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Concerned Market Street Merchants scrapbook, 1976.
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Title:
Concerned Market Street Merchants scrapbook, 1976Creator/Contributor:
Concerned Market Street Merchants, creator, creatorCreator/Contributor:
Hughes, Larry, creatorCreator/Contributor:
Online Archive of CaliforniaAbstract:
Contains nine mimeographed or mechanically reproduced letters, press releases, and internal memos documenting the Concerned
Market Street Merchants organization, proposals, and activities. Includes four photographs (as well as two duplicate photographs)
depicting homeless persons sleeping on or near Market Street, San Francisco. Concerned Market Street Merchants was formed
by shoe store owner and manager Larry Hughes to activate business owners whose businesses operated on Market Street between
4th and 8th Streets (known as Mid-Market) to pressure San Francisco government and it's police and health departments to better
address issues of vagrancy, theft, drug dealing, public intoxication, and public urination and defecation in an effort to
bring back shoppers and businesses to the area. Among the group's 46 members were Crocker National Bank, Hibernia Bank and
McDonalds, and a memo included in the collection lists Harvey Milk, founder of Castro Street Merchants Association, and John
Eshleman Wahl, civil rights attorney, as individuals assisting the merchant's group. An outline of the organization's proposals
includes actions for both city agencies and the individual merchants and shop owners and points out that the dangerous and
unsanitary conditions are not the result of a 1976 municipal worker strike and instead are the result of a lack of police
patrols, high police response time and a relaxed attitude towards arresting and prosecuting for crimes committed. A press
release dated May 11, 1976 announces the merchant association's Kickoff Cleanup Day to bring attention to their efforts to
improve conditions in the shopping district and to announce their meeting with Police Chief Charles Gain. A May 18, 1976 letter
to Chief Gain outlines the group's demands for police action including revoking permits and extra patrols around a pool hall,
arcade, and two bars located on Market Street; demanding the narcotics unit address the sale of drugs in the area; arresting
and prosecuting rather than admonishing illegal behavior; and increasing patrols and decreasing response times. The letter
also questions the equity of police patrols and response times, asking if more affluent areas of San Francisco experience
the same lack of attention. It also posits whether or not the merchants need to arm themselves to keep their stores, their
customers and themselves safe. Also contains newspaper clippings detailing the merchant's efforts, including a May 19, 1976
San Francisco Examiner article which points out that the merchant's concerns about the blight and crime on Market Street coincides
with the city's $2.45 million plan to upgrade Market Street as part of many redevelopment plans taking place in the city in
the 1970s.
Date:
1976 (issued)Subject:
n-us-caMerchants
Retail trade
Homeless persons
Law enforcement
Crime
Retail trade
Merchants
Law enforcement
Homeless persons
Crime
Market Street (San Francisco, Calif.)
California -- San Francisco -- Market Street
Concerned Market Street Merchants -- Archives
Hughes, Larry -- Archives
Note:
Purchase from Caroliniana; 2020.
Concerned Market Street Merchants scrapbook, 1976, BANC MSS 2022/127, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Type:
Archives.Scrapbooks.
Physical Description:
print
1.3 (1
Language:
English