The Rise and Fall of Irvine Meadows West
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ก.ย. 2024
- Irvine, California may be one of the most homogenous cities in America. Strict codes define the look of the place: beige, uniform, corporate.
Over the last 25 years, students at University of California Irvine (UCI) created an antidote to the conformity that surrounded them, a trailer park called Irvine Meadows West. It may not have been your typical trailer park. It was colorful, eclectic, vibrant, and full of smart, creative people. Most importantly, it was a community in every sense of the word.
The problem was, it existed right smack dab in the middle of campus land, and the University had other plans for the land...namely, a parking lot.
'Twas me that owned the Turkey. Dad weighed 75 lbs and wandered the neighborhood gobbling. I left in 1997 after managing the park for a few years while working on a PhD in semantics. Even then it was a constant struggle to keep the 'administration' - particularly Fred Lipscomb in Campus Village - from tearing it down. Irvine Meadows was as wonderful in as many ways as it's loss was tragic and senseless. Thanks for the lovely movie and memories!
Thank you!
I lived in IMW from 1988 until 1992. It was an amazing experience. I cherish my memories of IMW, the goat, the rabbits, the litter box of a volleyball court, the spider webs in the showers, the turkey, the cats, the dogs, the bonfires, the creativity, the people. More than just affordable housing, IMW was an outpost of singularity in the midst of a homogenous city. Gone is the singular, in order to make way for a parking lot. Sad.
I have a couple questions for you, would you be interested in answering them?
I lived there from 1988 to 1992 as well. Very peaceful...and loved my trailer home, my cats, the bunnies, my neighbors! Somebody owned a turkey...as a pet, not food. Truly sad news that its a parking lot. Like Joni Mitchell once said "They paved paradise and put in a parking lot!"
I never knew about this! Finished my undergrad at UCI in 2010 and now in grad school - I am not surprised by the administration's attitudes at all. Interesting that the only one that supported IMW was the one that had been there from the beginning.
" You're free America you're free ...you're free to do as we tell you."
the late B. Hicks ~
I wonder if anyone knows what happened to my Silver Streak when the park closed down. I bought it from a retiree couple that used to take it to Wyoming six months of the year, then sold it for $1000 less a few years later (seemed like reasonable depreciation) to someone who moved it from A52 to A5 or A6 or something. I miss that place. It was a lot of fun. Someday when I'm chancellor of UCI, I'll rip up that parking lot and put in a trailer park.
Space A2, from 1979 to 1982! (There was no one in A1) Some great times there with some really interesting characters! I was also a DJ on KUCI when it was only 10 watts.
I lived there from 1990 to 1992 as well. I cried when I recently saw the parking lot. Such a total shame, they were some of the best years of my life spent there.
Allan, I remember when you'd be out on the road around Thanksgiving with your turkey trying to awaken the sensibilities of the turkey-eaters. I remember Lars, who appears in this documentary. I was the recycling chairperson for a year or two. Oh, all those sticky cans and bottles. I don't miss that part. I was in B4, across from the turtle lady. I believe the shots in the video of the woman playing the grand piano was filmed in my old living room. I recall rent was $150 and that included electricity. All we had to pay for was phone and propane, which was next to nothing. God, I miss those simpler times...not a care in the world. It's sad that such treasures have to give way to "progress." A parking lot isn't progress. They crushed a spirit when they tore down IMW, a mighty spirit.
I have faulty memory of what my number was on the interior. I was a broke college student that couldn't afford apartment living and was there from '95 to '98. Based on a diagram I saw, I may have been spot 10 or 12. Definitely appreciated the fact that it helped me tremendously.
more freaking houses more and more landscaping gone to condos.
i hate it
Man!
I came to UCI back in 96 and was always enamored with the IMW but by then there was likely no way to find a space in there and I had no idea that I could move, I was told that it was only grad housing. lol =)
I miss the simplicity that was Irvine. I loved all things about this vid and the times. Good memories.
I lived there from 1983 to 1986-A8 or A6 I believe. I built an 8x16 addon with the floor made from discarded stages from one of the dorms. Last I saw before the park was destroyed, the building was still there, but now painted barn red. I would have stayed, but I graduated and the park manager kept saying it was time for me to leave.
I did not have the fortune to be part of the IMW community. My girlfriend back then and now wife of 36 years lived at campus village right across from IMW. I commuted in my Type 2 VW bus from 85 to 89. 86 we had to take Fortran 77 and me been lazy to drive home to Huntington Beach would camp in my Van at Physical Science parking lot right next to IMW public shower/bathrooms. I cooked cup-a-noodle from my Van and sneak a shower from the IMW public shower. Eventually I was visited by campus police and told to cease and decease or they will arrest me. Even though I did not lived and be part of IMW, I always treasured that experience to be part of that community. Fast forward to 2022 when I visited my daughter at UCI’s Middle Earth tower, this inhumane piece of concrete structure that totally lacked any community experience. While driving past this empty parking lot that used to be IMW, I could not believe my eyes because the only structure left at old IMW was the public shower structure that I used to borrow a shower when I did my stealth camping on campus. I took many photos from every possible angle since that is the only memory from the days of IMW. RIP IMW.
Sound like you were more IMW than any of us haha! Gosh I'd love to see those pics. Are they anywhere online?
If it weren't for alpha films I wouldn't have found this gem logically. Good find on some history and some video camera work i was confused about until it showed up somewhere in a museum :)
Just serves as a reminder that progressivism is never more than authoritarianism with self-righteousness.
A8. Good Times.
Thank you for commenting!
never lived there, but hung out. i lived in verano place commune building 2200, 2100 "the commune" 1981-85 roughly.