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Hotel
site will again house elderly tenants San
Francisco Chronicle, August 6, 2003
SAN FRANCISCO
-- Exactly 25 years after the International Hotel's mostly elderly tenants
were thrown out onto the street, plans were explained Sunday to build a
senior citizen housing development as well as a religious school and a
Manilatown museum. Community
members and activists gathered Sunday near the site in Chinatown for an
eviction commemoration to remember the past and plan for the future. The
hotel orginally provided a place where retired Asian immigrants could live
for $50 per month. But in 1973 the hotel was sold to a Bangkok investment
corporation, which was granted an eviction order so that it could replace
the hotel with a high-rise. The
City tried to use the right of eminent domain to seize the International
Hotel and sell it to the tenants. A judge denied the motion and thousands
of protesters began a 24-hour watch to guard against the eviction. Then,
in the early morning hours of Aug. 4, 1977, police executed the eviction
order and more than 50 elderly Filipino and Chinese tenants were thrown
out. "It
was a really horrifying experience for all of us," said Emil De
Guzman, a Filipino activist who was a college student living at the hotel
during the eviction. "I don't think anyone ever thought thatThe City
would do something so radically violent." Guzman
said he and other tenants of the hotel were dragged down the stairs and
police and firefighters on horses broke up the human barricades. "I
think it was telling of what was in store for all of us," Guzman
said. The
hotel was demolished after the evictions. The high-rise was never built
because city officials and activists rejected any development plan that
didn't have low-income housing. The
new project comes after years of negotiations between the site owners in
Thailand and various government agencies and civic groups, including the
International Hotel Citizen's Advisory Committee and the Roman Catholic
archdiocese. The
project, due for completion in 2005, will include Catholic elementary and
Chinese-language schools and a 105-unit senior housing facility. It will
be funded by The City and a federal Housing and Urban Development grant. For
many, the new facility still won't replace what was lost. "We
can't return to that because it's been destroyed," said Bill Sorro, a
longtime Manilatown activist who used to live at the hotel. Sorro said he
hopes that Manilatown Heritage Foundation, which will be housed in the new
facility along with a museum, will link the past and the future. "No,
it will not make whole the damage done on Aug. 4, 1977, but it will
provide a light and an indication of what the future can be," said
Mayor Willie Brown at Sunday's commemoration. "We hope that there are
some surviving tenants who are still here (when the facility is done) who
will want to move back." "As
one of those remaining tenants, I plan on moving in there someday,"
replied Guzman with a laugh. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
