Roughly 90 to 100 cargo containers, stacked two high, surrounded People's Park in Berkeley Friday, following the closure and clearing of the contested property a day earlier.
As protests subsided, construction on the university's makeshift border wall ramped up. Workers in bucket trucks welded 10-foot steel plates to the containers to seal the open spaces between the boxes.
There was still a heavy police presence throughout the area. All roads leading toward the park remain blocked, including Haste Street, Bowditch Street and Dwight Way.
Thursday's protests resulted in the arrest of four people by Berkeley Police for moving barricades, resisting arrests and assaulting an officer. None of those arrested remain in custody.
The park, which is owned by the University of California, took shape in 1967 as a spontaneous beautification of a vacant industrial lot by thousands of volunteer activists.
For 56 years, it has been occupied by various residents, who built their own shelters, playgrounds, kitchens and stages. A countercultural symbol of ecology over power, it existed as a micro-village with no hierarchy.
The university began its long battle to regain the site on May 15, 1969, when then-Gov. Ronald Reagan authorized state troops in riot gear to fire on park supporters, resulting in one death and multiple injuries.
The legacy of violent protest has become synonymous with the park, followed by a string of legal challenges to save it from development.
On May 24, 2022, People's Park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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In a statement issued Thursday, the university said it counted 25 people living on the site as of November and that it has relocated 21 of them to paid housing.
It described the current state of the park as a risk to public safety, saying that unhoused people at the site have far too often been the victims of criminal activity. A hyperlink opens a record of crime at the park in recent years.
"In the past 3 years, there have been 18 rapes, 19 robberies, 110 aggravated assaults, and 48 drug and 6 weapons arrests," the university site says.
The site will be the location for new student housing with more than 1,100 beds. Permanent supportive housing for very low income and formerly unhoused people will be built by a nonprofit developer on a portion of the site the university is providing, the statement said.
On Friday night, more than a 100 demonstrators showed up nearby the park in solidarity to the unhoused and to show their displeasure of the construction.
Ziggy is one of the people who was living at People's Park. He and a few others climbed a tree when the swarm of officers came in.
“There were two other people guys in the tree with me and one guy was younger and he was really nervous and the other guy has been through some stuff already. So, they just voted to get out and they let us go,” he said.
Ziggy is now in transitional housing he said was offered from a social worker to the unhoused living in the park for weeks now.
Some demonstrators are calling the construction a land grab by those with influence.
“I think they just decided to do it anyway. They just decided it was time to be powerful, no matter the consequences,” said Berkeley resident Miriam.
“It’s disgusting, quite frankly,” said Cierra Cardenas of Berkeley “A physical representation of the last green space in south side Berkeley. But it’s also just a beautiful space where community can gather.”
The university expects the roads around the park to reopen Saturday or Sunday, barring no hiccups.
