A part of the counterculture of the 1970s, Project One, sometimes described as a technological commune, [1] was an intentional community in San Francisco, California, U.S. Located at 1380 Howard St. in an 84,000 square foot warehouse, formerly an abandoned candy factory, the community functioned from 1970 to 1980 and was the first "warehouse community" in San Francisco. Occupied by a shifting mix of students, craftspeople, artisans, sculptors, filmmakers, and technologists, Project One was anchored by a number of organizations.
The community had no formal organizational structure. Decisions were made through a voluntary weekly meeting of members who made decisions based on a consensus of those present. [1]
Project One was initiated by architect Ralph Scott, a former student of Buckminster Fuller, and rapidly became an interdisciplinary learning environment. Central to the concept was Symbas Alternative High School, founded by Scott and located in a large, high-ceiling space on the first floor. Many of these resident non-profit organizations and small businesses were brought in to serve as resources for the students, who were also members of the larger community. Students found mentors who offered skills training and the opportunities to practice new skills. [ clarification needed ] [2] See also community of place.
When this abandoned, 84,000 sq. ft. warehouse was first leased in 1970, all previous internal walls and structures had been removed from the basement, four full floors and penthouse. It was completely empty except for the structural supporting columns that held the four stories up. The building was constructed with steel reinforced concrete. When it was first occupied, the people who lived and worked there designed and built all the walls, hallways, work and living spaces as well as the electrical and plumbing systems. As not all had previous skills in construction and remodeling there was a lot of on-the-job training, reflecting a strong do-it-yourself ethic which was common in the counterculture. Since there were a wide variety of skills available within the community, it was rarely necessary to hire outside contractors.
Principals: Larry Bensky, Barry Kearson (aka Barry Michaels) Alternative radio production
Principal: Rashid (née Ray) Patch served as front man for a gang of 4-year-olds. Operating from 6:00am till 7:30pm, Monday through Friday, Apples Daycare was situated on the fourth floor, at the south corner of the building. Six to a dozen of the 15-18 enrolled pre-schoolers came each day. Setting off on foot they explored San Francisco: riding buses, walking neighborhoods, watching parades, attending free concerts in the parks and free movies at the library, attending public presentations of spiritual leaders and teachers. The kids met a bunch of Buddhist abbots, rinpoches, lamas, roshis, Sikh gurus, Taoist priests, kung-fu masters, archbishops, swamis, Orthodox monks, friars, rabbis, and Sufi shaykhs; all of whom would find time to give the kids their blessings.
The parents were artists, exotic dancers, actors, rock&roll musicians, political activists, techies, nurses, social workers, a park ranger - all childcare early-adapters, most screened and referred by the San Francisco Childcare Switchboard.
Principals: David, Nancy and daughter Annie Blossom Blossom Studios was a rehearsal space and recording studio for the Blossoms and other musicians. The Blossom's were part of the original Fifty Foot Hose and the band for the touring production of Hair.
The journal of the Medical Committee for Human Rights, Body Politic was originally edited by Dr. Larry Brilliant [3]
While based in Project One, Body Politic was edited by John Lowry.
Principals: Peter de Blanc, Liz Barto, Dennis Rice, Steve Sultan, Jeff Neiman, Ray Patch, John Halpern, Vana Veness
DB Associates, located in the basement of Project One, was the successor to Tomorrow, Inc., which had originally been incorporated in Chicago in 1968; most of the team had worked together since 1967. As Tomorrow, Inc., the crew had designed and built nightclubs and discothèques, high-tech light-shows, custom film and projection systems, special-effects lighting systems, recording studios, radio studios, and produced concerts and music festivals. DB Associates designed and built custom electronics, sound and lighting systems, amplifiers, mixers, specialized custom computer and communications equipment. A typical project was the Electric Symphony Orchestra, where a small 40-piece classical orchestra had pickups attached non-destructively to every instrument. All the sound signals from each instrument source were run through custom designed delay and phase shift circuitry, and then through a multi-channel mixer, so that the stereo signal for each single instrument was multiplied, and also separated in space. So, for example, one violin at a single location would be heard as 4, 6, or 8 violins, all with slightly different timbre, in different physical locations in an orchestral section.
