Michael Michael has just informed me that The City of Berkeley has sent Jim Mason, the owner of The Shipyard, a “vacate and abate” notice. Jim now has no choice but to shut down this amazing art facility, which consists of 27 shipping containers in an 11,000 square foot outdoor space. The Shipyard has been home to countless large-scale art projects & installations, events and alternative energy experimentation, including a Survival Research Labs show (2001), How To Destroy The Universe Festival (2004 & 2005) and Burning Man projects The Clock Works (2005), Neverwas Haul (2006) and The Mechabolic (2007).
A sad day indeed and an end to an era of amazing creativity and alternative energy research. The City of Berkeley has sent Jim Mason, the owner of The Shipyard, a “vacate and abate†notice. Jim now has no choice but to shut down this amazing art facility.
This is a terrible blow to the Bay Area arts community. The Shipyard artists are being forced to vacate in 3 days (today is day #3), so they are franticly working on packing up their containers to move to a new location in Oakland. Berkeley is also hitting them with hefty fines of $2500/day if they miss their 3 day move out deadline. I’ll update this post with more information as it comes in. If you have any more information on this situation, please let us know in the comments.
Here are some documents related to this dire situation:
- Jim Mason’s letter to the City of Berkeley
- Jim Mason’s tentative plan of action
More coverage:
- SFGate: 5-11-2007 (Carolyn Jones)
- SFGate: 5-12-2007 (Carolyn Jones)
- O’Reilly Radar (Dale Dougherty)
- Boing Boing (David Pescovitz)
- Make Magazine (Phillip Torrone)
- SFBG :: Politics Blog (Steven T. Jones)
- KTVU (Diane Guerrazzi)
- MetaFilter
- Lee.org
UPDATE 1: The Shipyard’s architect Les Young just sent us this update on The Shipyard, which includes some background information regarding the situation.
As of now 5/11/07 1:00, on the third day of the three day warning, Jim has not received a response to his reply to Berkeley. The City has shut off the power, making the move and any possible repairs even more difficult. At this time, I have not heard anything about inspectors or police showing up. [more]
UPDATE 2: The Shipyard website has been updated with information related to their shutdown, including information on how people can help out.
If you want to help the residents of the Shipyard, head on down to the Shipyard. Bring food (food=beer in Shipyard land), coffee and massive trucks able to move shipping containers. Monetary donations gladly accepted.
UPDATE 3: Michael Michael has just informed me that the Berkeley city council has called for an emergency meeting on Monday, May 21st to address the Shipyard situation.
Here Are A Few Related Posts You Might Enjoy:
- Escape From Berkeley Kick-Off Event & Open House at The Shipyard
- A History of Burning Man Art at The Shipyard
- Tour of Albany, CA by Attaboy & The Shipyard
- John Hodgman Becomes Steve Jobs, Shuts Down Apple
- How Berkeley Can You Be? Has Been Canceled
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Usually in France when this happens, we just call each other, meet in front of the city hall, and burn it down. What time do you guys want to meet?
Does anyone know to whom citizens of Berkeley should send letters protesting the City’s actions against the Shipyard?
This is awful. Berkeley is pathetic. It’s Oakland’s gain. Good luck guys! Let us all know how we can help!!
les young’s comment in this blog clearifies exactly what happened and that the owner of the shipyard brought this upon himself.
/if the story is true. some of the supposed violations are quite outrageous and it’s amazing and he’s lucky he wasn’t evicted way earlier. i have no sympathies for this situation if the accusations are true.
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/05/save_the_shipya.html
spaz 1,spaz 2, drayage, shipyard. anyone see a pattern?
This bites the big wahooni.
berkeley is becoming non-viable, accrc is looking to move. before we are the last ones left. (and therefore the only target) anyone know of where I can find about 30k sqft?
Berkeley loses, oakland wins.
Here are the list of berkeley officials you can send your concerns to:
“Orth, David” – dorth@ci.berkeley.ca.us
“Joan MacQuarrie” – JMacQuarrie@ci.berkeley.ca.us
“Mark Rhoades” – MRhoades@ci.berkeley.ca.us
pkamlarz@ci.berkeley.ca.us
malbuquerque@ci.berkeley.ca.us
dpryor@ci.berkeley.ca.us
dmarks@ci.berkeley.ca.us
nalhadithy@ci.berkeley.ca.us
zcowan@ci.berkeley.ca.us
lmckinney@ci.berkeley.ca.us
mcaplan@ci.berkeley.ca.us
jhynes@ci.berkeley.ca.us
gdaniel@ci.berkeley.ca.us
mprince@ci.berkeley.ca.us
gpowell@ci.berkeley.ca.us
mnorrise@ci.berkeley.ca.us
gheidenreich@ci.berkeley.ca.us
mayor@ci.berkeley.ca.us
lmaio@ci.berkeley.ca.us
dmoore@ci.berkeley.ca.us
manderson@ci.berkeley.ca.us
spring@ci.berkeley.ca.us
lcapitelli@ci.berkeley.ca.us
olds@ci.berkeley.ca.us
kworthington@ci.berkeley.ca.us
GWozniak@ci.berkeley.ca.us
clerk@ci.berkeley.ca.us
Let them know what you think.
It does suck, big time. (btw James, don’t forget The Crucible in your list) It’s a horrible thing, and a lot of work, but Berkeley doesn’t deserve to have things like the Shipyard within its borders. I would never wish this on my friends, but it really is an opportunity to leave the idiocy that is Berkeley and relocate to someplace that actually cares. We did it with the Crucible, and we never looked back.