They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
That was Joni Mitchell's ode to the Peoples Park riot at Cal Berkeley in 1969. People's Park was a popular gathering place for all the hippies of that era and the powers that be hated them, so they decided to remove the park and replace it with a faculty parking lot. That didn't go over so well with the students who tore down the fences that had been erected around the park and fight with the police who were trying to evict them. The kids had the cops way outnumbered.
I know all this because I was there, hustling pool at Kip's Billiards right off campus and close to the park. I was staying in my hotel overlooking the park, stuck in there with the flu when the riot came down. I had a ringside seat from three floors up, watching it all unfold right across the street. I even heard the gunshot when Steve Rector got shot off the roof of a nearby building, after he threw rocks down on the cops. He was the only fatality that day. It was an unbelievable thing to be watching from my safe perch above, almost like watching a movie live. I described it in more detail in my book.
I ventured out late in the day after the crowd had all been dispersed with tear gas, only to find out that squads of cops in full riot gear were patroling the streets and firing gas canisters at any groups of students they saw. I was in the entranceway to Kips with a group of pool players when they shot gas into the hallway leading to the entrance. We ran back inside but the gas got in there too, and our eyes were burning for a long time afterwards. We were all afraid to go back outside. I sneaked back to my hotel after dark, being careful to avoid the cops that were still out there, and got the Hell out of there in the wee hours of the morning. Sayonara Berkeley. Crazy times!
