of all sorts). What’s not to like?
A bit like driving spikes into trees and thus putting loggers in danger, eh?
Sounds like an excellent place to honor quicksand, something of mother nature’s that gets all too little support/respect in these day of worshiping Gaia 24/7/365.
Then these little human rodents can protest and feed Gaia all at the same time.
Occupation
Free Speech
Protest
Clean-up
Burp (Sorry on behalf of mother Gaia)
It’s all good...
they ought to bulldoze the whole thing and install wind turbines and solar panels..... would not produce much energy but would be a nice step toward “green” utopia
/sarcasm
Can't help but wonder if they might not want to follow in the footsteps of Rachel Corrie, in protest.
Ah, a Mayor Daley action pulled on leftists.. by leftists.
Love it.
Could they not wait until there was some sort of protest before dozing them bulls?
Manzanita is edible now? Who knew?
I wonder how big the area in question is. That seems like an awful lot of plants to be sticking into a small area, not to mention that their growing conditions aren't all that compatible with each other.
When someone writes an article telling you why something matters and and you read it and it doesnt matter that equals failure.
First, it is a violation of trust and respect. The University snuck into the Park in the early hours with no notice to the community and long time Park volunteers. you do know they OWN the park don't you??? you stooopid cow you...
I kinda remember when “Peoples Park” was created. It was UCB land that was going to be a parking lot for a new dorm or some such. An OWS-like collection of hippy students (or non-students) squatted on it and declared it to be Peoples Park. UCB and the Berkeley PD just let them do it, and here we are, decades later, being told that UC “just snuck in” — typical progressive/anarchist projection. I think this was around 1967 or ‘68. That end of Telegraph Avenue adjacent Sather Gate has been a zoo for years following.
yup, zoo it was/is... i was there once in 72 and it was a zoo then
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