Protesters decry ‘maniacal fantasy’ to close People’s Park in Berkeley

Protesters gathered on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley on Wednesday morning rallying against the closure of People’s Park just hours before.

Starting around 11 a.m., SFGATE saw about 50 people face off with a line of barricades, and a group of police officers blocking access to Haste Street and the park just beyond. Led by speakers with bullhorns, the protesters chanted slogans like, “Whose park? People’s Park!” and, “Hey, hey, ho, ho! These racist cops have got to go!”

Aidan Hill, one of the speakers and a volunteer with the organization East Bay Food Not Bombs, which serves food in the park to unhoused people, called the containers a “maniacal fantasy” on the part of university officials. He told SFGATE he works every Friday with Food Not Bombs, and said he’s upset to lose an important green space.

“I have this attachment to this place, because I love this place,” he said. “They heard us very clearly to find somewhere else [for the housing].”

Hill said he wants the university to preserve and protect the space and negotiate with his fellow activists in good faith. “As someone who’s no longer a student, but still lives here, I don’t feel safe knowing that the community space that I developed and I can navigate isn’t going to be the same,” he told SFGATE.

Though some demonstrations over the future of the park have grown violent in the half-century that the university has been trying to build here — a protest in 1969 now known as “Bloody Thursday” left one person dead and several injured — Wednesday’s event was relatively calm.

By around noon, most protesters moved south toward Dwight Way and the other barricades that secured a roughly nine-block area surrounding the park. At each barricade they were blocked by more police who were only allowing residents and media access.

Outside of one man who shook the barricades at Telegraph and Haste, most protesters milled around with signs saying “Defend People’s Park!” while answering the chant prompts from the speakers. A shouting match between a masked protester and Ken Berland, a supporter of the university’s plans, lasted only a few minutes.

Berland, a resident of the area since 2007, told SFGATE he hopes the university’s project will move ahead. He called it a “good plan” and predicted that it will benefit the neighborhood.

“People’s Park has a long history. … It’s a troubled and storied history,” he said. “I don’t think Cal has been the greatest steward over the last 50 years. They’ve let it fall into disrepair.”

Though Berland acknowledged that circling the park with shipping containers is heavy-handed, he said it makes sense after last August when demonstrators removed a fence around the park that the university had erected.

“The court will tell them they can build,” he said, referring to the case currently before the California Supreme Court over whether the university can build on the site. “They want to be ready to build. And while the kids were away that was probably the best time to do it.” (UC Berkeley students are still on winter break; the school does not resume classes until Tuesday.)

By early afternoon inside the barricades, the streets were largely quiet with only the rows of containers in orange, red, green and blue looking out of place. A couple of joggers flew by on the sidewalk, but most people outside were either law enforcement or construction workers. 

Larissa Martin was walking her dog on Channing Way near her home. Though her car had been towed that morning as part of the construction, she had mixed feelings about the park’s closure.

“The housing situation is bad,” she said. “But I don’t think [the university] handled the situation well.” 

More protests are expected over the coming days. Hours after SFGATE left the area, a notice came in through an activist organization’s text alert network: “Mobilize NOW!” the message read, giving the Haste Street address. “We’re taking over Telegraph til we get our park back.”