Principal: Raymond Baltar, Sr., a printer and founder of the Ecology Center. [4] and International Bird Rescue.
Founded 1971. Principals: Ralph Scott, Ray Krauss, Mya Shone, Mary Janowitz, Sherry Reson, Craig Mosher, Andy Bucchiere
Principal: Eric Dollard
Located in the basement of Project One, electrical engineer Eric P. Dollard conducted research in ultra-high-voltage electrical and electronics devices. Dollard was systematically reconstructing some of the systems and techniques originally developed by Nikola Tesla and Philo Farnsworth in the early 20th century. At Project One, Dollard had been able to repeatably produce stable "ball lightning" effects using high-voltage plasmas. [5] [ dubious – discuss ]
The first San Francisco Methadone clinic, Fort Help, founded by Dr. Joel Fort. [6]
Principals: Jeff Neiman, Albert Neiman. From Albert's 2020 obituary: "In 1970, Albert became one of the original members of Project One, a unique urban collective located in an old candy factory South of Market. Here he established Image Works, a motion picture lab that supported the independent and student film community." [7]
An alternative music and news radio station
Principals: Lynn Adler, Sherrie Rabinowitz, Jules Backus, Jim Mayer, Bill Bradbury, Ben Tarcher
Founded in 1970 as a photography collective focusing on social issues and American culture, in 1972 Optic Nerve began working in video as well as photography. Their first production was an hour documentary about Project One. [8]
Optic Nerve’s early video documentaries explored rodeos, beauty pageants and the world of owner operator truck drivers.. These were among the first independently produced video documentaries to be broadcast on Public Television. They collaborated with local artists groups such as Ant Farm.
In 1973, the collective moved around the corner from Project One into an undeveloped loft space. The Optic Nerve studio became an important venue in San Francisco's alternative media community, hosting public video screenings, performances, video shoots, and some very good parties. In 1980, three past members formed Ideas In Motion as a for-profit partnership continuing the ideals of Optic Nerve within a sustainable financial structure.
Conceived by Pam Hardt as a people's computer center and operating with a donated XDS-940 mainframe computer from TransAmerica Corporation, Resource One became the first public computerized bulletin board system (bbs). [9]
Principals: Sharon Altus, Bart Berger, Mike Chadwick, John Cooney, Lee Felsenstein, Henry the Fiddler, Pam Hardt, Bob Hemmer, Efrem Lipkin, Chris Macie, Gary McCue, Chris Neustrup, Jed Riffe, Steve Robinson, Ford Turping, Paul Ward, Fred Wright.
Community Memory was the first public computerized bulletin board system. It was created in 1973 by Lee Felsenstein, Efrem Lipkin, Ken Colstad, Jude Milhon, and Mark Szpakowski. [10] One of Community Memory's founders, Lee Felsenstein, went on to play a central role in the development of the personal computer. [11] [12] [13]
Prior to the publication and distribution of the Social Service Referral Directory, social workers and other staff in San Francisco's many agencies relied on personal rolodexes, pamphlets and lists in order to refer their clients for additional and appropriate services. Critical information within agencies changed frequently and successful referrals required up to date and complete information. The idea that a solution utilizing the Resource One computer was possible came from Charles Bolton.
A design, development and implementation team at Resource One (Mary Janowitz, Chris Macie, Sherry Reson, Mya Shone) utilized their donated SDS 940 mainframe computer, programmed by Chris Macie to handle information storage and retrieval. A standardized format and data collection process resulted in agency listings printed on three-hole punch paper. Loose-leaf binders were distributed to the participating agencies, who paid a nominal fee to be mailed a monthly packet including ten new listings and ten to twenty revised listings.
While some agency people sent in information as programs or capacities or locations changed, maintaining current information — and adding listings — depended on project staff making direct telephone contact with agency personnel. Listings were sorted alphabetically behind tabs and index pages provided an overview regarding neighborhoods, languages spoken, types of service and other critical criteria.
