At least 30 dead in Oakland warehouse fire
December 5, 2016 11:41 AM   Subscribe

A warehouse, artists colony and music venue known as the "Oakland Ghost Ship" went up in flames Friday night during a concert promoted by the house music record label 100% Silk, featuring several musicians from its roster. "People who previously lived there recalled a building that lacked fire sprinklers and had a staircase partly made of wooden pallets. Partygoers recalled a rabbit warren of rooms crammed with belongings — pianos, organs, antique furniture, doors and half-finished sculptures" (L.A. Times). A Reddit user who identified himself as a survivor of the fire posted about his escape from the inferno. The whereabouts of Ghost Ship owner Derick Ion Almena, who apparently lived in the building with his wife and children, are unknown.
posted by Clustercuss (233 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
.
posted by drezdn at 11:43 AM on December 5, 2016


Three friends of mine had friends who were lost in this.

There's a fundraiser happening, and I chipped in.
posted by SansPoint at 11:48 AM on December 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


Here is the facebook check in page for those who can make use of it:

https://www.facebook.com/safetycheck/oakland-california-fire-dec03-2016/
posted by poe at 11:48 AM on December 5, 2016


.

A close, lifetime friend of mine is safe--he's in that scene but stayed home that night. He has several friends unaccounted for. So, so horrifying.
posted by umbú at 11:48 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


.
posted by crush-onastick at 11:49 AM on December 5, 2016


.

So much unnecessary loss. Many of those who were at the Ghost Ship that night were members of the queer and transgender community.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:49 AM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]


.
posted by janey47 at 11:51 AM on December 5, 2016


............................ ...?

The Ghost Ship was a tinderbox. That is not just an expression. This place largely consisted of boxes made of chunks of dry wood nailed together. There is just no way around that, figuratively or literally, when it comes to a fire.

It is infuriating. The one good thing we have salvaged from years of venue fires is study and definitive knowledge on how to avoid mass casualty incidents, and the owner just pissed that all away.
posted by Countess Elena at 11:51 AM on December 5, 2016 [88 favorites]


A friend lost a friend. This is a small town, in ways.

.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 11:51 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


A warren of rooms, and all of 2 exits. The show happening was on the second floor.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 11:52 AM on December 5, 2016


Derick Almena surfaced and posted a truly tone-deaf update on Facebook:

"Confirmed. Everything I worked so hard for is gone. Blessed that my children and Micah were at a hotel safe and sound... it's as if I have awoken from a dream filled with opulence and hope... to be standing now in poverty of self worth."
posted by tafetta, darling! at 11:53 AM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]


Small correction, Ion was the master tenant, not the warehouse owner. The building itself is owned by Chor Ng and not zoned for any residential use. Ion was spied leaving the downtown Oakland Marriott with his girlfriend but has been incredibly quiet except for a cruel facebook post where he bemoaned the loss of personal property.
posted by missmary6 at 11:53 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


The BBC said that Almena had checked in on facebook and said that he was safe, as were his children and partner:

"Media in Oakland named Derick Ion Almena as the co-operator of the collective with his partner, Micah Allison.
A Facebook post by him lamenting the loss of his belongings but saying he was "blessed that my children and Micah were at a hotel safe and sound" drew a barrage of criticism online."
posted by janey47 at 11:55 AM on December 5, 2016


.
posted by suelac at 11:57 AM on December 5, 2016


An incredibly promising young colleague at my small company -- someone it had been my privilege to start to get to know over the last few months -- is among the dead. I confess this is the first time I've been personally close to something like this. It is almost surreally bewildering and tragic.
posted by eugenen at 11:57 AM on December 5, 2016 [22 favorites]


Stuff like this is going to probably keep getting more common as living expenses outpace incomes.
posted by Mitrovarr at 12:00 PM on December 5, 2016 [60 favorites]


The number of people I know who have lost people they love in this fire kept expanding all weekend. It's a terrible loss.

There are a lot of people who live and work and entertain in spaces not permitted for those activities. A lot of them are young, poor, queer, and creative.

A friend posted a medium piece by someone who lived (or lives, I can't remember) in warehouse spaces like this and hosted events, and it's all about making the space as safe as possible. I'll see if I can find it.
posted by rtha at 12:02 PM on December 5, 2016 [14 favorites]


.

Like others here, I didn't lose any close friends, but I recognize names and faces as friends-of-friends and acquaintances I've made over the years.

The magnitude of the moral and ethical failure here on the part of both the absentee landlord and the master tenant cannot be understated. As Countess Elena said above, there is a reason we have building and fire codes in dense urban areas, and it's a shame these individuals abdicated their responsibility to their tenants, neighbors, and communities.

And to those people who are decrying the economic cost with fire suppression and egressing as incompatible with the artist's lifestyle, I would suggest that you are not only responsible for creating a psychological safe space but a physical one as well. Here's a great post on how to start making your space safer.
posted by turbowombat at 12:02 PM on December 5, 2016 [44 favorites]


I'm so sorry, eugenen.

missmary6, I wish I could edit my comment. It appears from early reports to be Almena who is behind the egregiously bad usage here, although there will have to be a lot of inquiry to sort this out.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:04 PM on December 5, 2016


The magnitude of the moral and ethical failure here on the part of both the absentee landlord and the master tenant cannot be understated.

I'm guessing there's some substantial legal failure, too. I'm guessing that's some of the reason we're not hearing more from them.
posted by Mitrovarr at 12:04 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


all our hearts are broken in Oakland. I have several friends who have lost friends to this fire. not so many years ago I might have been at that party myself...so many vibrant young people lost :(

.
posted by supermedusa at 12:05 PM on December 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


I hope this will lead to a much more active inspection and enforcement of fire regulations. My god, this city is an epicenter of earthquake risk.
.
posted by Bee'sWing at 12:07 PM on December 5, 2016


Ah, here it is: A Guide to Fire Safety in Industrial Spaces.
posted by rtha at 12:08 PM on December 5, 2016 [23 favorites]


.
posted by Small Dollar at 12:08 PM on December 5, 2016


I've been hearing from friends about the people they lost in the fire and it's beyond horrible. I don't know any of the dead or missing personally, but the waves of grief are palpable.

For the past two days I've been thinking about all the dumb shit I've helped build and about all the time we spent worrying that someone was going to get hurt on our idiot contraptions and all the stuff we did to try to temper that risk.
posted by Coda at 12:09 PM on December 5, 2016


The show happening was on the second floor.
Which was only reachable by some kind of improvised staircase that wasn't wide enough for people to go up and down at the same time. This would be just a pure death trap in a fire, probably the stairwell jamming full of panicked people and no one being able to get out.

"Media in Oakland named Derick Ion Almena as the co-operator of the collective with his partner, Micah Allison.
A Facebook post by him lamenting the loss of his belongings but saying he was "blessed that my children and Micah were at a hotel safe and sound" drew a barrage of criticism online."

He's claiming that he didn't know there had been loss of life when he posted that. Even if that is true, it's still pretty gross and self-centered that the first thing he thought of, after his family being OK, was loss of his property - he knew there were people living there, right? Even if he did not know there was an event there that night.

I'm guessing there's some substantial legal failure, too.
Of the "pack your toothbrush" kind, I hope.
posted by thelonius at 12:13 PM on December 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


:_:

tears
posted by Annika Cicada at 12:14 PM on December 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


There was a local arts organization I used to patronize all the time until they started doing a lot of fire acts in uncontrolled spaces. I just have such a horror of this, and reading about this space and the fire is just so unbelievably awful.

In retrospect, I should have reported those shows rather than just steered clear of them. If I am in an unsafe space, I will report it. We have to look out for each other, because creeps and amateurs and slumlords and the like will take advantage of our poverty and our need for shared space and creative space, and the results can be unspeakable. We don't just need space. We need space that won't kill us.
posted by maxsparber at 12:16 PM on December 5, 2016 [53 favorites]


.

Reading the many tributes that appeared online over the weekend felt like the Pulse massacre in Orlando again. I don't know any of these people, but they were like so many people I've known and loved. So sorry for this loss, especially those here personally affected by it.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:17 PM on December 5, 2016 [13 favorites]


.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:19 PM on December 5, 2016


My friend drew this comic to honor the friend she lost.

I have many friends who lost someone in the fire, and several friends who were there but made it out. Such a tragedy.
posted by hopeless romantique at 12:22 PM on December 5, 2016 [14 favorites]


.

I've been following this all weekend. It's heartbreaking. I've spent a lot of time in places like this and it just hits me so hard. I found this article on why we need spaces like this really moving. Otis Taylor on Ghost Ship: We still need these arts spaces
posted by Arbac at 12:24 PM on December 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


.
posted by mosk at 12:24 PM on December 5, 2016


It Could Have Been Any One of Us

And yet for many of us, these spaces are what have kept us alive. In a world that demands its inhabitants to be a certain way, think a certain way, or live a certain way, we gravitate to the spaces that say: Welcome. Be yourself. For the tormented queer, the bullied punk, the beaten trans, the spat-upon white trash, the disenfranchised immigrants and young people of color, these spaces are a haven of understanding in a world that doesn’t understand — or can’t, or doesn’t seem to want to try.

I run peripheral to some similar scenes here in Philadelphia, and was seriously afraid for one of my old roommates who now lives in Oakland for a minute. Turns out he was out of town at his father's memorial service. You know it's a rough year when you find yourself weirdly relieved that a memorial service happened.
posted by ActionPopulated at 12:28 PM on December 5, 2016 [20 favorites]


KQED had a really moving story: It Could Have Been Any One of Us
And yet for many of us, these spaces are what have kept us alive. In a world that demands its inhabitants to be a certain way, think a certain way, or live a certain way, we gravitate to the spaces that say: Welcome. Be yourself. For the tormented queer, the bullied punk, the beaten trans, the spat-upon white trash, the disenfranchised immigrants and young people of color, these spaces are a haven of understanding in a world that doesn’t understand — or can’t, or doesn’t seem to want to try.
posted by zachlipton at 12:28 PM on December 5, 2016 [10 favorites]


.
posted by Token Meme at 12:38 PM on December 5, 2016


This hit my community back home pretty hard. Devastating. So much unnecessary loss this year.
posted by Marinara at 12:38 PM on December 5, 2016


.
posted by interrupt at 12:40 PM on December 5, 2016


A friend of mine who has been involved in similar spaces is getting interviewed in light of this and he's adamant to say that the solution is not a crackdown - that will literally mean homelessness for a lot of people, particularly out here in the Bay Area. Obviously death trap homes are not the solution to homelessness, but a compassionate partnership with local regulatory authorities can be. It can cost millions to bring some of these spaces fully up to code, so if they're afraid to invite in a fire marshal to evaluate upgrades to egress, for example, because they might be shut down when the marshal notices some other less-urgent noncompliance, they'll simply avoid all run-ins with the regulators by ignoring codes completely. These spaces are many, and fill an important niche - the focus needs to be on how to get them to be safer, not on shutting them down and leaving the displaced tenants to find even less safe solutions.

Also, I've only been living in the Bay Area for a few months, and I still know several people who lost friends and acquaintances to this fire. It's a very small world.
posted by olinerd at 12:42 PM on December 5, 2016 [46 favorites]


KQED had a really moving story: It Could Have Been Any One of Us

This, exactly. People live and meet up in unsafe spaces all the time. I've been to many events in unsafe spaces. People will always live in and go to these places as long as they are broke enough to be unable to afford better, as long as landlords get away with bad practices and as long as there aren't good, community-sensitive resources for people to use.

