Psychedelic Neverland Faces Taming, Rebirth as State Park

The Popsicle-shaped peninsula known as the Albany Bulb sits atop an old landfill on a narrow causeway jutting into San Francisco Bay.

There are remnants of concrete and rebar, even the carcass of a boat, in the tidal flats below. Thickets of fennel smell like licorice. Flocks of geese soar by, and fat bumblebees ride the tips of wild mustard like urban cowboys on mechanical bulls.

Suddenly, a sculpture blocks the path. It’s the “wheel of life”--a spool of old cable that can be set spinning until the arrow lands between an image of Pegasus and a heart pierced by a dagger. Is this art? Junk? What does it mean? Sometimes it’s more fun to wonder than to know.

For years, the lawless, homeless and aimless have flocked to “the Bulb,” erecting a psychedelic neverland atop a giant pile of trash. All of it will be torn down sometime soon, if recreation officials have their way.

They are about to begin piecing together the new 2,000-acre $40-million to $80-million Eastshore State Park, hugging the bay shore north of Oakland, including the 40-odd acres that make up the Bulb. Once that happens, the public officials say, there will be no place for the art or, as they call it, “unauthorized personal expression.”

Around a fire pit, would-be poets have painted slogans on concrete bricks, from the nonsensical (“River: Noun or verb?”) to the political (“ ‘Do what thou wilt’ shall be the whole of the law”). A makeshift amphitheater is ringed with interlocking pieces of old bicycles. Someone has managed to piece together a two-story castle, complete with a rooftop porch and a nappy armchair offering spectacular views of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Eventually, the untamed acreage will be replaced by soccer fields, picnic tables, hiking trails and open space. People on all sides of the issue agree that, even before the work begins, the outlaw spirit has begun to fade, and that the artists will pack up and leave voluntarily.

“It hurts me that it has come to this,” said Don Neuwirth, a consultant working as the planning manager for the web of environmental and recreation officials behind the park.

Neuwirth embodies the ambivalence of many of the bureaucrats pushing out the art, seen as an amusement, in favor of regulation, seen as a necessity.

“It is really cool out there. It is wild and romantic, and these guys just want to be left alone,” he said. “I’m from New York, and Norman Mailer thought the coolest thing in the world was graffiti on subway cars. Who am I to argue with Norman Mailer?

“But I don’t want to pay for a park and look at someone’s personal expression any more than I want to get on the subway and look at someone’s graffiti. We’re not making an aesthetic decision about this art. We’re making a hard public policy decision.”

This is not some stereotypical clash of crazed lefties against some fat-cat developer. The state wants to build a park here that features improved bird habitats, hiking trails, ramps to launch kayaks, even a youth hostel where the kids and the troubadours can stay on the cheap.

That has thrown into conflict two prime passions of the Bay Area: art and open space. Avowed anarchists back the art; community activists and bureaucrats are behind the park. The anarchists know they will lose. So this summer offers a last look, in a sense, at a relic of fading free-form San Francisco.

“It’s pretty much over. The Bay Area has now turned into the rest of the country,” said Bruce Rayburn, a building contractor, San Francisco native and one of the artists who frequents the Bulb.

“We’ve become this milquetoast Middle America.... This place is a masterpiece. But now we will be the same as everyplace else.”

As one hand-painted sign jammed into a mudflat reads: “How about a place for just being?”

For decades, local authorities let it be just that. First there was a dump at the Bulb, filled with construction materials and other debris. Then the tides of the bay floated in, spreading earth, exotic yard wastes and a wide variety of plants and trees--from towering pines to thorny roses.

Nearly 20 years ago, community activists launched the notion of creating a full-fledged park there, a concept later linked to the large waterfront park proposed for the East Bay.

But the wheels of government turn slowly. California has spent about $30 million buying the pieces of property that make up the park, and the state Parks Commission is expected to adopt a final plan for the park in November. The state doesn’t expect to begin mowing, grooming and building for another 18 months after that vote.

The Bulb found its latest incarnation in 1999, when a large encampment of homeless people was moved off the land, but not before they began making sculptures out of the construction debris.

A loose-knit group of artists responded to the eviction by erecting two large bisecting arcs made of shopping carts, a tribute to the carry-all of choice for many street people.

The artists never left. They created their own lawless playground, often partying late into the night using old car batteries to power generators and radios.

Among the works they created are a series of elaborate murals. One is a painting of a rodeo gone very wrong, featuring an image of a stuck pig and a dog with fleas. Another contains a rather violent image of a man in a trench coat attacking a beggar. “A curse upon the souls of those who maliciously destroy the efforts of others,” it says.

Thomas Dubberke, a Berkeley resident and labor lawyer who counts himself among the artists, has spent three years, off and on, building a wall made of slag, part of the “amphitheater.”

“It’s really just a big pile of garbage with a bunch of wildlife,” he said. “It is a metaphor for how nature can reclaim something that was basically a bunch of human waste. It’s magic. And it’s mystery.”

It’s also illegal: The Albany City Council recently voted unanimously that artwork should not be incorporated into the city’s portion of Eastshore State Park.

Officials have concluded that the artwork is a potential liability because children could climb on it and fall. There also are concerns that the artwork does not mesh with the state’s duties to provide open space and recreational opportunities, and that some of its content is not appropriate for children, said Ron Schafer, superintendent of the California Department of Parks and Recreation’s Bay Area district.

“They are taking advantage of one of the last wild and unregulated places,” said Ann Ritzma, Albany’s assistant city administrator. “But soon it will be regulated.”

Even some of those who understand the charms of the Bulb believe the greater good requires change.

“It is a very marvelous place, but it is doomed,” said Jim McGrath, an environmental official at the Port of Oakland and a Berkeley resident who has lobbied for the park since the mid-1970s. “To make it a park, you have to have some level of improvements. Otherwise, the only people who can use it are the people who happened to find it. And that’s not fair.”

But the regulars who come to visit this untamed place can’t help but feel there are many public parks and only one place like the Bulb.

A sign on the land suggests their spirit won’t die easily. Beneath a picture of a coiled rattlesnake, it reads:

“Artists may be found in this area. They are important members of the community. They will not attack but if disturbed or cornered they will defend themselves. Give them distance and respect.”