[Dixielandjazz] Didn't see this coming....

[M J (Mike) Logsdon]

Troubled half-century of urban renewal in SF
By JASON DEAREN (Associated Press Writer)
 From Associated Press
November 09, 2008 1:52 PM EST

SAN FRANCISCO - Holding her cane and shuffling carefully down the 
sidewalk in the city's Jazz Preservation District, 88-year-old Leola 
King stopped and looked at the words stamped in concrete: Leola King's 
Birdcage, 1505 Fillmore.

Today, the site of King's 1960s nightclub is a Starbucks on the ground 
floor of a condominium tower.

A half-century ago, this neighborhood was nicknamed "Harlem of the West" 
and hundreds of black-owned businesses thrived here. At night its gritty 
streets were filled with the sounds of jazz and blues drifting from 
nightclubs.

Then the government, using race as a factor in its decision, decreed the 
area blighted and forced thousands of people, including King, from the 
neighborhood by way of eminent domain. The din of bulldozers and 
wrecking balls replaced the saxophones and snare drum-raps with the 
promise of a better neighborhood.

It was a scenario that played out across the nation in black communities 
in Chicago, Atlanta, New York, Boston, Kansas City, Mo., and others, as 
the federal and local governments undertook urban renewal projects that 
reshaped and, some say, ruined redevelopment areas like the Western 
Addition, where the Fillmore District is located.

Its work done, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency - the 
state-and-federally funded agency that managed the project - will 
without fanfare end one of the nation's longest-running urban renewal 
projects on Jan. 1.

"Thousands of units of affordable housing have been developed, and there 
has been lots of investment and economic development but none of that 
has been able to make up for the tremendous sense of loss the people who 
lived in the Western Addition feel in terms of the cultural fabric," 
said Fred Blackwell, the agency's executive director.

In all, 90 city blocks were torn down and rebuilt. Most of what remains 
of the area's celebrated past are old photographs, fading memories and 
new jazz venues that echo the area's rich musical heritage.

For King, there's no reason to celebrate the end of redevelopment. She 
lost almost everything.

"In her day, she was one of the wealthiest women in San Francisco and 
that's no joke," said San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, whose 
district includes Western Addition. "They took a self-made woman and 
basically subverted her stature."

Documents show that King lost businesses - two nightclubs and a barbecue 
restaurant - and numerous residential properties. She spent decades in a 
losing battle with the agency that ended in bankruptcy after she 
defaulted on real estate loans.

She now lives in a garage that was converted into an apartment, 
surrounded by gilded mirrors and chandeliers that once decorated her clubs.

Redevelopment displaced almost 900 businesses in the Western Addition 
and more than 4,700 homes, including blocks of grand, historic 
Victorians. Agency records do not show how many residents ever returned.

The city's black population was growing rapidly when redevelopment began 
in the 1950s. By the mid-1970s, however, blocks sat vacant and the black 
population had started its decades-long slide from about 13 percent to 
half that in 2005 - the biggest percentage decline of any major city.

On the block where King's Birdcage used to be, the New Chicago 
Barbershop is the only black-owned business that returned after 
development. "Basically, everything's been lost," said barber Reggis 
Pettus, standing beneath photos from the neighborhood's heyday. "They 
put up a big old high-rise that two-thirds of the people who lived here 
can't afford."

King lost her first business to urban renewal - a barbecue restaurant 
called Oklahoma King's - in 1958. She speaks about it today as if she 
can still hear the crowds pouring in from jazz clubs and see a line out 
the door after midnight.

She was forced to sell Oklahoma King's for less than she paid for the 
land. She received nothing for the buildings there or her restaurant 
equipment.

Next she remodeled a neighborhood nightclub, which she named the Blue 
Mirror and built into a premier nightclub. Oftentimes, black touring 
acts - John Coltrane, Etta James, T-Bone Walker - would play to white 
audiences downtown in the early evening, then come to the Fillmore.

In 1962, the redevelopment agency targeted the Blue Mirror's location 
and King was forced to move again.

Two years later, she opened the Birdcage and added an apartment building 
and other real estate to her growing empire.

King said an official told her the new nightclub was outside their 
target area for the wrecker's ball, but she was evicted by court order 
in 1974 and the building was demolished. For more than two decades, King 
fought the redevelopment agency over millions of dollars she wanted to 
reestablish the Birdcage at another location.

Today, her Birdcage and Blue Mirror are now immortalized on a "jazz walk 
of fame" in the preservation district established in 2003.

"When I walk through the neighborhood now, ... I mourn for what has been 
lost," said Elizabeth Pepin, co-author of "Harlem of the West." "The 
neighborhood undoubtedly would have changed, as all neighborhoods do. 
But it would have been organically brought about by the people who lived 
in the neighborhood."

Today, city voters are being asked to approve an $8 billion 
redevelopment of one of the city's remaining black neighborhoods, the 
Bayview-Hunter's Point.

Blackwell said the mistakes made in the Fillmore and Western Addition 
will not be repeated because lessons have been learned and the law has 
been changed to protect the inhabitants of redevelopment areas.

"We're not trying to replicate what happened (there)," he said.

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On the Net:

Harlem of the West: http://www.harlemofthewestsf.com/

Jazz Heritage Center: http://www.jazzheritagecenter.com/