District 5 Diary: Silly Bunny atrocity: A suitable memorial to the city's political community

Hoodline interviews Jeremy Fish:

On a lighter note, could you give us an update on the project in which you raised $50,000 to install a bronzed Silly Pink Bunny at the new development on Laguna and Haight?

I kind of have to slow my roll with the whole thing, because I can't have the statue finished before the building's finished. It will be ten feet tall, and cast in solid bronze. They raised the $50K in cooperation with the Lower Haight Business Association and The Haight Street Art Center, which is part of what's going to be built in that area (emphasis added)

They've designated an area for it about 15 feet from where it used to live, on the Haight Street side going up the hill. From the blueprints I've seen, there's going to be an entrance that leads you into the whole area, with a park and everything. It's going to be really nice. But I can't finish the statue before they finish the building, or I have to pay storage on it.

At the moment, I've been working with [sculptor] Brin Berliner, who's finished the sculpt. We've got the sculpt scanned, and the next stage is to make a mold and cast it, which will probably happen in August or September. Their schedule is to have the building finished this fall, and I'm going to aim to have the statue finished around the same time.

They gave me a land grant for 75 years, so it's going to live on that corner for 75 years. If the people in charge of the property decide to get rid of it at that point, I'm going to have it in my will that it should be donated to Golden Gate Park.

Rob's comment:

This soon-to-be permanent eyesore in District 5 is mostly Thea Selby's doing, along with a bunch of other folks who for mysterious reasons seem to think they're cute and witty.

It's fitting that this atrocity will be installed on the former UC Extension site that San Francisco "progressives" like Selby allowed UC to rip off for a massive housing development to fatten that predatory institution's bottom line. UC had the use of the property---zoned for "public use" since the 19th Century---tax-free for fifty years because of its public education "mission."

Turns out that---surprise!---building housing in San Francisco is much more profitable than providing college courses for working people. Before City Hall allowed it to hijack that public property, UC lied about why it closed down the Extension and then deliberately allowed the property to deteriorate.

Then UC played the PC card to enlist the support of the gay community, with Tom Ammiano, Bevan Dufty, and Mark Leno leading the way.

The people working on the litigation against the project then botched that.

Now a gaggle of punk "artists" and feeble-minded political operatives will be celebrating this contemptible episode in city history by installing the grotesque Silly Bunny statue on the public property they allowed UC to steal, which is an appropriate memorial to the greed, lies, and stupidity of the city's political community.