Friends' friends are dead in this and everybody is in shock. There will be so many holes in our communities now.
posted by Frowner at 12:44 PM on December 5, 2016 [6 favorites]


i didn't know anyone personally who was at this, but many many friends of mine have lost loved ones, and many more of my friends were on their way to this show when the fire broke out. everyone i know is having an immensely difficult time processing this, and people jumping in to make callous comments without considering the insane housing market - especially for marginalized folks - in the bay area and other factors are just making this so much harder for us all. fire codes exist for a reason, and i know that diy venues in the area are going to be so much more cautious after this. many places are collecting donations of fire extinguishers and smoke detectors.

also, it's been extremely heartening to see support from so many different members of the community - i teared up the other night when the warriors had a moment of silence before their game for the fire victims; they also donated $50k. the As and the raiders are matching donations as well.

this is going to have a massive impact on the bay area music/arts scene for such a long time it's hard to fully comprehend it right now.
posted by burgerrr at 12:45 PM on December 5, 2016 [14 favorites]


I live in Boston, but there is a significant carousel belt that encourages people to migrate back and forth between Boston and the Bay Area. People come here for school, they go to SF to have the Bay Area Experience. Sometimes they come back. Sometimes people in SF come out here because they prefer being in a smaller city. I visit San Francisco at least three times a year and the social networks between both cities are just thoroughly enmeshed

I and all of my burner and punk friends watched the new of this unfold over the weekend at the same time that a 9 alarm fire destroyed several buildings in one of the few remaining affordable sections of Cambridge. The ripple effects echoed out to this shore, and having the two fires rip through our physical and virtual communities at the same time was jarring.
posted by bl1nk at 12:46 PM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]


.

I am having trouble blaming Almena. I saw him comment this AM on TV, and he broke my heart. He said, "They were my friends, my family, my children. What do you want me to say?"

I'd add that I am sure we lost a lot of artistic talent to this tragedy.

The space reminds me of the ultra cool Ruin Pubs in Budapest's Jewish Quarter, which we visited last year. Good fire safety and re imagined music/art venues don't necessarily go well together. I hope this is a huge wake up call for all such sites.
posted by bearwife at 12:47 PM on December 5, 2016


also, . for the brother of one of my friends, who perished in the fire, . for ara jo, who i had only met once but was well loved by many of my best friends, and ............................ for everyone else who should not have lost their lives that night.
posted by burgerrr at 12:47 PM on December 5, 2016 [13 favorites]


I once considered living in an illegal warehouse artist collective. I was in on the planning, but bowed out after about a month when the warehouse we were looking at fell through. (it took them another few months to find a place). Other than "does this building look good," and what kinds of events and rules we wanted to have, we also did some planning on how to build it out. I was struck by how few people knew anything about construction (not even basic stuff, like studs every sixteen inches... I felt like an expert because I did some framing as a summer job in college.) We talked a bit about fire safety, and we talked about avoiding inspections...

It's that last one. If you are living illegally, you can't report that there's no sprinklers. You usually can't call the building owner about it, because if they see you are living there, they'll kick you out, which is a worse situation than legally renting from a slumlord. When/if the fire inspector comes, you have hopefully turned it into a potemkin office/studio, so they don't see what a warren it usually is.

I wish that there were seminars on building with safety in mind for places like this, or that you could have a walkthrough and not risk losing your home... Like "fix these things and we'll ignore that you are obviously living here..."

That's probably grasping at straws. It's so heartbreaking. I've been in spaces like this, and I love spaces like this... I don't think I know anyone who was there, but like a lot of you, I have friends who knew people.
posted by surlyben at 12:51 PM on December 5, 2016 [20 favorites]


Like others here, friends of friends were lost that night. And musicians I looked forward to seeing and hearing more of. More on the music and lives of Cherushii (Chelsea Faith) and Nackt (Johnny Igaz). An acquaintance was right by the exit when it happened, thank god, and made it out alive. Everyone is reeling from this. It could've been me in there. Hell, I almost went to another show at a loft space that night.

I don't know if the answer is to out and report all DIY music spaces without permits. The result wouldn't be landlords getting screwed (they'll survive), it would be people already priced out of up-to-regulation housing being forced to leave the city. And it would threaten to destroy underground music and spaces for the marginalized. There are few commercial spaces that support the sort of fierce experimentation that goes on at these shows, and few people out in the wider public accepting or understanding of the fringe diversity that is common there.

NYC has a 'loft law' that is designed to address precisely this problem. It protects tenants who are illegally living in commercial or factory buildings. It forces landlords to bring buildings up to code, and prevents the eviction of tenants who may have no other options. Tenants can feel free to report landlords who fail to take care of unsafe conditions without fear of losing their home.

Housing crisis, not 'ravers', is responsible for the Oakland fire
posted by naju at 12:52 PM on December 5, 2016 [60 favorites]


also, fwiw, as a member of those communities, I am really heartened with seeing the constructive conversations that have emerged in just the last 48 hours about how to be better. Burners have pretty rigor about fire safety when they are performing, and there is a lot of obvious professionalism and attention that is inculcated in what is still, largely an amateur and non-professional performing context.

It hasn't been something that's necessarily translated into our living spaces for the same reason that someone can be a completely with-it and focused project manager in the office, but a complete slob at home. Plus there's constant churn in the scene, which turns into continuous and perpetual training/retraining of people who don't know what they're doing. But I've been impressed and heartened with seeing how, in multiple conversations, people are taking the same rigor and discipline that they've applied to their performance craft and using that to talk about risk in a productive way.
posted by bl1nk at 12:53 PM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]


I was mystified when I read that the Oakland fire marshals had tried to inspect the place a month ago and had been "unable to obtain access." Anywhere I've done work if you don't let in the fire marshals when they darn well please, they'll make themselves an entrance PDQ. I wonder if the OFD had some kind of sanctuary city policies (for homeless, illegal aliens, artists or pot growers) that led them to turn around and walk away when no one answered the door to let them in.
posted by MattD at 1:00 PM on December 5, 2016 [6 favorites]


I'm fortunate not to have lost anyone but my friends have lost friends. This has hit us in the art/performance community badly. We were already up to our necks in anxiety over the election. this.... its just to much.

There will be a (non-flame) candlelight vigil tonight (Monday) at 8pm.

Only 27 days left to close out 2016. We're going to make it, right?
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 1:02 PM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


It's so frustrating to see people railing against building codes when they're doing construction. THIS IS WHY YOU DO IT. Building codes aren't there to extract permit fees from you, they aren't there to protect union labor, they're there to save your life. Every single line in a building code is there because someone died when it was done in a different way.

But the codes have gotten too good, people feel safe no matter what they do, so extension cords end up powering major appliances for permanent use.
posted by hwyengr at 1:08 PM on December 5, 2016 [54 favorites]


I'm another Oakland dweller with friends who have lost friends. It's heartbreaking to know that people are crawling that spreadsheet looking for the names of people they know, to see the count keep climbing, to see people (almost always from what I can tell without any connection to the place or people involved) focussing their ire entirely on these spaces without starting a conversation about the sort of inequality that breeds these arrangements in the first place, to know that people in similar spaces might bear the brunt of the further damage that a band-aid crackdown solution to this will cause.

....................................
posted by invitapriore at 1:08 PM on December 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


Can you link to the spreadsheet, please?
posted by I-baLL at 1:13 PM on December 5, 2016


I have lived in warehouse art spaces. (If only I had a picture of all the jury rigged circuit boxes.) Fire was always my biggest fear. To this day I will jump up at the slightest whiff of smoke and have to find out where it's coming from. I used to berate the other resident artists when they switched off the fire alarms because they'd burnt their toast and it went off.

And that last few months there, when we'd gotten the tip that the zoning inspector was going to drop by and we had to hide our beds during the day. When they did visit we were told we were fine. (The electrical box and kitchen were cleaned up by then.) Artists had lived in that building (in Phoenix) for a decade.

I've also seen the Oakland PD shut down a large warehouse party/rave. They came in with cameras clicking. It was within a year or two of the NIMBY space fire, I'm sure they were looking for zoning violations, but I don't know, I was just there to help setup and sweep up after.

30 people? That's 30 people I'd have like to have known.

.
posted by Catblack at 1:14 PM on December 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:15 PM on December 5, 2016


Safety breeds recklessness, whether it's building codes, vaccinations, auto safety features, etc. When we've gotten used to the safety, many people fail to understand how bad things used to be before the protections.

With the way the world is changing, it looks like we'll all get the chance to find out firsthand. Maybe four our children, or our children's children, regulation will be a welcome relief again.
posted by rikschell at 1:18 PM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]


My band would meet twice a week to practice, inside a 8ft by 6ft by 10 ft carpeted box with one entrance. There were three or four rows of the boxes, inside a larger warehouse space with one exit out the front and one exit to the roof, so not really an exit at all. I used to think about this a little bit, but not overmuch. I'm sure the wiring in the units was not done to code, and there were probably a ton of amps/lights/electronics left on continuously. It could have been any one of us.

.
posted by Existential Dread at 1:20 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


It's that last one. If you are living illegally, you can't report that there's no sprinklers.

It's kind of a tangent, but even in California, sprinklers are not necessarily required in a building, but if you don't have them you'll most likely have to have other countermeasures, like fire-rated construction and area separations (which this building also likely didn't have, but probably would have been easier to retrofit than a sprinkler system). There's way more to building fire safety than just: sprinklers: y/n?
posted by LionIndex at 1:22 PM on December 5, 2016 [4 favorites]


Linking around the spreadsheet publicly would be a bad idea due to all the personal info and resources people are sharing. Feel free to DM for a link if you have personal need of it (not just curious.) (Also, it is locked up now, at any rate, so you'd have to request access from the owner.)
posted by naju at 1:22 PM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


The space was not zoned for live-work, had no running water (thus, no sprinklers) nor direct electricity and the 2nd floor was packed with furniture, etc..
posted by Ideefixe at 1:23 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Housing crisis, not ravers, is responsible for the Oakland fire

Most of the people who died weren't there because the space was used as a residence, but because it was used as a public accomodation for entertainment. There are stricter fire codes for that, for good reason. The housing crisis compelled no one to promote DJ shows in a space that was recklessly unsafe for that usage.
posted by thelonius at 1:37 PM on December 5, 2016 [45 favorites]


I've been afraid of this topic showing up as a post on the blue. I lost a friend there, one escaped with his girlfriend. So many friends broken hearted. I don't think I will read all the comments, I hope you are mostly kind and respectful to the scarred and the dead.
posted by King Sky Prawn at 1:38 PM on December 5, 2016 [30 favorites]


I'm not seeing any fire extinguishers either. You can buy a small one for as little as $20, and they can be the difference between an almost fire and an actual fire.
posted by maxsparber at 1:39 PM on December 5, 2016


To add to my comment above: we were there because it was one of the only spaces available to us, at exorbitant cost. I'm aware of only one other practice space that actually had separated rooms, emergency exits, and was generally up to code and well-managed, but it was well outside our price range. All other options were of varying gradations of firetrap. So, yes, these spaces appear reckless and dangerous to the outside observer, but there are essentially no other options available to artists.
posted by Existential Dread at 1:39 PM on December 5, 2016 [12 favorites]


olinerd: "These spaces are many, and fill an important niche - the focus needs to be on how to get them to be safer, not on shutting them down and leaving the displaced tenants to find even less safe solutions."

A lot of these spaces are inherently unsafe barring massive expensive renovation. See for example the descriptions of the in this thread of a second floor served only by a single, narrow, improvised, wooden staircase. You'd have to rip out the existing and install two staircases. Which means reallocating a bunch of other floor space to staircases plus the halls serving them and all the attendant lights, emergency lighting, exit lighting etc.

surlyben: "I wish that there were seminars on building with safety in mind for places like this, or that you could have a walkthrough and not risk losing your home... Like "fix these things and we'll ignore that you are obviously living here..." "

It works that way here for illegal secondary suites.

From one of the linked articles:
If you can’t afford a flammables cabinet, consider at least storing flammable chemicals in a metal cabinet with latching doors.
An option that is cheap and readily available is an old fridge. Especially if you can find an old one with a metal interior. Window sash locks make good latches (don't depend on the magnets as they'll burn up in a fire and you want to keep the flames contained as much as possible).
posted by Mitheral at 1:40 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


In your life, either you have been to shows like this, or someone you care about has been to shows like this. They go on because there is no space for them in the commercial world. Any steps to making them safer has to consider that.

My heart goes out to everyone affected. I'm truly sorry for your losses.
posted by lumpenprole at 1:44 PM on December 5, 2016 [11 favorites]


I'm not seeing any fire extinguishers either.

According to a Reuters interview with tenants on the first floor, they did have fire extinguishers, but by the time the fire was noticed, it was already too big for an extinguisher (it reportedly started in the cubicle of tenants who were away that night). There were no smoke detectors.
posted by muddgirl at 1:44 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Friends have lost friends. It's so heartbreaking. I am so sorry for everyone who has lost someone. There are not enough of the "right" words for this grief, and there will never been enough tears.
posted by sobell at 1:44 PM on December 5, 2016


There were no smoke detectors.

