Perhaps the Store Can Stay But We Will Have to Go

Super essay on gentrification in the San Francisco Fillmore neighborhood by Dr. Jasmine Elizabeth Johnson: “A family whose job is buying other people’s houses purchased our property, that purple Victorian that holds your family and your bookstore. A predatory loan forsaw the neighborhood’s future worth. It slowly wrenched us out. A nonprofit offered to buy it back from these new folks — purchasing price plus profit. Keep the bookstore operating, they say. But the new owners would like nothing less than double the money.

We are waiting to see if the city will understand what the community already does: that Marcus Books is a historical landmark; that it is San Francisco; that it is the Fillmore’s best self. If they do, perhaps the store can stay. We — your parents, sisters, nieces — will have to go.”

pic by marcus books

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