Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #peoplespark, aggregated by home.social.
May 15, 1969 - Governor Ronald Reagan sent in the National Guard to reclaim People's Park from 6,000 protesters in Berkeley, California, who had occupied the space and created the park.
Police gunfire killed a bystander, James Rector, blinded another, and injured dozens. Governor Reagan defended his decision to use the California National Guard to quell Berkeley protests: "If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with."
CPH Daily Bulletin 9/16/2025
A dire #housing shortage crushed People’s Park, and the ideals it represented
From green icon to housing villain: The fall of #California’s landmark environmental law
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/18/california-ceqa-environmental-law-housing-00448276
#CEQA #HousingCrisis #AffordableHousing #ClimateCrisis #PeoplesPark #EnvironmentalJustice #CalPol
Everyone knows it is the #PeoplesPark on #GrandParade in #CorkCity, as it says beside the gate.
"Renaming row" https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41670098.html
Water lily in People's Park. 🌸
📸 on May 8, 2023 with Sony α7R IV.
(105mm, ƒ/8, 1/125s, ISO 100)
Yay for #PeoplesPark #Berkeley Destruction according to the sphincter of #kkkalifornia, #LostAngeles @latimes
Got my special #SolarEclipse edition of #PeoplesPark by #DavidAgranoff!
#DavidAgranoffPeoplesPark #books #bookstodon #punk #punkBooks #punkRock #indieBooks #QuoirBooks #indiePublishing #amReading
📉 UC Berkeley seized People's Park. The cost is in the millions and set to rocket higher
This is really fucked up and sad. Obviously the fight for #PeoplesPark is still not over, but such destruction is terrible. And seems to contravene the court order not to do any demolition or tree felling. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/peoples-park-closure-photos-18591783.php
I have visited People's Park twice, in 2000 and in 2014.
Here are pictures of words from the park. Three of the pictures are words from the people who built it. The 4th is from the self-declared owners, who have now destroyed it.
Sky views of the park today are shocking. Almost all the remaining trees have been felled, defying a court injunction, and the park is once again "A muddy, rutted piece of land".
Easier to destroy than to build.
An excellent (but not new) piece from the Berkeley Faculty Association on the larger context of the continuing battle over People's Park:
https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/5406-people-s-park-and-the-future-of-the-public-university
#peoplespark
These are the people of People’s Park
A civil rights lawyer, UC Berkeley students and grads, artists, travelers and social workers all have a story to tell about their experiences and memories at People’s Park.
https://www.berkeleyside.org/2023/11/28/people-of-the-park-profiles #PeoplesPark #UniversityOfCalifornia #Berkeley #NeoliberalHellHole
Longtime #Berkeley street denizen and cartoonist character #AceBackwards gives his take on the #hippie history of the contentious plot of land known as #PeoplesPark
Sure looks like UC PD has used the generous % of the UC budget they get to create fascist club patches like other cops...
Remember that one of the most frequent things disabled people hear about why our public university isn't accessible 33 years post-ADA is "it's too expensive".
But shipping containers, gift cards for drivers whose cars UC towed, cop OT, ammo, and club patches are "affordable".
The way those shipping containers have blocked off the sidewalks all around there sure looks like an ADA violation. #DisabilityLaw #PeoplesPark #UniversityOfCalifornia #Berkeley
https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/01/04/protest-peoples-park-uc-berkeley-live-updates
"He said the university did not notify residents or drivers about its plans to avoid alerting park supporters about the start of the operation.
“We did not want there to be a large protest scene,” Gibson said. “We wanted things to be as safe and smooth as possible, and that’s exactly what happened.”
Berkeley typically requires “no parking” signs be posted 72 hours before parking limits can begin. The city of Berkeley’s media office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon."
Typical "laws are for YOU, not for us" UC attitude.
https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/01/04/peoples-park-berkeley-neighborhood-lockdown-police #UniversityOfCalifornia #PeoplesPark #NeoliberalHellHole
#PeoplesPark is a blight. Building housing is the best thing to do with that plot of scabrous land.
(I am a '93 grad at Cal, I live ~1.5 miles south of there, I believe we need to build proper housing for the unhoused, and when it comes to People's Park, I'm mostly disappointed that the UC Regents have dragged their heels as long as they have. People's Park is a symbol, but it's a pathetic one, and that land could be used *so much better*.)
They cut down mature trees today, violating a court order. 😢
“Healthy specimens of California's iconic redwoods and oaks used to adorn People's Park. The largest redwood on site was far older than the park itself... Over the years, the UC has felled several trees. What was a dense urban forest…was reduced to a handful of remaining trees. Those specimens were to be left alone, per a standing court order…flagrantly violated last night.” https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2024/01/04/18861569.php #PeoplesPark
UC Berkeley makes dead-of-night push to wall off storied People’s Park
The university launched the extraordinary operation — designed to double-stack metal cargo containers around the entire perimeter of the park — just after midnight.
On their arrival, police surrounded the park.
Inside, they were met by several dozen protesters, chanting, “Long live People’s Park” along with shouts of “Fight back!”
Some held out for hours in a makeshift treehouse and on the roof of a single-story building in the park.
By starting the exercise under the cover of darkness and during students’ winter break, university leaders hoped to minimize a conflict with activists adamant the park should remain open space, a living tribute to free speech and student activism.
The university planned to install the cargo containers over several days, banking on the massive metal structures to provide a more formidable barrier than the fences that protesters have easily breached in the past.
