Restore the History and Building of Bloody Thursday Harry Bridges presence in the history of the ILWU at its founding headquarters and on the 1934 Strike Committee was declared non-existent by the San Francisco Planning Commission, Thursday September 18, 2014. This bizarre act was carried out based upon duplicitous claims advanced by the Commonwealth Club which arrogates to itself the right to revise history selectively for its convenience. The Commonwealth Club has asserted that they honor the ILWU s history as it applies specifically to the very building in which that history was ennobled through courage and sacrifice that the Commonwealth Club thus dishonors The Commonwealth Club purports to respect the 1934 General Strike while demanding and inducing the Planning Commission to place the City of San Francisco on record with the false statement Owners and occupants (of 113 Steuart Street) include a variety of commercial tenants serving the waterfront uses and NONE appears to have made a significant contribution to local, state or national history. [page 25, paragraph 2, case no. 22011.1388E,PMND. The Commonwealth Club induced the Planning Commission to put on record the falsehood that Harry Bridges was not present at the 1934 Strike Committee which he led, nor present daily throughout the momentous struggle in the besieged offices of the very ILWU local where his leadership was consolidated throughout the 1934 Strike. The National Register of Historic Places in Washington, D.C. in contrast has demonstrated its support for landmarking not just the building but the surrounding area. The Commonwealth Club wants a free hand to tear down and restructure the 113 Steuart Street Headquarters and birthplace of the ILWU and Maritime Strike. They want to exercise their plan with minimal historic oversight. The strategy of revising Harry Bridges out of history enables the Club to have minimum interference. The plans call for the rehabilitation of changes after the 1934 period of significance on Steuart Street. The Club plans the removal of the Embarcadero Front of the building and a third floor addition to the Steuart Street side, which will keep the building from ever being a landmark, because of the indecent loss of integrity through vandalizing what will remain. They want to make these alterations without having to mitigate changes that alter the historic resource needlessly and irreparably and thus preclude it from ever becoming an actual landmark. They have limited one half of the history by removing Harry Bridges presence, making one of the most significant historic sites in San Francisco less than half a landmark. Illegal complicity of the Planning Commission has made this farce possible. Given the fact that a tear gas barrage was launched at the Embarcadero side of 113 Steuart Street, the attempts to dismantle the components of the landmark on the Embarcadero as well as on t13 Steuart highlight the extent of this duplicity that cries out to be repudiated and rejected. For a public affairs organization that claims to seek the truth to blur the very history it should embrace, celebrate and memorialize has been carried out to impose construction alterations that are incompatible with landmarking 113 Steuart Street. They have failed to honor history by landmarking the building, because they want to prevent landmark standards from being enforced. But the depth of dishonesty of this attack on San Francisco history goes even deeper. The block on which the 1934 ILA/ILWU HQ sits, is the last of over three dozen waterfront blocks with its distinctive character and structure. Housing for waterfront workers together with marine service loft and industrial spaces stretched along the waterfront from Broadway to Townsend. This block, Howard to Mission, and Steuart to the Embarcadero, contains this structure of the maritime waterfront from the post 1906 earthquake period. It also contains other buildings attacked by the police in 1934. This block is the sole survivor of the 36 water blocks whose historic presence has been erased. The police fired gas projectiles into the 110 The Embarcadero side of the ILA/ILWU 113 Steuart building. The YMCA was assaulted as well..There were pictures of Bloody Thursday in the press. The crowds supporting the strikers were on the Embarcadero around the foot of Mission Street and Howard Street because of the effort to block the Belt Line Railway serving the docks. This is well documented in the period news coverage. There is nothing of this in the Commonwealth Club commissioned Page and Turnbull HRE or the error-packed Planning Department HRER documents. This omission and the grotesque censorship involved in this elimination of Harry Bridges from the scene make these reports a mockery. National maritime history experts in the Interior Department and beyond are stunned that this landmark and block of national significance is being degraded in this primitive provincial manner. It is even more shocking that the San Francisco Planning Department pushed the destruction of 110 The Embarcadero side and the diminution of the 113 Steuart landmark and waterfront block setting. Support the repeal of the Planning Commission documents which must be changed decisively. The Planning Commission must reverse this falsification on November 13th to reflect the truth and the actual history they purport to describe with a view to raising this if necessary with the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Tell the Commonwealth Club to recognize the whole history of this building which is part of San Franciscos proud and unique maritime legacy. Real History of ILWU and Harry Bridges Covered Up At SF Commonweath Club Discussion At 34 ILA HQ A Home for Ideas ... or Intolerance? By Bradley Wiedmaier
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 05:52:50 +0000
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