Hopefully there will be some good to come out of this terrible event. If we must live and work in unsafe conditions -- and the housing crisis has not merely made this common for some, but inevitable -- we need the tools to make the spaces as safe as possible.
posted by maxsparber at 1:49 PM on December 5, 2016 [9 favorites]


.

It's so frustrating to see people railing against building codes when they're doing construction. THIS IS WHY YOU DO IT.

THIS. I hope people link to this unspeakable tragedy every time certain political groups start griping about smaller government, fewer regulations, unnecessary inspections, and the like. This is precisely why government regulation is a good thing.
posted by jhope71 at 1:51 PM on December 5, 2016 [13 favorites]


.

I recognize the real need for space for marginalized artists, but I would guess that if you questioned one hundred of the people who were there that night, no more than one or two would have been able to give an even vaguely accurate estimate of the danger they were in. Note: I'm not saying this to criticize them--it's precisely because even reasonably intelligent people would have trouble understanding the risk they were running that it's hard for me to say "well, these are the unfortunate risks inherent in allowing an alternative art scene to flourish in illegal spaces, we can't enforce safety regulations or we'll lose the scene." If you got people to understand viscerally that the cost of experiencing an art installation included a nontrivial risk of this kind of catastrophe, even most of the young and reckless would stay home.
posted by praemunire at 1:52 PM on December 5, 2016 [15 favorites]


This is so fucked. I am honestly surprised not to recognize anybody I've met in the list of victims so far.
posted by atoxyl at 1:55 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


If you got people to understand viscerally that the cost of experiencing an art installation included a nontrivial risk of this kind of catastrophe, even most of the young and reckless would stay home.

I doubt it. I mean, people still do lots of things that can kill you, like mountain biking. This is still a pretty uncommon event. Also, it's not like official venues can't burn down - remember the Great White fire?
posted by Mitrovarr at 2:00 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


I used to be more rigorous about checking the exits and accessibility of any space I was in, but I admit I didn't really check for a second exit the last few times I was at a warehouse/art space. Granted, we were all in a large open area on the first floor with a fairly short path to the door, but it was still a single standard door and at least 40-50 people were usually present, and if it got blocked I would have had no idea where the back exit was, if there was one. And there weren't any windows.

Guess I need to go back to being more paranoid.
posted by tavella at 2:02 PM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


The housing crisis compelled no one to promote DJ shows in a space that was recklessly unsafe for that usage.

It was an artist live/work space. People host experimental music at these spaces where they live because they are the only places where the music will be taken seriously. Promoters at bars/clubs are primarily looking for acts that will draw in warm bodies to buy overpriced drinks, and they're not interested in acts that fall outside of the generally accepted norm. I've played 75% of my solo shows at these spaces because there's no interest for weird improvisational electronic music at most officially sanctioned venues. (100% Silk, the label the artists came from, might best be described as the intersection of experimental and dance - it's an offshoot of the experimental label Not Not Fun. The show wasn't a standard club/rave/dance/techno DJ thing, there are plenty of venues willing to have such DJs, but this was different and had different goals and aims more aligned with the sorts of DIY shows these spaces put on.) Most people in the Bay Area can barely afford rent in the cheapest, shadiest, not-up-to-code buildings. You make compromises. They certainly can't afford to rent out a space dedicated just for music or art events separate from where they live, and they can't afford to rent out a space, get a permit, get everything up to code, etc.

The housing crisis is intermingled in what went on here, it's impossible to separate. You'd be asking artists and musicians to give up the only spaces where they can make, perform, and appreciate the culture that's important to them.

The answer isn't to tell those people tough luck. It's to advocate urgently and passionately for better laws to protect them and force the building owners and landlords to do the bare minimum to make their buildings safe, without fucking over people who are just ekeing out an existence and finding a way to do what they care about.
posted by naju at 2:02 PM on December 5, 2016 [48 favorites]


A reminder -- what to remember after the earthquake: stop fires.


----quoting----

• After an earthquake, further building collapse is not the main danger. Fire is.

• When you see a fire starting, do ANYTHING to stop it, right now.
posted by hank at 2:04 PM on December 5, 2016 [14 favorites]


A friend I met some years ago on a visit to San Francisco (at the Tenori-On demo) was there. I heard about the fire when I saw that her name had been mentioned on Facebook in the context of her being reported missing; her last active IM time was at the time of the fire. She had apparently been at the party, upstairs, doing nail art.

She didn't turn up all weekend; yesterday, it was confirmed that she was one of the casualties.

Rest in peace, Kiyomi. I regret that we never got to hang out again.
posted by acb at 2:05 PM on December 5, 2016 [30 favorites]


It's impossible to get into this horror and what I want to see to prevent it. These are my people, this is my community, I am connected to most of these people by 1 degree of separation, and talking about how to keep this from happening again feels and sounds ghoulish and I can't do it right now. These spaces need to exist. We need somewhere to go where we can feel normal. But we have to find a way to make it safer.
posted by 1adam12 at 2:08 PM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]


Good fire safety and re imagined music/art venues don't necessarily go well together.

Semi-passable fire safety would have been a start. Like not having the stairs made of actual bonfire fuel, for one, and having some lit signs pointing to exits. It's not rocket science.
posted by acb at 2:09 PM on December 5, 2016 [12 favorites]


My heart is broken. Three dear friends no one can contact. Not looking for pity. I've been to that club. I had a GREAT time every time I was there. It was in retrospect a tinderbox.
posted by pipoquinha at 2:09 PM on December 5, 2016 [21 favorites]


Apologies for the second comment but a real-force shout-out to my Bay Area compatriots chiming in here.
posted by pipoquinha at 2:11 PM on December 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


That Meow Wolf statement is insane. Blame is very much point"full." Blame people who hosted events in spaces absolutely unsafe for them. Blame the city if it turns out their inspectors had the opportunity to shut it down and failed to do so. Blaming the victims is wrong to the extent that people have a legitimate expectation that a public event won't be held in a death trap.
posted by MattD at 2:13 PM on December 5, 2016 [27 favorites]


Such a tragedy.

.
posted by SisterHavana at 2:15 PM on December 5, 2016


naju, it's likely that the 'bare minimum' to make the buildings safe for this sort of crowded public performance would also make them unaffordable for the current inhabitants. I'm not going to say there aren't shitty landlords that could viably be forced to spend a higher percent of what they get in rent in rehabbing spaces, but bringing in a water supply, installing sprinklers, rebuilding the improvised stairs and second floor to building code standards, installing adequate fire exit doors, clearing out the 'warren' of rooms to a size and number that allowed for safe exit... that's certainly hundreds of thousands of dollars at least. And would probably result in a space that could hold less legal residents that the number illegally living there previously.
posted by tavella at 2:22 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Sadly the Ghostship will now and forever be remembered for all of the ghosts that truly haunt
that space now. RIP.
posted by Lynsey at 2:26 PM on December 5, 2016


For this particular space, I don't see much of an outcome other than the building being deemed uninhabitable. As others said, it's a tinderbox. But that doesn't mean every space is exactly as unsalvageable as this.
posted by naju at 2:26 PM on December 5, 2016 [6 favorites]


The housing crisis compelled no one to promote DJ shows in a space that was recklessly unsafe for that usage.

As naju said, this misses the point that the warehouse was used a live-work-performance space. The fact that shows are being held in unsafe venues really just points to the fact that the housing crisis is more broadly a crisis in affordability and access to all types of space/property for anyone who isn't wealthy.

Oakland warehouse fire is product of housing crisis, say artists and advocates
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 2:29 PM on December 5, 2016 [18 favorites]


This is so sad and terrible. I'm only a neighbor, and only connected through friends of friends, but like many am feeling the reverbarations: Lessons I hope we'll learn:

We need affordable housing. States must fund this. California in specific must fund this.
We need to fund safety inspection - Oakland has a very limited number of building and fire inspectors due to chronic underfunding of city services.
We need art spaces. Again, our city and our state has a role in paying for this.
Cities should fund landlords to bring buildings up to code: start with a carrot. If they refuse to take advantage of these programs, there needs to be robust and meaningful enforcement.

Pay more taxes. Build more housing. Government 'handouts' are a worthwhile investment to protect artists and poor people, and help our whole communities be safe, and also to be creative and thrive.
posted by latkes at 2:31 PM on December 5, 2016 [24 favorites]


Friends of friends were lost in this. While I'm usually heartened when I travel around and realize how small the art/music community is around the country, this hits so close to home that it's terrifying.

I have a studio in a warehouse building that's relatively "professional" in that we don't have large parties and as far as I know no one is living there. In the last month or so the landlord and city inspectors have been touring the studios and workshops to get things up to code, and I know at least one of the most unsafe tenants has been kicked out. The smoke detector outside my studio has STILL been beeping for a new battery the entire time, which seems like the saddest joke at a time like this (and yes, I just haven't had a 9v battery handy, but you can be sure I will next time I go in). I've also lived in Chicago long enough to be highly skeptical of how closely a city inspector is going to look depending on his relationship with the landlord, so I'm under no illusions that the space is any safer having been inspected.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 2:32 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


I live less than a mile away.

I didn't know anyone there; I'm out of touch with the local artist communities. I've known similar ones in the past, and my own artist-loft warehouse has housed similar groups. (My loft has sprinklers, is zoned for live/work, and shuts down bands that the neighbors can hear.)

it's likely that the 'bare minimum' to make the buildings safe for this sort of crowded public performance would also make them unaffordable for the current inhabitants.

Yep yep yep.

My family has the lowest rent in our building because we predate the most recent owners by several years; I'm never sure if they leave our rent low because they like stable tenants or because they know how much it'll cost them to renovate our unit when we move out.

A newly refurbished live-work space can expect to bring in $1500/month for a tiny unit, up to $3k for a large one, even in very skeevy neighborhoods. (Which this is.) (We pay between those amounts.) And with full up-to-code arrangements, landlords are less willing to put up with "Dave's name is on the lease, but there's 4-9 people also in the apartment who'll be contributing to rent from time to time.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 2:34 PM on December 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


I offer my experience with my space just as an example of how lax things can be when they're relatively legit. I know we want to blame someone for this tragedy, but it's a constellation of failures all around.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 2:41 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 2:43 PM on December 5, 2016


As others said, it's a tinderbox. But that doesn't mean every space is exactly as unsalvageable as this.

Yes, I lived illegally in an Oakland warehouse for three years. However, two of the original tenants worked in construction- our building was done more or less properly; we had legal electricity and water. Though we did run a bunch of extension cords all over the place, we were not stealing power from the neighbors like Ghost Ship, and we weren't heating our shower water with propane tanks like they were. One friend that often did sound at our parties (I often saw him tap directly into electrical mains to run sound systems at various warehouse venues) had repeatedly warned Derrick Ion about the lack of safety in his space. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are varying degrees of shady warehouse living. It's tremendously sad that people were put at risk with incredibly bad choices- many people in artist warehouses work with machinery, fire, heavy tools, and/or big power and take precautions. That was not happening at Ghost Ship.
posted by oneirodynia at 2:44 PM on December 5, 2016 [36 favorites]


the housing crisis is more broadly a crisis in affordability and access to all types of space/property for anyone who isn't wealthy.

I am the last person to downplay the significance of the housing crisis, but this kind of activity was going on in NYC even when real estate was at its most depressed, in the 70s and 80s. E.g., the loft space we see as a home for the wealthy in Dr. Strange would at that time most likely have been an abandoned warehouse in Tribeca or Soho which was originally taken over by artists, without a certificate of occupancy, even though rents were depressed. We've had adventurous people living in non-conforming housing just about as long as we've had meaningful codes. I'm just not sure that this is purely a rent issue, though I'm groping for the rest of the analysis.
posted by praemunire at 2:51 PM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]


I am having trouble blaming Almena. I saw him comment this AM on TV, and he broke my heart. He said, "They were my friends, my family, my children. What do you want me to say?"

