1095 Market Street
San Francisco, California 94103
www.shapingsf.org/grant_bldg
grantbldg@yahoo.com
Contact:
Karen Topakian agapefn@sirius.com 415-701-8707
Chris Carlsson ccarlsson@shapingsf.org
415-626-2060
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Wednesday, March 7, 2001
SAN FRANCISCO - Grant Building tenants will demonstrate against eviction Thursday, March 8, 5:00 p.m., on the corner of Market St. and Seventh St. The Grant Building Tenants Association will be supported by its many allies in labor, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, and the City-wide antidisplacement movement. Hundreds are expected to participate. The GBTA will call for the Board of Supervisors to protect small businesses and nonprofit organizations in the Mid-Market area.
Last week, Seligman Western Enterprises, the Grant Building's out-of-state owner, rejected tenants' offer to raise their own rents and then filed unlawful detainer suits against GBTA members. The GBTA, composed of two dozen small businesses, nonprofit organizations, writers, and artists, demands that the owner put an immediate stop to all eviction proceedings.
Scott Seligman, head of Michigan-based Sterling Bank & Trust and other Seligman family businesses, has refused to address Grant Building tenants since his August 2000 purchase of the building.
Seligman Western Enterprises, working in concert with Seligman & Assocs., Sterling Bank & Trust, and K.I.S.S. Investment Co., has purchased several other buildings in the Mid-Market area: 785 Market, 1035 Market, and 1540 Market. Oscar Schwartz, a senior executive in Seligman & Assocs., declared: "We want to gentrify!" Grant Building tenants--emblematic of San Francisco's contrarian spirit--stand in his way.
GBTA spokeswoman Karen Topakian, of the Agape Foundation, said the tenants "refuse to let San Francisco be hollowed out. The people of the City should develop the Mid-Market area as a haven for community nonprofit organizations, small businesses, spaces for artists and writers, social services, and affordable housing. Space may be privately owned, but it is a public resource." Speaking in support of the tenants, Sup. Chris Daly declared at the GBTA's Feb. 21 press conference at City Hall, "We cannot stand by while the cultural fabric of San Francisco is torn apart by unjust evictions."
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