(Image: Matt Mitgang)
(Image: Matt Mitgang)
Seattle Parks crews backed off and Seattle Police stood by after a small but spirited crowd of supporters gathered Tuesday morning to stop the removal of the Black Lives Memorial Garden from Capitol Hill’s Cal Anderson Park.
The early morning standoff played out around the so-called “sun bowl” area of the park where heavy equipment had been rolled in for the removal of the garden that was established during the Black Lives Matter and CHOP protest in the summer of 2020.
(Image: Matt Mitgang)
CHS reported here earlier this month as Black Star Farmers organizer Marcus Henderson and supporters have rallied to stop the parks department from a planned “turf restoration” project in the bowl that officials is needed “to host gatherings and large events” as part of its “intentional design as a natural amphitheater and proximity to electrical and water hook-ups.”
Seattle Parks says it has offered to work with the group that helped shape the initial garden and that has stewarded the space over the years to relocate the garden in the park or move it to another Seattle Parks location including a space behind the Rainier Community Center.
Tuesday, police stood by and an arrest van was dispatched to the park but there were no confrontations with the group gathering in the garden area. An arrest made nearby for property damage was related to man reported throwing objects in the roadway and not related to the garden standoff.
Black Star Farmers says the garden should remain where it was created in June 2020. “Forceful displacement of community projects like BLMG is consistent with violent state projects like imperialism, colonization, and gentrification,” the group said in its “call to action” asking for public support against moving the garden.
(Image: Matt Mitgang)
Community representative groups involved in reshaping Cal Anderson’s community uses in the wake of CHOP have spoken out against the city’s decision and the Cal Anderson Park Alliance community group says it did not ask for the city to restore the amphitheater bowl grass.
A leading participant in the community meetings following CHOP is calling on the city to listen to community demands.
“The park, the neighborhood, and the city will be worse off for this move and I suspect you all will continue to be affiliated with other institutional bullies for your shortsightedness,” University of Washington Urban Design & Planning researcher Keith Harris wrote in his message to city officials in a thread shared with media. “But you have the opportunity here to really see what the community thinks, rather than assuming based on some years-old, half-assed, online effort. I think we can do better than this.”
Meanwhile, supporters of the garden are ready to dig in.
“We will be holding the ground,” an update to @blackstarfarmers promised Tuesday morning as the heavy equipment arrived.
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“Stewarded” lol
“Forceful displacement of community projects like BLMG is consistent with violent state projects like imperialism, colonization, and gentrification,”
There are some deeply, deeply unintelligent people living in this city. Whoever drafted that statement is among them.
ummm…history would indicate otherwise.
Its a city park, not your protest stage site. The neighborhood around Cal Anderson wants our park back.
Love it! These protesters rock!
They are uninvited parasites stealing public land for their group’s fundraising activities.
The language is non sensical. You’re comparing taking back public space from a private org, with private concerns, to imperialism?
How are we supposed to take these people seriously? Not only are they demeaning victims of imperialism they are hysterical and respond to any critique with laughable hyperbole. How do you reason with that?
You don’t, which is why they have chosen that language. But this isn’t 2020 anymore and we’re not doing things just because a small group of striden activists wants to hold the neighborhood hostage for their own selfish ends.
Nobody GAF about tending the garden until it was time to remove it. It was unkempt, sprawling and filled with trash.
Let’s not be mistaken, these are unserious people, with unserious demands, and should be treated as such.
You are (likely intentionally) confusing people with the use of the term “private”. This is not a private group. It is a public community group. If it were a so-called private group, they’d be bribing elected officials with funds raised by charging rent on multiple hoarded enclosed “properties” to corrupt them to use our tax dollars to increasingly militarize the police and keep people unhoused in order to maintain an oppressed sector of the population for cheap involuntary labor for their tiny clique of landed gentry, in a feedback loop of growing inequality and perpetual destruction of public community.
Bleak.
nothing says “steward” like heavy equipment and police standing by! I get that parks wants to use this little chunk of land for some other stuff but why not integrate it instead? no one going to the park is saying, wow I wish this garden weren’t here. even for events and movie nights, is it really so hard to work around half an acre of plants?