Joan Lefkowitz joined the team early in 1974, then Katerina Lanner-Cusin came on board. The following year, a conversation with The United Way of the Bay Area, and the heads of San Francisco Social Services and the Zellerbach Family Fund, resulted in the United Way assuming responsibility. In the summer of 1994, the United Way determined they were unable to maintain the service. The San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) took over and renamed it the San Francisco Community Services Directory aka Community Services Data Base. SFPL maintained it as an online database through spring of 2009. Sometime in the ‘90s the library decided it was duplicative of other, mainly web-based, resources and discontinued it. People in the social services world wish it still existed and Lefkowitz, then the Library's Web Service Manager, commented that the SSRD represented a "ground breaking use of technology."
Lloyd Cross, Jerry Pethick
Founded by Al Rinker, San Francisco Switchboard was an outgrowth of the Haight-Ashbury Switchboard. SF Switchboard relocated to Project One in 1970.
In January, The Ecology Center Press, Resource One and Symbas School combined forces with the San Francisco Switchboard to coordinate communications among volunteers and organizational responses to the clean-up effort. Records kept by Public Television station KQED were subsequently destroyed. Then a Symbas student, Ray Baltar, Jr., whose father ran the Ecology Center Press, wrote of his experience "as part of a school work experience project I had scored a job as an operator for the San Francisco Switchboard on an old PBX machine, also in the building, when I started getting calls about an oil spill in San Francisco Bay caused by two Standard Oil tankers that had collided. Thousands of people wanted to know if and where they could volunteer to help rescue birds and clean the beaches, and over the next several weeks almost everyone in the building helped to build an old-‐school information hub, complete with a phone bank, whiteboards and rumor control. We coordinated with other volunteer hubs that had sprung up in Marin County, Half Moon Bay and elsewhere to try and manage the volunteer effort, and though most of the birds died, the beaches did eventually get cleaned and the effort spawned the International Bird Rescue group that has responded to many subsequent spills and has learned how to save much more wildlife." [14]
In 1967, Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) was founded in New York City after six Vietnam vets marched together in a peace demonstration. The VVAW San Francisco Chapter was one of the early groups in Project One, organizing against the Vietnam war, and counseling and assisting their fellow veterans. [15]
Principals: Lee Thorn, [16] Mike Oliver, Jack McCloskey, [17] Jim O'Donnell, Bob Hanson, Paul Cox, and Mike Oliver.
(to be added)
The Summer of Love was a major social phenomenon that occurred in San Francisco during the summer of 1967. As many as 100,000 people, mostly young people, hippies, beatniks, and 1960s counterculture figures, converged in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district and Golden Gate Park. More broadly, the Summer of Love encompassed hippie culture, spiritual awakening, hallucinogenic drugs, anti-war sentiment, and free love throughout the West Coast of the United States, and as far away as New York City. An episode of the PBS documentary series American Experience referred to the Summer of Love as "the largest migration of young people in the history of America".
A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during or around 1964, and spread to different countries around the world. The word hippie came from hipster and was used to describe beatniks who moved into New York City's Greenwich Village, San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, and Chicago's Old Town community. The term hippie was used in print by San Francisco writer Michael Fallon, helping popularize use of the term in the media, although the tag was seen elsewhere earlier.
A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores. A countercultural movement expresses the ethos and aspirations of a specific population during a well-defined era. When oppositional forces reach critical mass, countercultures can trigger dramatic cultural changes. Countercultures differ from subcultures.
Haight-Ashbury is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called the Haight and the Upper Haight. The neighborhood is known as one of the main centers of the counterculture of the 1960s.
The Whole Earth Catalog (WEC) was an American counterculture magazine and product catalog published by author Stewart Brand several times a year between 1968 and 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998.
