People speak out on People’s Park
Chronicle readers offer their views of what should become of People’s Park in Berkeley. Most want the 1960s demonstration site to be hallowed, not a student dormitory.
( “UC Berkeley erects massive barricade of 160 shipping containers around People’s Park,” and “UC Berkeley sends hundreds of police into People’s Park, closing off historic space,” East Bay, SFChronicle.com, Jan. 4; “Why People’s Park protesters have lost the plot,” Politics, SFChronicle.com, Jan. 5)
The People’s Park has long been a powerful symbol of resistance to power and a space for some of the many homeless people in Berkeley. At the same time, UC Berkeley has a need to build more student housing. UC has an abundance of brilliant scholars on the faculty: philosophers, sociologists, urban planners, engineers, poets, economists. All of them, including Nobel Laureates, are available to the administration for consultation. Surely, that massive, collective intellectual power could have been used to come up with a more peaceful, more humane solution to the long struggle for the use of People’s Park.
The UC administration has failed. It has failed the university students. It has failed all of us. Coming to agreement that did not end in an unconscionable midnight raid on marginalized people with hundreds of police officers and the creation of another wall was surely within the grasp of the UC administration.
Jim McLaughlin, Berkeley
I am writing to congratulate UC Berkeley for its creative use of shipping containers in walling off People’s Park. With the help of Berkeley’s mayor Jesse Arreguin, the city council, and lots of police, UC has, after over half a century of effort, succeeded in eradicating a pesky historic site.
UC’s brilliant building plan will help eliminate one of the last open spaces in the city. And it will integrate into adjacent residential facilities 17-year-old new college students and homeless adults, providing a rich, diverse urban learning experience.
Glenn Alex, Berkeley
I must be missing something because I don’t understand how it’s possible for UC Berkeley to send in hundreds of police officers and 600 double-stacked shipping containers while the case remains unresolved in the state Supreme Court. That sounds like cheating to me.
If they lose the case, will they reinstall the several large trees that were cut down? Will they replace the tents and belongings that constituted homes for the homeless park residents?
Without even taking a side on the final disposition of the park, it is obvious that UC Berkeley should have waited until the case was resolved before beginning construction. I’m a little ashamed of my alma mater today.
Peter Hagen, Walnut Creek
People’s Park is only one of 13 sites identified by the university for the construction
of new housing. The university is spending millions of dollars this week to have an overbearing, overarmored, and excessive police presence at the park for only one site.
Knowing the university has multiple site options to construct on more quickly and with less pushback, it becomes clear that People’s Park is not a housing issue at its core. The park is a symbol of radical resistance and community care, but for the university, it’s about control. Controlling how students express dissent, controlling what parts of the Berkeley community are allowed to exist in visible spaces, and controlling its image for the eyes of investors and wealthy fearful students who only spend four years in this town.
We can’t allow the UC to profit off a free-speech image while simultaneously arresting, brutalizing and silencing students who stand up for the real Berkeley community. Olivia McHaney, Oakland
The argument that there are “other places that the university could be building” is not based on any factual data. Housing for students, especially entering students, is one of the factors involved in students’ success. I’m glad that the vision shared by Californians is to build more housing and UC Berkeley should be one of the leaders in this effort.
If there is a need to memorialize People’s Park, let those citizens design and pay for a plaque to be placed at one of the corners of the property explaining that this square block of land was the sight of numerous protests by people exercising their right of peaceful assembly and free speech in the era of the Vietnam War. Newton Harband, San Rafael
People’s Park is hallowed ground, made so by the fact that demonstrators attempting to save the park in 1969 were murdered there by police and National Guard forces called out by then Gov. Ronald Reagan.
Honoring and saving the site of such committed action, for our collective history, seems a much more important cultural step than building student housing on that site.
Would we build student housing at Gettysburg or Bunker Hill? Those killed at all three sites were fighting for the right to live free. Bruce Scotton, Larkspur
As a People’s Park advocate and former mayoral candidate, I envision transforming the park into a Democracy Commons and a vital research site for Berkeley’s community. Essential to this vision is making the park an accessible green space, positioned within a five-minute walk for most residents, truly embodying a communal commons. More than preserving its historical significance, People’s Park should become a central hub for democratic engagement, climate resilience, and emergency preparedness. Aidan Hill, Berkeley