"Construction workers felled trees around the perimeter of the park, dismantled tents and eventually pushed out most of the protesters. "
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/04/uc-berkeley-peoples-park-police-operation #UniversityOfCalifornia #PeoplesPark
#PeoplesPark site owned by #UCBerkeley attracts dozens of amped up #activists and potentially hundreds of law enforcement officers with a 24 hr #CalDining catering contingent capable of feeding over 1000 meals a day to support securing site listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
#UniversityOfCalifornia claims new #housing plans for bldgs to shelter 1200 preserves open space, and honors park's 55 yr legacy is also desperately needed, at a blighted location where crime has escalated around a filthy & oft dangerous tent encampment.
#Protesters refuse to join #GovernorNewsom and city leaders in support of #construction on symbolic site of #resistancia that has been held in limbo while awaiting a #California #SupremeCourt case that has not as yet even heard any #OralArguments.
#BerkeleyU sent out an announcement this morning telling #CampusCommunity members to avoid the "affected area" for at least next 6 days while the stacking of #ShippingContainers around perimeter of long contested vacant lot begins
The situation is bound to escalate into chaotic confrontations, vexing violence and perpetual public disturbances, as it always has over previous decades, in which blood has been shed, and life was once taken by #police buckshot fired at furious citizenry.
"it suited the University's interest to make People's Park look bad because it was 'dirty'. And people don't like it..and there are people on the Left who don't like it. And they don't realize they're being manipulated by the University" - James Chanin
"On Wednesday, May 14, 1969, UC Berkeley Chancellor Roger W. Heyns announced definitively that he intended to construct a fence around “People’s Park” so that it might be converted, as the University planned, into an athletic field."
James Rector, fatally shot by police on May 15, 1969
https://revolution.berkeley.edu/james-rector-wounded/ #UniversityOfCalifornia #PeoplesPark #NeoliberalHellHole
Chanin used to live/rent on the land that became People's Park and recounts UC's violence in fighting People's Park.
"James Chanin speaks out to save People’s Park in Berkeley.
James Chanin, nationally prominent attorney, specializing in civil rights, police misconduct, personal injury and business litigation
From: Speak Out: Save People’s Park
June 6, 2022 at Noon
at California Hall, UC Berkeley"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q2nOy8LCbc #UniversityOfCalifornia #PeoplesPark #NeoliberalHellHole
Ah, the usual UC modus operandi!
"By starting the exercise under the cover of darkness and during students’ winter break, university leaders hoped to minimize a conflict with activists adamant the park should remain open space, a living tribute to free speech and student activism."
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-01-04/uc-berkeley-launches-operation-to-wall-off-peoples-park #UniversityOfCalifornia #PeoplesPark #NeoliberalHellHole
Direct action has held off the destruction of the historic autonomous People's Park in so-called Berkeley, California for a year. Now, documents show that the city is once again planning to fence off the area from the public - this time with barbed wire and double stacked shipping containers.
Park defenders are calling for people to defend the space. Check out this IG page for more info: https://www.instagram.com/peoplesparkberkeley/
'UC Berkeley intends to re-fence People’s Park with double-stacked cargo containers and barbed wire...developers submitted sidewalk permits to the city as the cargo containers are expected to impede public right of way.
While developers are not permitted to break ground on the project in the meantime, they are allowed to install fencing around the park.
Park defenders and advocates held an overnight vigil this week in anticipation of a perimeter fence, but as of press time, nothing has been erected."
#Berkeley #BayArea #SanFrancisco #PeoplesPark #Oakland
Read article here: https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/campus-plans-to-re-fence-people-s-park-with-shipping-containers-barbed-wire/article_a4cea6a0-a9f6-11ee-bf09-bb626bc8ae6e.html
Perspective: People’s Park, born out of the tumult of the late 1960s, is no more
"The park still exists. However, the days when a human grab bag of disoriented drug users, teenagers, transients, drunks, drug dealers, disaffected locals, and wayward hippies roamed the lot are long past. Walk past the park nowadays and you are lucky to see one or two people eating on one of the benches or milling about."
Any public access to the Freemason’s building would be allowed only on their terms and convenience. This stands in stark contrast to the right of access to the park which is owned by the people of the city and not by a secretive, misogynist, elitist old man’s club.
#PeoplesPark #BishopLuceyPark #PeacePark #CorkCity #Cork #PublicPark
https://pbpcork.org/2023/09/22/whose-park-our-park/
The end of the 2023 CA legislative session is producing new pro-housing laws that close loopholes often used to block or delay projects. Dan Walters of CalMatters shows some local examples.
#AttorneyGeneral #berkeley #california #GovernorGavinNewsom #housing #HousingElement #PeopleSPark #policy #RobBonta #SanBernadino
The #city as #sensory #playground. Inside the #PeoplesPark looking out at #GrandParade. A pleasing sense of #enveloping green, abundant tree #canopy, and #enclosure (what is a park without enclosure?)
Beyond the railings is bustling #GrandParade and the meetings of the ways, creating an #enveloped sense of #security and temporary #seclusion before returning to the busy-ness of the city.
Appeals court sends the #PeoplesPark housing project back to the drawing board for another EIR. https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/02/24/appeals-court-blocks-controversial-uc-berkeley-student-housing-proposal-at-peoples-park/?utm_medium=social&utm_content=tw-oaktribnews&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=socialflow