He stole electricity by tapping in to neighbors' power. He punched a hole in the wall in order to use the bathroom in the auto shop in the next door warehouse. He used propane tanks to heat water for showers rather than a proper water heater. This man was raising his three kids in this warehouse. He charged money to tenants and threw parties to pay rent. People warned him the space was unsafe. I feel okay blaming him for the situation.
posted by oneirodynia at 2:53 PM on December 5, 2016 [75 favorites]


I'll be at the memorial tonigh. A good friend of mine is grieving.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 2:57 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


There's an effort to crowdsource resources and expertise to make venues and living spaces like this safer: http://saferspac.es
posted by terooot at 2:58 PM on December 5, 2016 [6 favorites]


Derick Almena surfaced and posted a truly tone-deaf update on Facebook:

"Confirmed. Everything I worked so hard for is gone. Blessed that my children and Micah were at a hotel safe and sound... it's as if I have awoken from a dream filled with opulence and hope... to be standing now in poverty of self worth."


I saw that earlier today and was appalled. Doesn't care about anyone but himself. Unbelievable; more about ego than basic human compassion and responsibility. (Unless he means that he lost self-worth out of guilt, but that's not how it reads.) Also, he's old enough to have known better. I expect younger people to live on the edge more but he had the responsibility of others on his shoulders and was old enough to know better. (Not meaning as disrespect for young people, but when I was that age, my friends and I were reckless and thought nothing bad would ever happen).

A fellow DJ of my boyfriend's died there; so incredibly sad and horrifying. Condolences to anyone here connected to the tragedy.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 2:59 PM on December 5, 2016


My friend lost her godchild in this tragedy. I live here in Oakland and volunteer at a crisis center where we have been taking calls from those who have been affected. I am feeling a great deal of anger towards Ion. In terms of his whereabouts being "unknown" - I just saw photos of him at a swanky hotel in Oakland with this family. I hope he has to answer for hosting a party to put dollars in his pocket, whilst not giving a fig about the lives of the people who trusted they would go home that night.
posted by morerio at 2:59 PM on December 5, 2016 [4 favorites]


Small correction, Ion was the master tenant, not the warehouse owner.

correction then to my comment about responsibility but still... tone deaf is an understatement.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 3:03 PM on December 5, 2016


Posting in full because Facebook:
Kimya Dawson3 December at 20:44
It's hard to find words. I have played in so many spaces with precarious floors and beams and stairs and not enough exits and certainly no sprinklers. Warehouses, squats, basements, rooftops, barns. Playing music saves my life. People tell me listening to music saves their lives. People telling me that my music saved their life saves my life even more. And we take the risks. Playing and listening in unsafe spaces. Because when we feel like we are dying anyway the risks don't seem as risky as the risks we already face every day. The risk of self destructing. There aren't enough places for us to gather. Our favorite places get turned into parking lots. So many clubs with their overhead and their staffs and their contracts and their lack of inclusivity and lack of tolerance and their age restrictions and their bars and their bigots. Those spaces are also unsafe just in different ways. Those spaces break you if you don't make em the money. Because it's always about the money. The fucking money. They will make you feel like a failure. Like a piece of shit. But all we can do is art. So we meet underground. We lurk in the shadows. And there it isn't about success or failure. We sing and scream and cry and laugh and dance and group hug like cinnamon rolls and tell each other to get home safe and stay safe and be careful because the world is scary and the world is risky. We know we have to take care of each other.

So we meet in warehouses. Where we can just love on each other and escape from all the scariness and sadness. We take care of each other in our unsafe spaces that can feel so much safer than your safest spaces.

Imagine you were on a sinking ship. And there is only one lifeboat. And someone screams that there is a chance the lifeboat might tip over.

You'll take that chance.

If I hadn't had people inviting me to their unconventional venues over the years I would have been dead a long long time ago.

We're not trying to put each other in danger. We are trying to save each other's lives. We love each other so much.

I love you all.

#oaklandfire
posted by wreckingball at 3:08 PM on December 5, 2016 [34 favorites]


Almena appears to have an almost sociopathic streak, the history with CPS seems especially concerning. I don't begrudge anyone's resentment toward him. But I do think we should also focus on structural changes and supports, financing and regulatory, that can prevent someone like this causing this kind of harm.
posted by latkes at 3:10 PM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


I saw wires sparking all the time,” Mack said. “There were all kinds of extension cords stuck together. You could always smell something burning. “There was always some electrical issue — something blowing, something sparking, something burning. Always.”

There are lots of illegal warehouse live-work spaces that do not have these issues. People in need of cheaper housing that allows for creative living shouldn't have to risk their lives just to be in those spaces. This is absolutely not the norm for most illegal live-work warehouses I have been in.
posted by oneirodynia at 3:15 PM on December 5, 2016 [37 favorites]


Sorry actually, I don't think I'm in a position to tell others what to focus on here
Just my perspective on what I hope can come out of this
posted by latkes at 3:19 PM on December 5, 2016


Yeah there are certainly systemic factors here and not having been there I don't want to assume too much about the details from one person's testimony. But I'm so far getting the impression that safety was particularly lax even by the standards of such places.
posted by atoxyl at 3:23 PM on December 5, 2016


Mack said she paid $700 a month in rent, but that some people paid as much as $1,500.

Again, this is from the same person who has been criticizing Ion intensely and I don't know their history. But $700-something (with utilities) gets me one out of four bedrooms in a regular house elsewhere in Oakland. That's been going up a bit and maybe I'm very lucky - I haven't been looking at other places in quite some time so I really don't know - but from where I stand charging people that much to live in a wooden maze with no smoke detectors is downright unconscionable.
posted by atoxyl at 3:34 PM on December 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


But $700-something (with utilities) gets me one out of four bedrooms in a regular house elsewhere in Oakland

Not even an especially shabby part. (Not trying to gloat if this has become an unusually good deal - I really don't know.)
posted by atoxyl at 3:36 PM on December 5, 2016


But $700-something (with utilities) gets me one out of four bedrooms in a regular house elsewhere in Oakland.
And permission to work on your artwork and builds in the common areas, with all the noise & smells & mess that entails?
posted by King Sky Prawn at 3:43 PM on December 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


I think it's totally possible *both* that the people running Ghost Ship were criminally negligent beyond what is usual for that kind of space *and* that the existence of illegal warehouse living/ working/ venue spaces is at least partly a function of the housing crisis, which is really a real estate crisis that doesn't just affect housing. And it is definitely true that re-purposed industrial spaces have been really important to a lot of art scenes in a lot of times and places. I'm pretty sure that's how Soho in New York became an artists' neighborhood, for instance, which is kind of hard to wrap your head around now.

Anyway, I am so sorry for everyone here who was directly or indirectly affected by this. I'm thinking of you guys and your community.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 3:47 PM on December 5, 2016 [23 favorites]


And permission to work on your artwork and builds in the common areas, with all the noise & smells & mess that entails?

This is a fair point. An honest answer for me would be "mostly yes" but that's because my roommates are all longstanding friends but obviously that doesn't work as well for, say, somebody who comes to the Bay Area *looking* for a community. I still kinda have the feeling that those in charge here were being somewhat exploitative of people's desire for a space like this to do their thing. But as I said I don't really know for sure so I don't want to go in on that too much prematurely.
posted by atoxyl at 4:04 PM on December 5, 2016


You won't be able to play music in a regular apartment complex either, and practice rooms aren't cheap.
posted by naju at 4:06 PM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


You won't be able to play music in a regular apartment complex either, and practice rooms aren't cheap.

Rock'n'roll will become the ultimate status symbol, a profligate luxury reserved for the most decadent of oligarchs. The precariat will have headphone music made on smartphones; tiny sonic miniatures of the melancholies of life on the fringes.
posted by acb at 4:27 PM on December 5, 2016 [12 favorites]


Though it's interesting what fire codes *will* allow that seems unsafe to me. I was staying in a suite in a motel in Oregon, where the main room had two exits and a fireplace. The bedroom however only had a single exit to the main room. One window was glass block, the other one had only two small slots that opened, maybe 6 x 15 inches, impassible for anything but a small child. I did not feel secure until I had hefted the bedside lamp and decided it was solid enough to smash the main window if needed. And even then I would have been perched on a very narrow strip of land between a potential inferno and a 40 or so foot cliff that I would not care to try to climb down at night.

Should a stray spark have ignited the main room, given the stove was right next to the bedroom exit it could have easily been a deathtrap by the time the fire alarm went off in the bedroom. But it was apparently up to Oregon code.
posted by tavella at 4:33 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


But $700-something (with utilities) gets me one out of four bedrooms in a regular house elsewhere in Oakland.
And permission to work on your artwork and builds in the common areas, with all the noise & smells & mess that entails?


Or the ability to move in without first-last-deposit and pay month-to-month. No references. No credit check. OK to pay cash.
posted by oneirodynia at 4:35 PM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]


.
posted by defenestration at 4:38 PM on December 5, 2016


.
posted by onecircleaday at 4:39 PM on December 5, 2016


Except that the person in question did pay one month as a deposit and another month as a supposed "improvement fund", so basically first last deposit except one month of it they'd never get back.
posted by tavella at 4:39 PM on December 5, 2016


Practice rooms aren't cheap, and really, they all have waiting lists. More importantly, they are not viable spaces for performance and sharing even if you can land one.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 4:45 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


I live in San Francisco, and have somewhat aged out of the DIY scene, but a lot of my younger friends lost friends in the fire. And us older people are remembering all the DIY venues we used to go to and counting our blessings that we survived them. And now I'm hearing music by people who are dead and I wish I had heard in another context.

Like the beautiful Cocteau-Twins-esque songs of Them Are Us Too.
Song by Them Are Us Too: The Problem With Redheads
Interview With Them Are Us Too’s Cash Askew, Who Died in the Oakland Ghost Ship Fire
More Them Are Us Too at Bandcamp
posted by larrybob at 4:56 PM on December 5, 2016 [17 favorites]


.
posted by greermahoney at 4:57 PM on December 5, 2016


Yeah, no. I recognize that the Bay Area has a housing crisis. That might justify throwing a party in a place that's not quite up to code -- like a normal warehouse with multiple doors. But this place was a literal death trap with flammable materials, accelerants, and homemade stairs, and inviting hundreds of people into it was manslaughter or worse. If you need to live in an unconventional space to do art, that's great, but don't put others in danger.
posted by miyabo at 5:08 PM on December 5, 2016 [16 favorites]


.
posted by treepour at 5:08 PM on December 5, 2016


Except that the person in question did pay one month as a deposit and another month as a supposed "improvement fund", so basically first last deposit except one month of it they'd never get back.

I was speaking generally- why would people choose to pay 700 or so to live in a place like this instead of a proper house? One reason is less stringent lease terms, if there's even a lease. I don't know what the myriad number of Ghost Ship tenants' arrangements were.
posted by oneirodynia at 5:11 PM on December 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


I was pretty close to this scene a decade or so ago and several people I know have checked in safe. I've never met him personally, but word on social media is that Ion was a bit of an ass, very much a tweaker, and his initial statement very much in character. Hence, the calls for justice in the form of his head on a platter.

That having been said, I know several people here in Seattle running similar spaces, pouring their hearts and sweat all night making these places work while slaving for minimum wage during the day. I imagine the economics are an order of magnitude more difficult in the Bay Area. Good people are concerned about safety, but bringing these places up to code is simply financially impossible. Like it would be cheaper to tear these warehouses down and rebuild. My friends are torn apart over this. There really ought to be spaces in our cities for artists, performance, and people who choose to live communally but they depend on the availability of large unused places on the margins of the city which by nature are not typically safe. Your hard work and DIY skills are not going to be up to the task. These 30 odd souls gave their lives because our society doesn't value art and nonconformity.

As someone who only very occasionally visits these places anymore, I'd hate it if there was no place for them in our cities, they are what fuels the creative energy here and make this an energizing place to live. But I understand the soul searching my friends are doing about continuing their projects at this point.

It reminds me that, in the aftermath of the election, as we funnel our energy and money towards organizations that are fighting for or civil rights, we need to be sending the same things toward the arts because they are under assault more than any of us.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 5:11 PM on December 5, 2016 [12 favorites]


You won't be able to play music in a regular apartment complex either, and practice rooms aren't cheap.

