{"id":33,"date":"2022-04-21T20:17:02","date_gmt":"2022-04-22T00:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/?page_id=33"},"modified":"2022-04-28T14:19:07","modified_gmt":"2022-04-28T18:19:07","slug":"madelines-story","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/madelines-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Madeline&#8217;s Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_34\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-34 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/IMG_0957-1024x768.jpeg\" alt=\"Madeline\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/IMG_0957-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/IMG_0957-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/IMG_0957-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/IMG_0957-2000x1500.jpeg 2000w, https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/IMG_0957-192x144.jpeg 192w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-34\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Madeline sits in her living room in Santa Rosa, March 2022<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Madeline Behrens-Brigham is originally from a small town in Illinois and moved to the Bay Area as a young adult. After living in a few different apartments, she moved into a storefront on Hayes Street in 1990. Madeline lived in the back of the store and ran her design shop, Modernology, out of the front. <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Her store closed in 1993 because her shop wasn\u2019t profitable enough to pay the bills, but she stayed in Hayes Valley, finding affordable spots to live where she could and remaining firmly rooted in the \u00a0community of business owners.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Madeline was at the helm of the neighborhood effort to get the Hayes Valley section of the Central Freeway demolished. She also organized neighborhood block parties, fought to keep corporations out of the area, and was central in popularizing the name of Hayes Valley. In 2016, Madeline moved to Santa Rosa into low-income senior housing in response to rising rents in Hayes Valley.<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In March of 2022, Madeline spoke to me about her years living and working on Hayes Street.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>A Tight-Knit Community<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>\u201cWe had benches&#8230;.later, the city enacted a law that you could not have benches outside your store. That was so homeless people wouldn\u2019t sleep on them. Well, we wanted benches because we wanted people to come and sit down. And then as store owners who didn\u2019t have a lot of customers, we would sit outside on our benches and talk to each other. So, that was sort of the trademark, that you put a bench outside your store&#8230;. And I\u2019m still friends with most of those people.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Fight for Freeway Removal<\/strong><\/h2>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-33-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/Madeline-first-quote.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/Madeline-first-quote.mp3\">https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/Madeline-first-quote.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>\u201cSlowly, we finally got the freeway torn down. The day it came down, I cried, because my store, which was a block and a half up, was in shadow. When the freeway came down, there was full sunshine on my store. It was so beautiful.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8220;There was the pre-getting the freeway down and then post-freeway down. And that really opened things up. So that was probably the beginning of the end, in a way.<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Buzz Begins<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>\u201cSome [customers] were from the neighborhood, but more, we got noted as being a design area and we got written about. We were so lucky. And some of those clippings that you\u2019ll see\u2014there\u2019s one that says Hayes Valley is the New Hot Spot or something like that. It got written about in a lot of the design magazines. And this one time, two women pulled up in front of my store and Russell\u2019s store and these very elegantly dressed women got out with their suit cases out of the cab. And they\u2014I don\u2019t know if they came over to one of us and they said\u2014they were holding the page out of the North California Home and Gardens or something that talked about the shops on Hayes Street. They came straight from the airport\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_110\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-110\" style=\"width: 982px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/sf-chronicle-clipping-1992.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-110 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/sf-chronicle-clipping-1992-e1651011691878-982x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"982\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/sf-chronicle-clipping-1992-e1651011691878-982x1024.jpg 982w, https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/sf-chronicle-clipping-1992-e1651011691878-288x300.jpg 288w, https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/sf-chronicle-clipping-1992-e1651011691878-768x801.jpg 768w, https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/sf-chronicle-clipping-1992-e1651011691878-184x192.jpg 184w, https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/sf-chronicle-clipping-1992-e1651011691878.jpg 1236w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 982px) 100vw, 982px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-110\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hayes Valley clipping featuring Madeline from the San Francisco Chronicle, 1992. Madeline Behrens-Brigham personal papers. Click image to enlarge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2><strong>Gentrification and A Changing Culture<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>\u201cI think 80% of that block, my 500 block, was owned by Hayes Valley Properties. And they then started getting really greedy. And they were subdividing\u2013they\u2019d subdivide even a one bedroom apartment and turn it into two studios just to make more money. And they really were not very kind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur main coffeeshop that we saved from going under because we got Starbucks out, where people really kind of gathered, that was kind of the neighborhood place, became a champagne bar. A champagne and caviar bar. I mean, and some of the coffee places that came in, I couldn\u2019t afford to buy a coffee. So, that was when it was really sad.\u201d<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-33-2\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/Madeline-end-quote.mp3?_=2\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/Madeline-end-quote.mp3\">https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/801\/2022\/04\/Madeline-end-quote.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>\u201cPeople would often say, \u2018Well, obviously, you gentrified the neighborhood.\u2019 And Russell and I would both bristle, because we were very aware of that we hadn\u2019t. Except now, I did say that, you know, the people who bought my building, I\u2019m aware they moved Doris and Mose out.\u2026But the rest of the buildings were mostly vacant. Boarded up, even. But mostly vacant except for the other side of the street that had a lot of the workshops in it, where people just came in, like the Korean painters. They would come in the morning and load up their equipment and come at night. We never saw them during the day&#8230;.I called Russell and said, \u2018Russell, what did we used to say instead of gentrifying?\u2019 And he said, \u2018Revitalization.\u2019 So, that\u2019s what we called it, because really, that\u2019s what it was. Revitalizing a neighborhood. When it&#8217;s empty, that\u2019s not gentrifying. Now, though\u2026it has been gentrified. But, everything changes all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Madeline Behrens-Brigham is originally from a small town in Illinois and moved to the Bay Area as a young adult. After living in a few different apartments, she moved into a storefront on Hayes Street in 1990. Madeline lived in the back of the store and ran her design shop, Modernology, out of the front. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/madelines-story\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Madeline&#8217;s Story<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4074,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-33","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4074"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33\/revisions\/190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/shiftingsf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}