(Dis)location: Black Exodus

Public Housing and Demolition

Dave Glass is a freelance photographer born and raised in San Francisco’s Western Addition neighborhood. His family lived in the Western Addition since the 1950s, where they ran a business until the 1980s. Dave’s iconic street photography of the Western Addition over the past five decades includes a visual archive of the transformation of the Western Addition through demolition of buildings, including public housing projects, that significantly changed the built and social landscape of the neighborhood. On his experience as a resident and photographer Dave says, “I live in the Richmond district now, but was around long enough to witness first hand the changes that have taken place in the Western Addition. Along the way, I often had my camera to document some of these changes.”
       For the (Dis)locations team, demolition has served as a major weapon in the ongoing violence of displacing Black San Franciscans and their histories. We hope to illuminate erasures-by-demolition using this set of photos taken by Dave of former public housing projects in the Western Addition that were demolished. You can find Dave’s work on instagram: @daveglass_foto
       Victorian row houses were demolished in the 1960s in order to build these high-rise public housing projects. San Francisco’s redevelopment agency built several square blocks of these buildings in order to house the lowest income citizens. These buildings only survived only about 25 years and have since been replaced with newer subsidized public housing.

 

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