I specifically compared to a shared house where people can and do practice music but I'm not under the impression that such places are available without limit, that you can have 200 person parties in a residential area - though the difference between "can" and should is particularly important here anyway - or that people didn't have good reasons to opt to live in this place regardless. I was expressly not questioning the residents of or performers at the Ghost Ship but rather its proprietor, and the quality of the accommodations he was offering for the money he asked. I also said I only have indirect and limited information and don't want to go off half-cocked so if you think I'm making unfair assumptions I'd be happy to hear that.
posted by atoxyl at 5:21 PM on December 5, 2016


(Incidentally, Optimo Music and RVNG Records will be donating profits from sales to victim relief funds for the next little bit. I kind of hope that 100% Silk decides to do the same…)
posted by Going To Maine at 5:37 PM on December 5, 2016


Losing Cash from Them Are Us Too is breaking something pretty deep in my heart.

She was 22.

Pulse, now Oakland, Jesus fucking Christ 2016 can we just press pause for a fucking minute.
posted by Annika Cicada at 5:38 PM on December 5, 2016 [10 favorites]


I was not arguing with you or anything, atoxyl, just trying to add to the conversation.
posted by naju at 5:48 PM on December 5, 2016


This is so sad and I've been thinking about the victims all day.
posted by areaperson at 6:05 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


oneirodynia: "I often saw him tap directly into electrical mains to run sound systems at various warehouse venues"

This is wildly illegal for good reason. It usually is done when overloading service or branch conductors (otherwise they'd just jack into receptacles) and can lead to fires and dangerous arc flashes. And the risk may not be realized until some time after the excess power draw. It is also commonly associated with poorly grounded connections so putting everyone around at risk of shock. So you've either got someone who should know better putting people at risk or you have someone suffering from Dunning Kruger who doesn't realize he is endangering others. Neither is a particularly acceptable option.
posted by Mitheral at 7:32 PM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]


Here are some words I wrote last year that I finally put to music tonight while tying to make sense of this. It helped me, maybe it's helpful to you also. Hugs y'all.
posted by Annika Cicada at 7:33 PM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]


This afternoon, and presumably as a response to the Oakland fire, Baltimore police evicted the residents of a DIY arts space (where, full disclosure, I used to live) citing numerous code violations, giving them one hour's notice. As the City Paper notes:

The area immediately surrounding the Bell Foundry has seen a flurry of development in recent years. A tall brick office building now towers over the space, and plans are in the works to construct a $25 million apartment building on East Lanvale Street and to redevelop nearby Penn Station and possibly build on the train station's parking lot.
posted by attentionplease at 7:44 PM on December 5, 2016 [6 favorites]


The Them Are Us video /music was achingly beautiful; thank you for posting it. Only 22; christ. And thanks Annika for your song as well.

Life is so unfair and this has been such a relentlessly grim year.

.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 7:48 PM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


I didn't know anyone directly affected (yet; they haven't released all 36 names) but I know many who have lost others. I had an artist residency in a similar space in SF for three months that was one of the best of my life - really affordable rent ($500/month!!), close to everything, plenty of space. Maybe it was a fire hazard this entire time. I don't know. When I lived in the Bay Area longer term I didn't live in such spaces, but I was in them every so often because that's where the art was, the music was, the community.

This could have been one of those spaces. This could have been the place I had called my second home. This could have been my friends. This could have been me, maybe.

This incident is reminding me of an old theater that sits next door to my previous apartment in Brisbane, formerly owned by the University of Queensland but abandoned after they determined that bringing it up to current-day fire code would have been too expensive to bother. This theater was the starting point for many well-known theater groups in Queensland. I had emailed UQ asking if there was a way to take over the lease, to run the space, to get it back up to code and have it as a vital creative space at a time where many such spaces in Australia were being shut down. They turned me down, cited unnamed "plans" that have not come to fruition.

If even a major university isn't interested in investing in making the arts safer and accessible, what hope do we have for anyone else with money?
posted by divabat at 8:16 PM on December 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


My heart is breaking for the community right now. My daughter and her partner lost three friends. It's only a quirk of fate that they weren't there. Everyone deserves to live in safety. For those that were lost

.................................
posted by Space Kitty at 8:33 PM on December 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


.

I know people that lived there, and they all got out, thank god. But I am still waiting to hear from some people who may have been there that night, and it's very hard.

why would people choose to pay 700 or so to live in a place like this instead of a proper house?

Because you can't get even a room in a house in Oakland for under $1000 these days. You can't get space to work on art or music along with that unless you're very lucky. And a lot of these people make their money outside traditional systems, and don't have credit, regular pay checks, or anything else that a normal landlord is going to require. Other, more up-to-code art collectives are very difficult to get in to and expensive, but Ghostship would take anyone.

I disliked Ghostship for a lot of reasons mostly relating to Derrick, but this could have easily happened at any number of places that I have gone to, or places I've had events at myself. People need places like this. I know I did.

I really hope this inspires the rest of these type of locations to make things safer and take better care of their communities. A friend told me there is a group looking to set up a non-profit to donate money and expertise to places like this to help them pay for improvements. I hope it works.
posted by ananci at 8:43 PM on December 5, 2016 [18 favorites]


.
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 8:49 PM on December 5, 2016


For what it's worth, I've been writing news stories and encyclopedia articles on the event, uploading media, and gathering data on Wikimedia Foundation projects. It's not much, but there's not much I can do. If any of you have something you can share, then it would be appreciated. Clearly, several of you have been effected more-or-less directly and I respect all of your collective loss.
posted by koavf at 8:54 PM on December 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'm a professional married white liberal-but-uptight lady, and several times in the last year, I've found myself at wacky immersive theater and/or music shows in places just like Ghostship. I was there while (relatively) sober and I never once thought about safety. Most recently, I was at a show in a warehouse in DTLA a few weeks ago that was eerily similar - decked out in books and paper and musical instruments and furniture and lights and rugs, and a maze-like, very narrow entrance/exit. This could have been me. I'm lucky it wasn't.

I'm so sad for those affected. I didn't know anyone there personally, but several of my friends did, and it's just unfair.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
posted by samthemander at 9:44 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'll preface this by saying that various unlicensed venues in Oakland and the East bay have had a found place in my heart since my mid teens. I am in no way advocating a crack down on underground performance / art spaces in the area, but I have been really frustrated by the thinking that has been floating around in some circles that somehow not want a pogrom against local DIY spaces means we shouldn't be thinking about who is responsible for this. Frankly I think its insulting to all the great unlicensed spaces that do right by the people who enter them, and have for years, without major indecent. From my understanding of some of the conditions there (propane tanks inside, rats nest of extension cords, stairs made of wood pallets), this is not a case of not being up to spec. with overly restrictive fire regulations and cabaret laws that often make it impossible for DIY venues to go legit, but a case of gross and violent negligence.

I firmly believe its important to not lose sight of the fact that people were making money off this. This wasn't just a house fire, this was an event organized to provide cash flow for the residents of Ghost Ship and to a greater extent Derick Almena. These people's incompetence, negligence, and pursuit of cash got people killed and we should want to them as accountable as any oil company or factory owner who achieved the same result. The focus on licensing has overshadowed a more basic aspect of accountability. You run the show, your responsible for it, licensed or not, end of story. This isn't a question of underground venues, the grimiest punk houses have been running shows around here forever and there has NEVER been anything like this. This is a case of a group of people whose irresponsibility and incompetence got at least thirty six human beings , including as I found out today, one my friends, killed in a horrifying and tortuous way in the process of enriching themselves. The fact that those running the place were artists in no way exempts them from the same ethical standards I would hold anyone else to. Most underground venues are run by good, caring, passionate people, that take the well being of people who enter their space as a serious concern. This should in no way detract from the fact that these people deserve to be held accountable for the suffering loss they helped create.
posted by Puddle at 10:10 PM on December 5, 2016 [45 favorites]


I just saw a headline on sfgate (not linking, you can find it easily if you want) that said something about people inside the building who were texting their friends and family their last words. It reminds me so horribly of the Pulse shootings. I couldn't click through.
posted by rtha at 10:21 PM on December 5, 2016


RIP Joey Casio. Here's another link with some of his music.

I knew him from when I lived in Olympia, played a handful of shows with him. Super great guy. Lots of friends are mourning hard right now. Like a lot of you I've drifted away from these kinds of venues as I've aged but I can only imagine all of the dreams cut short.
posted by kittensofthenight at 10:22 PM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]


.
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:30 PM on December 5, 2016


There's a document being drafted about harm reduction for DIY venues, including free and low-cost options as well as opportunities for the general public to help.
posted by divabat at 12:52 AM on December 6, 2016 [9 favorites]


I was not arguing with you or anything, atoxyl, just trying to add to the conversation.

I was probably focusing too intensely on that particular point - and on further research it seems like I have been quite lucky with housing here so I feel a little bad about focusing on it so much.
posted by atoxyl at 1:49 AM on December 6, 2016


I'm listening to Them Are Us Too right now, and really liking their sound (sort of somewhere between The Sundays, M83 and 90s American swirlygoth bands like Love Spirals Downwards). Truly the most heartbreaking way to discover a great band.
posted by acb at 4:13 AM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]


Calling your death trap an "arts collective" where you charge rent to "artists" (whom you know are living on site) and sponsor for-profit public events in a building full of dry wood with insufficient exits, no alarms, no emergency lights or extinguishers, and running on stolen utilities wired up by amateurs doesn't make you any less of a slumlord asshole than the guy who runs a tenement building full of rats.

Almena needs to go to jail over this.
posted by spitbull at 4:15 AM on December 6, 2016 [28 favorites]


Almena needs to go to jail over this.

Also, wouldn't the relatives of those who died be entitled to sue for civil damages?
posted by acb at 4:19 AM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]


The arguments being trotted out here in defense of these unsafe spaces are so very similar to those that went around after the Tazreen Fashion factory fire in Dhaka in 2012. If you enforce the safety codes and shut down the spaces that are in gross violation, you're making things worse because you're literally making people homeless. There's no commercially viable market for what these spaces produce at the price point that would allow them to make the improvements to come up to code. Having these spaces allows people to do things that "save their lives" (in the factory case, by getting them out of even more dangerous employment). Economics force people into these spaces: it's not the fault of the people operating the space, it's a structural problem of too few good jobs / too expensive up-to-code venues in the area, so obviously nothing can be done until that is fixed first. We should all recognize the real need for space for marginalized artisans.

One should of course draw a hard line between producing garments and producing art: after all, artists make art because they are genuine and creative people who are compelled by their soul to do it, while garment producers are just drones who find no pride or satisfaction in their work and are only doing it for money. Icky, capitalist money. That's why artists are always delighted to be given the chance to produce art in exchange for exposure!
posted by heatherlogan at 6:21 AM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]


I take your point, but that seems like a weird tone to take in a thread full of people who are, in some cases, mourning people they knew.

And yeah, I think art is important. I think that art is important even when it isn't commercially viable. I realize that's a controversial stance to take, but there you go.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:28 AM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


This is absolutely heartbreaking.

In other scenes, I've seen movement efforts like #ItTakesOne, people refusing to attend conventions that have no Code of Conduct, men refusing to participate in public speaking/panels/conventions if there are no women participants, people openly alerting others to the "Missing Stairs" of their communities, and so on.

Could this become a movement too? Something like "Safe Spaces Should be Structurally Safe"? Raising awareness of what safety features to look for when you're in these spaces, insisting on using them as much as possible, refusing to use spaces until issues are addressed?

(Disclaimer: I'm not part of this scene, so I don't know the physical logistics and people's attitudes/access/etc. around them.)
posted by cadge at 6:33 AM on December 6, 2016 [5 favorites]


I also was one of those people who didn't really pay attention to fire safety until I started watching Seconds from Disaster (don't watch before you take aplane trip!). They had a couple episodes about club fires and I learned so much. There are a couple things I do when I go to shows now (always at commercial clubs, I'm not cool enough to know about the underground/warehouse stuff):

-I make sure I identify and have a route planned to the non-main exit. If something happens, people tend to go back the way they came in, creating a deadly log-jam. Not only can others not get out, but you have a serious risk of being crushed to death by those trying to escape.

-If I go upstairs, I make sure to look and see where the emergency stairs are. I identify the options so I can have a plan if something happens.

The only effort in this is looking around and being aware of your surroundings. It also requires the knowledge that you need to do this, which most people (including me) don't. If I went to a space like this, with one rickety staircase, I can't say I would turn around and leave, but I would be incredibly freaked out for the entire time.