The terms underground press or clandestine press refer to periodicals and publications that are produced without official approval, illegally or against the wishes of a dominant group. In specific recent Asian, American and Western European context, the term "underground press" has most frequently been employed to refer to the independently published and distributed underground papers associated with the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s in India and Bangladesh in Asia, in the United States and Canada in North America, and the United Kingdom and other western nations. It can also refer to the newspapers produced independently in repressive regimes. In German occupied Europe, for example, a thriving underground press operated, usually in association with the Resistance. Other notable examples include the samizdat and bibuła, which operated in the Soviet Union and Poland respectively, during the Cold War.
The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, normally shortened to The WELL or The Well, is a virtual community that was launched in 1985. It is one of the oldest continuously operating virtual communities. By 1993 it had 7,000 members, a staff of 12, and gross annual income of $2 million. A 1997 feature in Wired magazine called it "The world's most influential online community." In 2012, when it was last publicly offered for sale, it had 2,693 members. It is best known for its Internet forums, but also provides email, shell accounts, and web pages. Discussion topics are organized into conferences that cover broad areas of interest. User anonymity is prohibited.
Scott Camil is an American political activist. He first gained prominence as an opponent of the Vietnam War, as a witness in the Winter Soldier Investigation and a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
Lee Felsenstein is an American computer engineer who played a central role in the development of personal computers. He was one of the original members of the Homebrew Computer Club and the designer of the Osborne 1, the first mass-produced portable computer.
John Burdette Gage is a retired computer scientist and technology executive. He was the 21st employee of Sun Microsystems, where he is credited with creating the phrase The Network is the Computer. He served as Sun's vice president and chief researcher and director of the Science Office, until leaving on June 9, 2008, to join Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a partner to work on green technologies for global warming; he departed KPCB in 2010 to apply what he had learned "to broader issues in other parts of the world".
Kepler's Books and Magazines is an independent bookstore in Menlo Park, California. It was founded on May 14, 1955 by Roy Kepler, a peace activist who had endured multiple internments as a conscientious objector during World War II. Kepler previously had worked as a staff member of radio station KPFA, listener-supported and based in Berkeley. The bookstore "soon blossomed into a cultural epicenter and attracted loyal customers from the students and faculty of Stanford University and from other members of the surrounding communities who were interested in serious books and ideas."
Community Memory (CM) was the first public computerized bulletin board system. Established in 1973 in Berkeley, California, it used an SDS 940 timesharing system in San Francisco connected via a 110 baud link to a teleprinter at a record store in Berkeley to let users enter and retrieve messages. Individuals could place messages in the computer and then look through the memory for a specific notice.
The hippie subculture began its development as a youth movement in the United States during the early 1960s and then developed around the world.
Merit Network, Inc., is a nonprofit member-governed organization providing high-performance computer networking and related services to educational, government, health care, and nonprofit organizations, primarily in Michigan. Created in 1966, Merit operates the longest running regional computer network in the United States.
During the "hippie" period 1967–1968 in San Francisco, an individual named Al Rinker started an organization located at 1830 Fell St in the city's Haight Ashbury district called the Switchboard. Its purpose was to act as a social switchboard for people living there.
The Pennywhistle was an early acoustic coupler modem originally designed and built by Lee Felsenstein in 1973, and later commercialized and offered for sale in 1976. It was one of the earliest modems available for hobbyist computer users. Like most acoustic coupler modems, the Pennywhistle was replaced by the Hayes Smartmodem and similar models from the early 1980s.
Arthur Scott Evans was an early gay rights advocate and author, best known for his 1978 book Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture. Politically active in New York City in the 1960s and early 1970s, he and his partner began a homestead in Washington state in 1972, then later moved to San Francisco where he became a fixture in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. In his later years, Evans remained politically active and continued as a translator and academic. His 1997 book Critique of Patriarchal Reason argued that misogyny had influenced "objective" fields such as logic and physics.
Pamela Hardt-English is an American food scientist and computer scientist who created Resource One, a "people's computing center" in 1972 at Project One, a "technological commune" in San Francisco, California.
Tanya Marie Neiman was an American lawyer and activist based in San Francisco. For over 20 years, she was director of the Volunteer Legal Services Program of the Bar Association of San Francisco, now known as the Justice & Diversity Center, "one of the largest and most innovative legal services programs in the country to serve lower-income people".