Mission artists to be evicted from longtime art warehouse Engine Works

By io Yeh Gilman : missionlocal – excerpt

Back in the 1990s at the Engine Works building at Capp and 17th, B-boys danced, the Mission Burrito Project passed out food to the homeless, and members of the Mission School art movement hung out, including photographer David Schubert and artist Margaret Kilgallen, who painted a mural in the building (it’s since been removed).

Fast forward two decades and the converted warehouse was still an arts scene: The beach goth band The Growlers performed secret concerts, punk rock bands recorded albums, and bike messengers idled between deliveries.

Using the space now are an artist who paints sideshows and city life, a mechanical engineer who builds lighting contraptions with LEDs, and a DJ who creates digital art to be projected during performances.

But now that legacy is threatened. The artists who live at Engine Works were recently notified that they are being evicted under the Ellis Act, which allows property owners to exit the rental market and displace their tenants in the process…

But the artists’ residency faces another problem. The Engine Works building, a warehouse with a corrugated metal exterior, might not be meant for habitation. Three complaints filed with the city in 2016 and2018 allege that the building has been illegally used for living instead of commercial purposes. The complaints also describe blocked exits, construction work done without permitting, and hazardous electrical work.

The complaints were investigated by the Department of Building Inspection and ended with the city posting “orders of abatement,” which means that some violation has occurred and needs to be addressed.

Artists living in informal housing is nothing new: Numerous now-legal artist spaces across the city, including Project Artaud and Developing Environments, started through people illegally occupying studio spaces offering affordable rent.

Such informal living arrangements used to be very common in the city, said Debra Walker, a police commissioner and longtime San Francisco artist who lives in Developing Environments, but successive waves of gentrification have slowly displaced artists, who can’t afford to live and work elsewhere… (more)