An entire retrofit of the building may not be feasible, but there are steps to take to reduce the risk. We have hundreds of years of learning from mistakes that there's not reason this knowledge cannot be learned by, say, a safety committee within the collective. Maybe a metal-working artist can create a staircase. Maybe artists can create emergency exits lights.

My heart goes out to all those lost and their friends and family. This is such a tragedy. There's no reason this should happen again.
posted by LizBoBiz at 6:44 AM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]


a thread full of people who are, in some cases, mourning people they knew

I thought that I could make a point without the performative suffering. But ok: my brother lives in Oakland and has lived, worked, and performed in the warehouse art scene for years. We have not heard from him since the fire. But he's pretty non-communicative with family, and Oakland is big, so he's *probably* not dead. I guess I am pretty angry about this.
posted by heatherlogan at 6:56 AM on December 6, 2016 [14 favorites]




for me personally it's hard to go into rational mental mode right now.

I keep finding out about artists who I have immense respect for who died.

I guess I'm glad people can go so quickly into "break this down rationally and logically" but it's really jarring for me to be a part of that right now. Maybe in a few days. Maybe never.

Noping out from this thread for a while. Hugs y'all.
posted by Annika Cicada at 7:50 AM on December 6, 2016 [2 favorites]


Sorry to belabor this, but I totally failed to make the point that I wanted to make (argh too upset).

The progressive Western reaction to the Dhaka fire was that it was evidence of genuine evil on the part of the operator of the space and those who enabled it by consuming its output, and that the lack of building-code enforcement by the civil authorities was a sign of either corruption or gross indifference to human suffering. There were calls for mass boycotts of anything produced in spaces that weren't up to code (not to mention boycotts of anything produced in Bangladesh at all), with the express goal of shutting those spaces down until and unless they could be brought up to code (ideally Western code). But for the Oakland fire, cadge's suggestion above of a movement to refuse to use such spaces (presumably as consumers of their output, e.g. paying to go to their shows) until safety issues are addressed is the first to even touch on this.

The impression that I'm getting is that the Dhaka fire was an obvious disaster waiting to happen caused by cheapness and negligence, whereas the Oakland fire was a terrible tragedy that no-one could have anticipated. How can we justify allowing people's lives to continue to be risked in spaces like these?
posted by heatherlogan at 7:53 AM on December 6, 2016 [8 favorites]


I'm sending my thoughts and hugs to everyone in this thread. I don't want to take this mourning space and turn it completely into a project planning space.

As I mentioned, I don't have close connections to this scene, so my reaction was, "Fuck! These poor people. This could easily be my friends and me. This shouldn't happen! If official involvement needs to be avoided, what's a grassroots harm reduction approach that the people involved can take? How are other scenes that I *am* involved with dealing with their systemic problems?" I want prevention and awareness-building. I don't want to assign blame to anyone.

If there's another space that's a better fit for this discussion besides this thread, we can continue it there.
posted by cadge at 8:12 AM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


Mod note: Couple comments deleted. The idea that people are just doing "performative suffering" is unnecessary; please cool it with that. People are upset, it's ok to be upset about this. Let's be kind to each other.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 8:40 AM on December 6, 2016 [6 favorites]


More names released.
posted by christopherious at 9:01 AM on December 6, 2016


Not linking here, but Almena did an interview with Good Morning America. I watched the first 30 seconds before I had to turn it off. His suffering is too close to the surface. He seems like a man close to the edge, who should be on suicide watch. Even if Almena is legally and morally culpable, I felt ashamed of Matt Lauer for pressing so hard on whether or not Almena considered himself to be responsible for the deaths given Almena's mental state, while on camera, while the bodies were still in the building in the background.

This is just profoundly deeply horrible.
posted by samthemander at 9:37 AM on December 6, 2016


Jesus, and not a one of them over 35.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:58 AM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm not superworried about the suffering of the guy who set up a firetrap, compared to the people who got killed in it. Especially since he only seems to have taken it to heart after people pointed out he was being a hideously self-centered asshole in his first message.
posted by tavella at 10:19 AM on December 6, 2016 [7 favorites]


There's a benefit at El Rio tomorrow (Wednesday) night.
posted by rtha at 10:35 AM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


Tavella, I guess you are right. I don't disagree... but I still couldn't watch that video.
posted by samthemander at 11:06 AM on December 6, 2016


Dude shouldn't have gone on TV. No one wants to hear how very sorry he is, at this time.

One of the people who did prison time for The Station fire (I think it was the band's tour manager) wrote handwritten letters of....well, apology sounds wrong....responsibility? regret?.... to the families of everyone who died, from prison. I wonder how they felt about that? I'm sure some found that contact unwanted, some appreciated that he made the gesture. He had also pled guilty.
posted by thelonius at 11:18 AM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]


not sure if this was posted upthread, but there's a meeting/open assembly tomorrow in oakland at omni commons "in order to begin to collectively brainstorm, interconnect and pool resources around what we as a community of artists and organizers can do to aid our DIY spaces right now in the Bay Area — primarily with respect to improving core fire safety and building safety."
posted by burgerrr at 11:30 AM on December 6, 2016 [5 favorites]


samthemander: "His suffering is too close to the surface. He seems like a man close to the edge, who should be on suicide watch. Even if Almena is legally and morally culpable, I felt ashamed of Matt Lauer for pressing so hard on whether or not Almena considered himself to be responsible for the deaths given Almena's mental state, while on camera, while the bodies were still in the building in the background."

I had exactly the opposite reaction. Almena's suffering rang to me as extremely feigned -- just someone trying to doing PR (badly) by avoiding tough questions and playing the victim. If he didn't want to be asked an *extremely* reasonable question about his culpability, he didn't need to do the interview.
posted by crazy with stars at 11:50 AM on December 6, 2016 [9 favorites]


yeah that Today Show interview seemed intended to convey "I am too mad with grief to play by the rules of this interview, but also very careful about not saying anything about accepting responsibility that could be used against me in court" and I wasn't buying it
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:53 AM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]


Oy. OK. Maybe I am reading my own feelings into it.
posted by samthemander at 12:08 PM on December 6, 2016


I guess I'm glad people can go so quickly into "break this down rationally and logically" but it's really jarring for me to be a part of that right now. Maybe in a few days. Maybe never.

I don't think we are, really.
posted by atoxyl at 12:34 PM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


One of the people who did prison time for The Station fire (I think it was the band's tour manager) wrote handwritten letters of....well, apology sounds wrong....responsibility? regret?.... to the families of everyone who died, from prison. I wonder how they felt about that? I'm sure some found that contact unwanted, some appreciated that he made the gesture. He had also pled guilty.

The tour manager who set off the stage pyrotechnics that started the Station fire, Daniel Biechele, wrote letters of apology to all the victims' families and in turn some of the families sent letters of support for his parole.

If we're assigning levels of culpability for deadly "didn't mean to hurt anyone!" carelessness, the apparently blatant and ongoing disregard for fire safety standards by the Ghost Ship management doesn't feel less evil to me than Biechele's stupidly reckless use of fireworks that saw him convicted of misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter.
posted by nicebookrack at 1:12 PM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]


I'm just wigged out by the idea of guests and performers being invited en masse into an egregiously dangerous space because it's very easy for me to imagine being one of them and having no idea what's going on until it's too late. And I think the first rule of having an illegal community is you gotta look out for each other. But I don't know what fucking happened, really, so I'll just quote this (since I can't favorite it more than once)

not sure if this was posted upthread, but there's a meeting/open assembly tomorrow in oakland at omni commons "in order to begin to collectively brainstorm, interconnect and pool resources around what we as a community of artists and organizers can do to aid our DIY spaces right now in the Bay Area — primarily with respect to improving core fire safety and building safety."
posted by atoxyl at 1:16 PM on December 6, 2016


I remember after the Station fire having to listen to a lot of obnoxious jokes. We've been spared that this time, thankfully.
posted by jonmc at 1:24 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]


You see a lot of people going in ahead of you, no one is concerned, it seems OK. Your friends are playing onstage. It's really very easy to overlook being in a dangerous situation.
posted by thelonius at 1:25 PM on December 6, 2016 [2 favorites]


God.

I am lucky enough that all the spaces like this I've lived or worked in have had people who were really dedicated to safety and maintenance and when news of this dropped I tried to find them to thank them in between reloading that list. Nobody I know but a lot of friends of friends. The anger at Almena from the community is pretty real; I'm hearing firsthand stories from former housemates of mine who lived in Ghost Ship about his exploitation of the (all much younger, borderline homeless) people who lived in his space and his general abusive behavior. SFBay's earlier comments were full of people who said they'd offered to rebuild the unsafe staircase for free and were laughed off. People are joking on facebook and in the SFBay comments that the space actually called "the Death Trap" is less of a death trap-- the burner/sculpture arts circles are full of people with construction knowledge and the safety there did not have to be that bad. Ghost Ship does not sound like a normal warehouse; it sounds like this was a version of the same cycle of underground spaces making national news-- a known dysfunctional or abusive space finally kills someone (through overdose or assault, this scale is unimaginable) and the entire community is held up to a national lens with that space as a (bad) example.

I'm sorry this thread isn't doing a better job of holding space for people who just need to mourn their dead right now. Not an empty apology, I really-- god. But I'm also glad that the primary grief reaction of so many people within the community is to try to take action to make sure this doesn't happen again.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 1:30 PM on December 6, 2016 [12 favorites]




Good piece by bay area writer Sam Lefebvre in Pitchfork: After Ghost Ship Fire, Oakland DIY Grapples With a Broken System
posted by larrybob at 2:30 PM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]


.
posted by Kattullus at 2:41 PM on December 6, 2016




From Sam Lefebvre's (excellent) article that larrybob linked to, there's this particularly galling detail:
According to a recent report by the local nonprofit Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, more than 50,000 formal eviction notices were posted between 2008 and 2015, a figure that only begins to reveal the scope of displacement in Oakland.

"With more than 2,000 [eviction notices] a year, it makes sense that people are living in these precarious scenarios," said Erin McElroy, cofounder of the Mapping Project. "And a crackdown isn’t going to keep people out of unsafe places. It's going to accelerate it.... The priority of the city should be securing affordable housing for residents and preventing evictions."

City officials often decry the housing crisis, but the recent Mapping Project report includes a troubling finding: Oakland's leading "mega-evictor," William Rosetti, whose associated companies are responsible for over 4,000 evictions in the period studied, is a member of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf's handpicked "housing cabinet."

"When [Schaaf] was asked about it, she said that she wanted a diverse group, including landlords and tenants rights people, but the fact that the landlord she chose is behind 4,000 evictions is significant," McElroy said. "People with that much property here have always had the power."
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 2:56 PM on December 6, 2016 [10 favorites]




I'm sorry this thread isn't doing a better job of holding space for people who just need to mourn their dead right now. Not an empty apology, I really-- god. But I'm also glad that the primary grief reaction of so many people within the community is to try to take action to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Thank you for saying that. It helps me understand better where everyone is coming from.
posted by Annika Cicada at 4:03 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]


The unavailability and unaffordability of housing in the SF / Oakland area is certainly going to be a factor, and it would be good if some of the public anger in response to the fire is directed towards progress on that issue, but I don't think that really detracts much from the culpability of those in charge of the Ghost Ship. Just from the photos, it's pretty clear that they did things in the interior of the building which directly contributed to it being a hazard, and any reasonable person could have looked at them and known "man, this is going to be really bad if something goes wrong". And then, having constructed this, they repeatedly invited large groups of people inside.

Neither the interior construction, or the use as a venue seem directly related to the housing market (I guess, perhaps, there's an argument about the concerts being used to pay the rent, but if you know you have to host concerts to pay rent, then you don't turn the inside into a deathtrap). If building out the interior in the way that it was built was necessary from some artistic perspective, then you need to reasonably accept that it doesn't work as a concert venue, and that's not going to work as a make-rent sideline. To not acknowledge that is to basically hold the safety of people who you're inviting inside in contempt, and I just don't see any way around that, morally.