Tons of people are saying wow I wish the garden weren’t here. Even if you were to ignore the illegal means by which it was set up, the garden just looks like sh1t.
Yes I am saying exactly that. I wish it weren’t there and we had usable park space instead.
I am saying wow I wish this garden weren’t here. Since when is it okay to just destroy a park to turn into your little project???
Since Marxist actors all figured out they can hold city government hostage with their social media brigade of lies
I also wish it wasn’t there. That space is/was used for community garage sales, movie nights, and other activities where that space was used for human bodies. The garden gets in the way or would be trampled. If it absolutely positively must be in Cal Anderson, it needs to move.
We really need to stop screwing around and be a comically idiot group of people trying to turn Seattle into Gotham freaking City.
Anarchy is only useful for 14 year olds to fantasize
The real world needs a bit more order.
“Order” like cops who make more than the police chief who sleep on the job ????
Can you possibly not respond to every comment by blaming police? Its a terribly inaccurate argument tactic.
We’re discussing the theft of Cal Anderson Park by activists, not your ACAB personal beliefs.
That’s literally all they have.
Look at the photo of all those oppressed white people?
What does that matter? Allies are allies.
Fake garden used as prop for fundraising by Marxists
Well, it would be nice if there were some actual black people there to ally with. Or is this really just a white person thing?
A productive patch of urban land without commercial implications for the commons? How outrageous for a city park! And black? There are no blacks on Cap Hill! The city says go plant where we put you all those years ago.
Except the plants didn’t grow there. They were brought in fully matured 3 weeks ago and staged as part of this protest.
I want the park back. This isnt 2020 anymore. Your Revolution is over. The bums lost.
Don’t quit your day job kids.
what if protesting is their job?
What if their shift hasn’t started? Introduce some nuance into your bad faith nonsensical posts.
Given the plants were all raised someplace else, its not like these actors needs to do much real gardening anyway. They’re here to fundraise and obstruct. Doing a pretty good job
This is ridiculous
The group has posted constantly and support of the massacre in Israel. Literally praising the massacre. Of course they shouldn’t be allowed public land. A better question is why does this one group get to take public land but nobody else does?
That wasn’t just a massacre. It’s more complicated than that. For one thing it’s become increasingly clear that Israel killed many of its own people that day (they’re trying to shut down the Haaretz newspaper for reporting this). For another, that smashing through the prison gate was the first time most of these young men had ever been outside the concentration camp walls- Israel took everyone in Gaza hostage in 2005 and hasn’t let up
“Abolish grass?” AGAB?
Hahahaha get a hobby.
Which group do I need to join to allow this to become park space again instead of being colonized by out of neighborhood folks?
This incident reminds me of a toddler who has a tantrum because he/she doesn’t get their way. “Wa, Wa, Wa”!!
you can’t just turn a park into whatever the fuck you want. this is so dumb
Take back the park from these colonizers who are stealing public land.
If they really want to have a garden space they should do what all the rest of us mere mortals do:
1) Buy some land
2) Lobby your landlord for some space on the grounds to plant a few things
3) Join a P patch, they come in various sizes, have low fees(financial help is available) and don’t require a ton of commitment.
Otherwise get off of public land. Didn’t we learn this in kindergarten to not take things that aren’t yours?
High praise for the Parks Department and Seattle Police Department for their patience with these toddler-protestors seeking camera-friendly confrontation. But this unilateral claiming of public park needs to end.
Right? I think I’ll claim Volunteer Park as my own. Hey all of you, get off my lawn!
That is not a garden. The plants there did not grow there. They were brought in fully grown and inserted into the soil to be used as a protest fundraiser site. It’s working great too. Plenty of gullible people think this thing is “feeding people.”
The theft of city property for this Antifa group marketing site is a fraud perpetrated by the groups involved. The park land does not belong to them. Seattle Parks is allowing them to steal it from residents of Capitol Hill legitimately using the park.
F*ck CHOP. Get the dregs of their toxic and deadly anarchy camp out of our neighborhood.