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OB Rag Makes the Union-Tribune
Today – June 26, 2009: this was the original headline one year ago, posted on June 15, 2008. We thought we would run it again for some obvious reasons.
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Here’s the piece on O.B. that ran in Saturday’s U-T and we’re quoted
OCEAN BEACH, CA. The OB Rag blog was mentioned and I was quoted in a Union-Tribune article on Ocean Beach Saturday, June 14th. Joe Tash, the freelancer who wrote the piece had called me up a month and half ago, and we talked about OB for about an hour. He was very generous as he equated us with other institutions of the community like People’s Foodstore, the Black, and Dog Beach. We’ve reprinted the article here (our large scanner is not up and running yet, so bare with us, as I had to scan each column separately, and there’s a rough section.) There was also a second piece about early Ocean Beach developers, and I’ll include that when I can.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Very cool…but not sure how I feel about the not-so-subtle alcohol ban endorsements…
I guess you’re not so redneck after all – that’s an excellent point.
Hooray! Another fluff piece on OB!
Too harsh, Joe.
Nah, every now and then, the U-T does a ‘oooh, look at quaint OB’ piece. I think Kip Kruegar would back me up on this. The story usually promotes an OB boosterism that belies the real problems in the community. It happened again here. Whether Mr. Tash is an willingly partner in this or not, this article repeated the oft-told tale of the ‘cuteness’ of OB – the chili cook-offs, the Christmas parade, (do you think the timing of the article was a coincidence?) Did the story mention that on one block of Newport alone, there’s what – 4 or 5 vacant storefronts? Did it discuss the neighborhood serving businesses that have been driven out due to the extremely high rents along the main commercial avenue? I didn’t see the part where it talked about the homeless guys shot by the police over the years in and around OB.
Okay, Gormlie and the OB Rag got their name in print. I hope the blog got lots of hits – that is a positive thing, as I do support this blog.
Goof to see you’re still up, Molly.
Joe’s right…it does seem like I’ve read this article 2-3 times over the years, and it doesn’t really address the negative effects of gentrification. Median income $52K and median home price over $850K?!? The antique stores may be cute, amusing to brows now and again, but how useful are they really to the community?
Thanks Redneck. It’s true – what benefits does the community receive from all the antique stores? Many of them are actually owned by one guy. Some time ago, the greedy owners of the properties on our main street decided they wanted more profits, so they raised the rents – driving out many mom&pop stores, neighborhood-serving businesses, and intentionally recruited antique malls and stores. (The antique malls are the only businesses that can handle the high rents as they in turn rent out small space to many antique dealers/ owners.)
They did it agains just recently – raised the rents on Newport. Now we have 4 to 5 vacant store fronts … why? Because the people who own the properties want more and more and more and more…… so much for small capitalists.
Joe – no, the article did discuss the conflicts, Collier Park, the high rents that old-time locals (like you) can’t afford anymore. You are a little defensive here. I would like to hear more about the history of antique shops in OB in a critical way.
As the affluent and christian value baby boomers continue to “breed out” OBceans, the problems we are talking about here are only going to get worse. Listen, if things were nice, tidy and trendy….it would fail to be OB anymore. It would just be any other beach community on the coast.
The thing about OB that keeps it cool are also the same things that most people gripe about…..bad parking, airport noise, run down buildings, dumpy entryway….I could go on and on. Those are the only things keeping rich developers from running all over this place. For god sakes….the planning board, town council and whoever else we have in charge aren’t preventing anything at all!!!
Hold on….I’m putting in my PBS video about wonderland again and the clibming tree.
Wake up people. Get active in your community and you will have a better community.
frank – since when could someone be an “ex-hippie”?