There's nothing intrinsically unsafe about living in a warehouse. I don't, having been to a bunch of them, think there's really even anything intrinsically unsafe about warehouse parties, or using warehouses as event venues / theaters. I suspect there are actually lots of warehouses that are safer than the average basement club, at least in a fire. (An empty warehouse is actually pretty safe from fire.) So it would be tremendously unfortunate if the fire is used as a justification for cracking down on unpermitted uses of industrial space (of which there is, in the US, quite a bit of) in general, because many of them are basically benign. But it seems totally reasonable to point fingers at people who cavalierly endanger the lives of others, whether it's in the pursuit of money or art or for any other reason.
posted by Kadin2048 at 4:47 PM on December 6, 2016 [12 favorites]


To not acknowledge that is to basically hold the safety of people who you're inviting inside in contempt, and I just don't see any way around that, morally. ... It seems totally reasonable to point fingers at people who cavalierly endanger the lives of others, whether it's in the pursuit of money or art or for any other reason.

Absolutely, Derick Almena bears direct responsibility for having created a tremendously unsafe space, and from what I've read elsewhere he seems to have refused to remedy any of the problems even when they were brought to his attention. Frankly, he strikes me as an abusive, delusional asshole whose ego and greed drove him to create a deathtrap all in the name of his self-aggrandizing enlightened artist schtick.

But the larger point is that the housing crisis (and all its attendant socioeconomic issues) is part of the backdrop upon which these disastrous situations are created and unfold. The more unaffordable it becomes to live and work and create, the greater the number of people who become desperate to find affordable living/working/creative spaces, and the easier it is for them to be exploited and endangered by the Derick Almenas of the world.
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 5:13 PM on December 6, 2016 [6 favorites]




At first I told the Reuters videographer "I'm not the one you want to talk to", if only because I wasn't directly mourning anyone; I was there for friends who were*, as well as being a citizen of Oakland Showing respect for my neighbors.

But so many people were so fucked up w grief, anyone sticking a camera in their vicinity got hella negative pushback. And I figured I could maybe say something reasonable when he asked me So why are you here?"

*Chelsea Faith, when not DJing, was a concert bartender at my old company, and my homies who worked w here we're there. I was mainly there for them.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 9:17 PM on December 6, 2016 [2 favorites]


I finally watched the whole interview, after seeing your comments. The footage of his interview still makes me sick, and I still think it's clear that Almena should be closely monitored to ensure he cares for his personal safety.

I believe Almena understands his culpability and is not dealing well with it - he is deflecting blame rather than owning his involvement. Even if he owned his mistakes, it would not absolve him, but it would give others confidence that he had learned from this disaster. The person he makes himself out to be on camera, though - that person does not appear to have learned. That person seems defensive, and scared of his own future rather than saddened by the loss of others. He comes across as a person who must learn the consequences of his mistakes in a self-directed way in order to avoid them in the future. I do believe he belongs in prison.

I am still sick about all of this. I only have loose connections to this fire, so I was sort of caught off guard by my own reaction. I didn't really know anyone there. Today I realized why. Today is exactly one month from the ten-year marker since my best friend passed away in a car fire. I have seen very intimately what it means to pass away in a fire, and to accidentally be the one that escapes a fire that claims the life of others... and I think because my friend would have loved Ghostship, I am just getting a lot of crossed emotional wires. I find myself viewing the sadness of others through my own window of sadness, which is a bizarro kind of empathy and its own kind of selfishness, perhaps not far from Almena's. As sad comfort: I can assure you that for those that perished, it was a confusing minute, followed by a scared minute of smoke, followed by a certain and too-quiet minute, and then that was it. They held their breath until there was no more air, and then they were gone. For those that survived and loved those who did not, I send my selfish empathy and support and love and understanding and uncomfortable oversharing. I'm so, so, sorry. This is just so unfair, all of it.
posted by samthemander at 9:50 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]


The witch hunt is on here in the Bay Area as if the grief was not enough.

I have friends/artists here in Oakland who are trying to do damage control for what that may do but several art spaces have already been served with eviction notices.

The media has been contacting art groups trying to get reactions and statements from people, the general word is to not talk as it will just make it worse.
posted by boilermonster at 10:46 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]


Now the scammers have come out of the woodwork. There have been fake JustGiving links posted claiming to be gathering funds for the relatives of the deceased.

People are scum sometimes.
posted by acb at 2:16 AM on December 7, 2016




> Now the scammers have come out of the woodwork.

In case there was any question, the fundraiser posted by SansPoint on the second comment is legit.

Good friends of mine lost close friends of theirs in this tragedy, but I hope this doesn't turn into a repeat of 2000 where a drug bust and negative press enabled the city kick people out of non-traditional housing (which has already started happening). There are horrible comments on public news articles blaming and denigrating the victims, but the President's statement gives me hope:

"Oakland is one of the most diverse and creative cities in our country, and as families and residents pull together in the wake of this awful tragedy, they will have the unwavering support of the American people."

-President Obama (full statement)
posted by fragmede at 9:25 AM on December 7, 2016


An Open Letter to Our Community, From the Former Residents of the Recently Closed LoBot Gallery in West Oakland

To our friends at Ghost Ship: We are with you. The artists of what was formerly LoBot Gallery are donating a portion of our security deposit to your crowdfunding page, in hope that it helps bring some stability and support to you. We’ve donated the rest to small arts groups and communities at risk for displacement in Oakland.

We call upon our former landlord, Katie Harmon, along with all landlords who force us into these spaces, to contribute as well.

posted by larrybob at 10:45 AM on December 7, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'm sure that some totally safe places will get shut down for mercenary reasons, but the simple fact is, the community in these spaces was relying on self-regulation to allow landlords and building inspectors to turn a blind eye. And when you blow self-regulation this badly, that's going to stop. No landlord wants to be on the hook for the incredible lawsuits that are going to come, and y'know, they are human too -- most of them don't want to be standing around watching dozens of body bags coming out of a space they were responsible for.

So again, a lot of the blame for this has to go back to Almena, and the community that tolerated what was clearly a wildly unsafe space, far beyond anything made necessary by living on the margins.
posted by tavella at 11:33 AM on December 7, 2016 [13 favorites]


Annika-- yeah. I know a lot of ppl whose first reaction is to go into that semi adrenaline fueled Problem Solving mode and then break down in full blown grief/weeping a few days later when it hits. I've been on both sides of that and the first time I saw it the problem solvers have seemed insane and callous to me, but I really do think it's about people reacting to an immediate trauma in different ways, and not people forgetting those who were lost or brushing them aside to jump into rational strategy mode. IDK. I'm so sorry, again.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 1:50 PM on December 7, 2016 [3 favorites]


This is a tragedy. What a nightmare.

Multiple things are true about this event, all at once. It is not a single lesson with a discrete message, but real life.

There are crises of affordable housing. I've never been to Oakland, but it sounds like you can't live there for $750 a month? I wouldn't know. That said, Ghost Ship existed for reasons well beyond mere housing. For those who had lived there, it was obviously an intentional community of sorts. This doesn't lessen the tragedy at all, but it is an added chapter in the story. Ghost Ship was part of a "scene", a scene in which multicolor magpie decor was a norm, and in which it was seem as somehow typical that everything would have to be jerry-rigged.

Almena does not seem "evil" - however, that has nothing to do with anything. Fire burns, fire burnt. We don't care about his alleged inner qualities, or his ability to namecheck performance artists. We want people like him to be responsible about fire safety. He is certainly suffering - but again, who cares? This isn't about *him*. On his Today appearance, all I saw was a sad, broken man who is flabbergasted that he can't talk his way out of taking responsibilty. His concerns seem entirely narcissistic - "but *I'm* saaaad". He focuses on what *he* has lost. He feels terrible - isn't that enough? Well, no, actually, not for those of us who are not you.

What we need as a society is a balance between people's freedom to live as they please and also the freedom from event spaces that lure people with good times, but which are actually literal death traps.
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:27 PM on December 7, 2016 [3 favorites]




I've never been to Oakland, but it sounds like you can't live there for $750 a month?

Average Rent in Oakland, California:
As of November 2016, average apartment rent within the city of of Oakland, CA is $2728.
One bedroom apartments in Oakland rent for $2366 a month on average and two bedroom apartment rents average $3036.
posted by Lexica at 4:28 PM on December 7, 2016 [4 favorites]


I agree with the comment upthread that there have been many DIY places for a long time that did not result in this kind of tragedy. Live/work/performance/art spaces have been around since the 80s if not longer. I've never lived in a space like that, but I sure hope that propane tanks, sparking wires, makeshift stairs etc are not the norm. From what people are saying, they are not.
Also, since Alemena lived there with his kids, I don't get the sense that he was a heartless slumlord exactly, but more of the type of arrogant person who meets warnings with "I know what I"m doing, don't be so paranoid" etc etc. Just the kind of ignorant arrogant person who doesn't listen to reason until it's too late. Maddening.

I too got the feeling that Alemena's appearance on Today was more PR than repentance. It was so stagey; it was like "I found out that I was acting like an asshole, but I don't want to go to jail, so here's me acting sad. But I don't want to admit guilt on camera because it's too incriminating."

And not to minimize the suffering and loss of life, but it's also sad that already we're seeing the beginning of the death of these kinds of vital spaces. This asshole is ruining it for everyone, so doubly infuriating. I hope I'm not throwing an insensitive tantrum but since I didn't know anyone directly, in addition to general sadness I feel more anger at Alemena for his reckless indifference than anything. Just rage at him. I don't want to diminish the loss and mourning though and I don't want to be insensitive but damn.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 4:43 PM on December 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


I get why people are enraged at Almena: it's normal to want to blame and what he did turned out to be horrifying. Seems to me the property owner also should shoulder responsibility. Especially for those directly impacted, I get the focus on this one person. But as someone not directly impacted but who does live here and cares about art spaces and queer spaces and affordable housing, I feel like I personally don't want to spend a lot of time focused on one or two people, but rather on pressing the city, county, and state to support low income housing, art spaces, building upgrades, and yes ultimately enforcement of codes in a proactive way that protects artists and poor people.

Anyway. This is all just horrible. I keep thinking about the families and survivors waking up to this reality every day.
posted by latkes at 5:05 PM on December 7, 2016 [3 favorites]


I didn't watch the interview, but a good friend had met Almena before to look into living at Ghost Ship, and he said he encountered a guy who was very much like-minded kin and passionate when it came to being a creator and artist. His take was that the guy made some colossal, massive mistakes, but at heart isn't an evil person. It doesn't matter all that much to me whether he was evil or simply negligent - only bringing it up because it seems to be a topic of discussion. In general, we need to focus less on easy scapegoats and more on the underlying structural, systemic issues at play. And it matters now, today, because people are getting evicted and I'm seeing at least one space I've been to get threatened with a shut down based on outright false information.
posted by naju at 5:32 PM on December 7, 2016




I can't help but feel that this type of national attention is going to prove dangerous.

There is a false perception among "mainstream" (or whatever) people that artists are all from rich families and slumming it, or that artists' refusal to take any job that's going around is an insult to hard-working 'Mericans (what, are artists too good to work at McDonald's so they can afford tiny efficiencies in outer suburbs?), that artists are stupid and useless and add nothing to society, etc. There's a huge hatred of anyone who is poor - to begin with - much less anyone who is poor and still wants to do art or be an intellectual or just live a bohemian life on the cheap.

I mean, Americans hate artists, especially poor ones. We have some tolerance for art if it is from before about 1950, but we hate contemporary art, we hate radical art, we hate artists. We hate artists because we hate people who seem to have happy lives without being rich, basically. We think that if you're poor, you should be miserable. We think of parties and fun and fashion and music and being creative as luxuries. We think that if something is worthwhile it's monetizable, so we have some grudging acceptance of people who sell luxury crafts to celebrities, but we hate artists.

