“Bring instruments, kids, food, hoes, rakes, mowers, shovels”: as this flyer suggested, the vision of “the neighborhood” behind the Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance called for active engagement — labor and leisure mixed together.
This flyer was created by Martha Nicoloff, later one of the main forces behind the NPO, to advertise a neighborhood gathering “to learn about community action, gardens, vacant lot development, recycling politics…” The “park party” was held in a vacant lot, running along Hearst Street and owned by BART, that Nicoloff and others had transformed into the “People’s Park Annex”.
Nicoloff worked hard to create what, on this strip of land, is Ohlone Park today. In 1970, she led the opposition to a proposal to widen Hearst Street, and in 1971 she organized against a Berkeley Redevelopment Agency plan that would have brought high-density apartments to the area.