It’s 7 a.m., 53° and headed to 70°. Details for the next 10 days are here.
Looks like we will have a $15 an hour minimum wage ballot initiative on the ballot this year, reports the SF Chronicle.
Dolores Park on Sunday had no fewer people than it did before they fenced of the northern end. It was packed and I have a feeling, it does not look very cleaned up this morning. We Built This City was there and posted this photo of his bike and gives a thanks to Freewheel on Valencia.
Here’s a gentrification story of a man having had enough. Clayton Patterson, an outlaw artist who the NYT describes as “an accomplished ranter” has decided that after 35 years of watching his beloved Lower East Side change, he’s had enough and is moving to Europe.
This was news in what remained of the creative underground that sits below 14th Street. After all, one of the last men who could credibly claim the title of Manhattan’s last bohemian had not only decided he was quitting the city, he also figured he could find a richer existence 4,000 miles away — in the Austrian Alps. READ MORE
And, set Saturday as the date you pick up your free compost.
Although it happened in Potrero Hill, this story about protesters targeting the home of a technology executive was significant (and disturbing).
http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2014/04/06/anti-tech-protesters-target-google-ventures-partner-kevin-rose/
“after 35 years of watching his believed Lower East Side change”
think you meant “beloved?”
Patterson’s anti-gentrification tale would ring more true but for the fact that he bought his lower east side building decades ago, and is now presumably selling it for millions, thereby funding his idyllic retirement in a spa town in the Austrian Alps.
Seems to me this Canadian has done very nicely out of the gentrification he claims to hate in his adopted country. And so is now adopting another country on the profits and proceeds of ranting about gentrification while simultaneously enjoying its benefits.
Yes, Clayton was somehow able to make that small smart real estate move in the early 1980’s, and shall deservedly share in the upside of asset appreciation. But, just because he was luckily able to play the “game” a little, that does not make him hypocritical or even inconsistent. What’s much more relevant and to the point is that Clayton and the cultural/artistic community he has been such an integral part of — is a principal reason why all of downtown New York real estate became so valuable in the first place. This kind of gentrification is the doubly unfair. Not only are they displaced, but those who actually create the “value” predominantly do not share in it. Instead, they are left to die in the gutter like Taylor Mead. And all the virtuous capitalists who have profited off of their ideas and contributions still won’t even bother to learn their names.
You question Clayton’s nationality or identity, but what could define those things more than devoting a life’s work to personally building and documenting your community? Morally speaking, he deserves his Americanness more than the vast majority of our citizens.
the no win situation. makes life hard. one makes a decision, a right one, to find a way to survive in the city and now it was a plan. Yes we bought a building because when Reagan got into power I saw all this Chinese money buying up downtown- so in 1981 I knew I would never be able to live in NYC. And to say I hate America is just plain stupid. I loved love and still am deeply connected to the LES. And I did fight hard not for my profit but against the gentrification- sadly we the struggling ones were the rabble- so few listened- and now later people come in and say survival was a deep plot to actually be fighting for gentrification. You want to know MY story- then look me up- my rants are well known- have written numerous articles on the subject- have a serious archive on the subject- this work was done for passion and not profit- anyway- there are those who can always find fault in everything- there is not heaven on earth so there is always the bad- if the naysayers would have actually done the work and joined the caused the LES would still be there- have another beer- spill a few more beers – and do noth
ing- and so it goes-
You are free to sell your property well below the market price to an individual or group with the energy to continue to provide an alternative to “gentrification”.
In San Francisco we have many who talk a the Progressive talk, but when it comes time, they just sell their real estate to the highest bidder (Bruce Brugman of the Bay Guardian and Rebecca Solnit are two recent examples).
That’s right, he should have donated his home to the wealthy and relegated himself and his wife to life in the gutter. You didn’t mention how many years he owned the placed, seems like a key fact. You make him sound like a flipper …
But seriously, best to read an article before commenting. He’s not moving to a place where he is loved for his art and character. Even little villages in Austria have greater appreciation for culture than NY these days (and probably any American city). SF is a tidy second in the gentrification front, watch and learn.
Evidently it is you, not I, who did not read the article because it is clearly stated that he bought the building four years after he arrived in NYC, i.e. in 1983.
I’d estimate his building is now worth at least ten times what it cost him, and well into seven figures for what is now a very hot neighborhood.
I don’t begrudge anyone who makes a fortune in real estate. That should be obvious to you. But I do think it’s precious to be whining about he erosion of bohemia while simultaneously profiting from the upgrading and gentrification that made his Alpine spa town retirement a reality.
Wouldn’t someone poor and displaced involuntarily have made a better poster child for the evils of gentrification?