The Street People

Berkeley, Calif., was the cradle of the U.S. student rebellion. Recently, though, it had been Dullsville for activists. Demonstrations had petered out as the principal action shifted to the East. This was enough to irritate radicals on and off the University of California campus. Many of them were spoiling for a fight with university authorities but lacked an issue. So, joining some enthusiasts in a popular local-improvement project, they created a cause--with the cooperation of heavy-handed university officials and gun-happy police.

The alchemy was simple. The first ingredient was a dusty, three-acre tract in a dowdy neighborhood just off grim Telegraph Avenue. The university acquired the site two years ago, and planned to use it for a recreation area restricted to university people. The $1,000,000 plot became a vacant eyesore when the university cleared it of buildings a year ago. Last month some of Berkeley's "street people"--an amorphous assemblage of hippies, yippies, students and others falling into no classification--took over the plot. They plowed the ground and, with $1,000 raised among themselves and neighborhood businessmen, planted trees, flowers and grass. They installed benches, a sandbox and swings. Up went a sign: "People's Park." Abstract sculptures and mobiles of metal, wood and glass appeared. Sunday-afternoon rock concerts were organized.

What had been a neighborhood debit now accommodated laughing children and young lovers. To some, it symbolized popular planning and creativity at its best. To university officials, it was a challenge to their plans and a possible staging zone for summer riots. To the radicals, the university's attitude was the issue they had been looking for, comparable with Columbia's plan to build a gym in a public park. They declared squatters' rights and dared the university to throw them off.

Antiseptic Prose. With all the thoughtfulness of laboratory animals responding to electric stimulation, the university reacted. Chancellor Roger Heyns, who had previously won the respect of most students, argued that residents objected to the noise and crowds. He promised in antiseptic prose to "exclude unauthorized persons from the site." One dawn last week, in came policemen and bulldozers. Up went poles for an eight-foot fence. Out went about 75 street people.

At noon, Student Body President Don Siegal raised the cry: "Let's go down there and take the park." He led a crowd of 1,800 down Telegraph Avenue, straight into a clash with about 300 police. The demonstrators hurled rocks; the cops responded with tear gas. County sheriff's deputies, who later claimed that they had been attacked with steel pipes and bricks, opened up with an antiriot weapon new to the area: twelve-gauge shotguns firing low-velocity birdshot. Four youths on a rooftop were sprayed, two wounded seriously. One lost his spleen, a kidney and part of his pancreas and bowels in surgery; the other may lose both eyes. At least another dozen demonstrators and two newsmen suffered gunshot wounds, some of them from small-caliber rifles. The battle raged for three hours over 25 square blocks. When it was over, about 60 had been admitted for hospital treatment, including about 20 policemen, 36 protesters were under arrest and one car had been burned.

The university had made its point.Or had it? Said Sim Van Der Ryn, chairman of the chancellor's advisory committee on housing and environment: "The People's Park was a great idea. The university just seems to be mad that they didn't think of it first." Asserting the need for the fence, Heyns admitted: "That's a hard way to make the point, but that's the way it has to be." At week's end, 1,200 National Guardsmen patrolled the streets and the park was closed off and empty. Continued agitation in the area resulted in still more arrests as the street people vowed not to surrender.

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