I can't help but see the NYT making this into a national scandal issue as likely to result in more hostility to artists, punks, DIY people, etc, and more occlusion of the way that queer and trans people, POC and queer and trans POC need these spaces. I don't like it when people who are in my extended community are in mainstream news, because mainstream news hates people like us, thinks we're spoiled dumb lazy liars and thinks that we should be forced to be as "normal" as possible, preferably out of sight somewhere. I do not think that a NYT "investigation" into a bunch of QTPOC artists for the delectation of cis straight middle class white people is going to help anything at all, at all.
posted by Frowner at 7:33 AM on December 8, 2016 [15 favorites]


the east bay express published a heartening editor's note that indicates they'll likely do a much better job covering this sort of thing than the nyt (which is unsurprising)

In the coming months, the Express will be a watchdog to make sure that government officials, business owners, and the region’s leaders don’t put the underground scene in the crosshairs. Many artists living in these warehouse-style spaces are already housing-insecure — let’s not jerk the bottom out from under them.
posted by burgerrr at 9:53 AM on December 8, 2016 [6 favorites]


Americans hate artists

I can appreciate the emotion, but citation fucking needed.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:24 AM on December 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


Maybe an article comparing US arts funding to funding in other countries would count as a citation?
Judgment and The Ghost Ship Tragedy: America Has Abandoned Its Artists
posted by larrybob at 10:36 AM on December 8, 2016 [4 favorites]


I can appreciate the emotion, but citation fucking needed.

2015 US NEA funding: 146,021,000 USD

2015 UK Arts Council funding: 605,000,000 GBP ( ~889,000,000 in USD)

2015 US Population: ~320,000,000

2015 UK Population: ~65,000,000

Approximate per capita 2015 arts funding, in USD:

US: 0.46 USD
UK: 9.31 USD
posted by dersins at 10:40 AM on December 8, 2016 [6 favorites]


Government funding (or lack thereof) doesn't equal what "Americans hate" (or what "Americans love", for that matter), otherwise we would say that "Americans love the military" above literally all other things in the country.
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 11:12 AM on December 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


I mean, yes? Have you met Americans?
posted by dersins at 11:15 AM on December 8, 2016 [5 favorites]


Maybe an article comparing US arts funding to funding in other countries would count as a citation?

Now that is a heck of a citation. We are entering the realm where Americans and America, indifference and hate, the products and the makers, and emotion and financial support are all comingled, and I will show myself out.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:18 AM on December 8, 2016


I mean, yes? Have you met Americans?

Americans tend to be fond of individual soldiers, who are compensated poorly. I imagine the average American has almost no opinion at all about, say, Raytheon, which gets quite a bit more of the cash.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:24 AM on December 8, 2016


Maybe you'd be happier with "Americans are indifferent to art"? We do hate the poor (because we fear being Just Like Them) and because our heritage generally teaches us that no one has to be poor if they really just work hard enough doncha know, so if you're poor you must deserve it, and you ought to be miserable.

Americans are so indifferent to art and artists that it's not surprising there's no Official Citation for how we feel about artists, especially the non-rich unfamous kind. Indifference is kinda even worse than hate in a lot of ways. Yay us.
posted by rtha at 11:33 AM on December 8, 2016


Given that Americans consistently vote for leaders who will line the pockets of the Raytheons of the world at the expense of the starving artists (or starving non-artists, for that matter) of the world, I'm not sure what conclusion we could possibly draw other than that Americans either have more affection for the military-industrial complex than for the arts, or that we're deeply, profoundly stupid.

Or, I guess, both.
posted by dersins at 11:34 AM on December 8, 2016


I think most people would be artists full time, given the opportunity, and are intensely jealous of anyone who does have that opportunity. Everyone has a creative spark but society can only afford to allow a tiny fraction to pursue it.
posted by miyabo at 11:36 AM on December 8, 2016


I mean, yes? Have you met Americans?

I mean, no? I am an American and I know one or two other Americans and we do not love the military above all other things. And the U.S. government does not actually equal the entirety of the American people, as I would have thought Trump's election should have amply proved. The government funds and prioritizes literally countless things that are out of sync with public opinions and preferences. Moreover, artists, museums, and other arts organizations are funded by many other public and private sources than the NEA.

I'm not arguing that the arts are held as the highest priority in America; they're not (and more's the pity). I am suggesting that to make a claim of what all Americans love or hate based on the relative slices of pie from the federal budget is specious.
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 11:50 AM on December 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


Americans are indifferent to art

I'd be happier with "Americans are schizoid about artists", given how we regard the popular ones as well as the unpopular ones, in terms of attention, soft power, and real dollars.

Americans surely love art, albeit in a non-discriminating way, given the amount that we consume on a regular basis and the desire to label anything and everything that we consume for entertainment as "art".

America certainly seems pretty indifferent to the poor (and poor artists, which is most artists) in terms of actual cash bucks, and those are the terms that matter - with or without sentiment attached. And it seems, without a doubt, that the dance's attendees were young and poor.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:58 AM on December 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


society can only afford to allow

Well, society can surely afford it if priorities were weighted differently. Maybe "society only deigns to allow"?
posted by fiercecupcake at 12:11 PM on December 8, 2016



I mean, no? I am an American and I know one or two other Americans and we do not love the military above all other things.


#NOTALLAMERICANS is just as silly as any #NOTALL [x]

We can measure what a consumer-capitalist society values by where it spends its money. Our government spends as much to operate a single aircraft carrier group for one week (not build--operate) as it does to fund the arts for a entire year.
posted by dersins at 12:17 PM on December 8, 2016 [4 favorites]


Whoops-- lost a decimal point. 10 weeks, not 1 week.
posted by dersins at 12:19 PM on December 8, 2016


Americans love "art" in the sense that they love clever entertainment, and clever entertainment is one thing that comes from art. But people have a huge resentment of difficult or challenging art, with "difficult" and "challenging" being interpreted very generously. It's extremely easy to whip people into a frenzy over "ugly" art in public spaces, for instance. If you've ever spent time around an art gallery which has an exhibition of contemporary art, too, you hear a lot of "my kid could do that" or "that's...interesting", etc, with the clear implication that if the "art" isn't immediately transparent or pleasurable to the viewer, it's garbage. Difficult music, whether popular or "high culture" is something that people feel really free to slam without understanding. We as a nation have very little poetry, too - hardly anyone who is not a poet reads contemporary poetry except if it's in the New Yorker.

A lot of my social time is spent in proximity to small arts scenes. Hatred and resentment of those scenes and people by non-participants is pretty standard.

There are certainly Americans who like art, even difficult art, and since this is a big country that's a large number considered merely as a number. But in the aggregate, this is not a country which respects artists. Good lord, consider the tremendous social punishment of the NEA artists or David Wojnarowicz in the eighties and nineties; consider the way it's virtually impossible to distribute "difficult" films, consider the endless jokes about how boring artsy movies are, etc. People who've never seen a Godard film can tell you that Godard is boring; people who have no real interest in music can express scorn for John Cage or Phillip Glass. Consider how threads about weird hipster art projects tend to go on here, for pete's sake.

Art-as-commodity has some standing - if it can be turned into a street festival with lots of vendors and pull in the tourists, sure. But I sure would like to live in the America where people don't basically hate anyone who does anything "weird" that they can't immediately understand with one glance.
posted by Frowner at 12:21 PM on December 8, 2016 [5 favorites]


Re attitudes toward artists, an acquaintance of mine who's a driving force in the DIY music scene in Philly posted an article on Facebook about the mayor here cracking down on artist warehouses in the wake of the Oakland fire and got the following lovely trolling message from a cop:
Ohhh you young hipsters. Allow me to explain in a way you might understand. I just so happen to be a cop in philly. Ive had to close these makeshift clubs down. What you hipsters call artist freedom really translate into a drug den where early in the night young college types go to, to feel hip and edgy before escaping back into there pampered reality mean while dangerous people fill the gap prey and those who are unaware of there surrounding. While keeping the local neighborhood in disarray. Mean some out of town group charged admission while allow drug sales. They are not safe. 100% of time some gets beat nearly to death 70% theres a shooting meanwhile after these so called artist leave you got young neighborhood kids fallen prey to this life style
When you look past the mangled syntax, you see a lot of the attitudes Frowner mentioned. The absolute certain conviction that everyone in these scenes is young and spoiled. ("College types" as used above might as well be "liberal elites.") Moral panicking about "drug dens" and the safety of the surrounding areas. (Which, given where a lot of the show houses are in Philly, is also a barely-concealed racist dog whistle.) The insistence that artists aren't local, which erases the work of the people (often POC) who are long-time city natives. Barely veiled disdain for the art and music itself.

I know, anecdote is not data, #notallamericans, etc, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that is a pretty typical attitude for the Philly police department, and law enforcement at large.
posted by ActionPopulated at 1:12 PM on December 8, 2016 [6 favorites]


I think 4'33" had a really good beat. Total earworm.
posted by LizBoBiz at 3:06 PM on December 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


"Entertainment is telling people what we already know, and Art is expanding how we understand our lives. The familiarity passes for quality, unfortunately, so the more on-the-nose, the more praise. Hence, the problem of our society. What if being uncomfortable was our most valued experience, and we were all given permission to change? Then, in my view, what we reward and praise would shift dramatically, and we'd have a more just and equitable world." - Sarah Schulman
posted by larrybob at 5:13 PM on December 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


(One of the reasons that I’d prefer to think of the deceased as young, impoverished outsiders, is that there’s little evidence of them fitting the broader, more nebulous definition of artists who strive to make one uncomfortable. Is the music of Them Are Us Too discomfiting to society at large, or is it just shoegaze rock? Is 100% Silk a niche label making “art” or is it simply niche electronic? It doesn’t seem relevant. People who wish to live outside of “normal” society are unsafe, and there’s something wrong about that, regardless of what their broader intentions might be.)
posted by Going To Maine at 5:57 PM on December 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


The connection was just made for me that Johnny Igaz was the Johnny I knew as one half of the hip-hop production duo Ill Mondo. I had the privilege of collaborating with him and his partner Jeff back in 2009. He was a warm person and a bright light. The first time I met him, probably back in 2006 or 2007, we were sharing a cab back to North Beach after a night on the town with a mutual acquaintance and struck up a conversation about music. He had, at the time, been working at One Little Indian, and I found it fascinating. I ran into him a number of other times and then didn't see him again until Jeff, who worked at 101 Music, invited me to be on their album. I showed up at the studio and saw Johnny, and we were both all "hey, it's you!" Life is full of little coincidences like that.

RIP, Johnny. You touched everyone you met.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:43 AM on December 9, 2016 [6 favorites]




Of course they are. What a piece of shit rag.
posted by dersins at 11:43 AM on December 9, 2016


grumpybear69, memail me if you haven't seen (and want to read) the obituary for Johnny that Hunter wrote.
posted by fragmede at 1:26 PM on December 9, 2016


Tiffany Woods, 53, of San Leandro was steps away from Oakland’s mayor, fire chief and a host of other leaders who were announcing the latest grim updates on a fire that ripped through a warehouse on 31st Avenue on Friday night, killing 36 people, including three transgender women.

The self-described “trans lesbian mother of three,” was invited by Oakland Police spokeswoman Johnna Watson and Alameda County Sheriff’s Sgt. Ray Kelly to navigate the tricky waters of naming the trio of people who died in the fire who were born with one name, and died with another.

posted by oneirodynia at 4:32 PM on December 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


Can you help the girlfriend of one of the Oakland fire victims find a specific picture captured by a stranger of her and her boyfriend in New York City?

The picture has been found! Here is an emotional post from Ms. Tomioka. Those are Facebook links, but there are also a few nice write-ups.
posted by juliplease at 9:40 AM on December 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


For everyone arguing that it wasn't the housing crisis in the Bay Area that caused 100 people to go to a party, think on this: how did they pay the rent? I'd bet the parties they held were effectively rent parties.
posted by Freen at 1:02 PM on December 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


.
posted by benzenedream at 5:51 PM on December 11, 2016


Alexander Billet and Adam Turl at Red Wedge: The Ghost Ship is Our Triangle Fire
posted by larrybob at 12:15 PM on December 12, 2016


This tribute from Barrett Clark's friends is really moving.
posted by larrybob at 1:53 PM on December 12, 2016


For everyone arguing that it wasn't the housing crisis in the Bay Area that caused 100 people to go to a party, think on this: how did they pay the rent? I'd bet the parties they held were effectively rent parties.

I'm not sure I understand your comment- by "they" do you mean Derrick Ion? He collected rent from the tenants to pay the 4500 dollar a month rent on the warehouse, and *also* threw parties to collect more money. Renting out the warehouse was his "job".
posted by oneirodynia at 10:48 AM on December 13, 2016


« Older The Persistence of Memory (lots of copies keep...   |   Here comes the Santa Claus (Ladies and gentlemen!) Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments