Lehigh & Susquehanna Railroad Station (1868): An Italianate railroad station that served Wilkes-Barre for a century before it closed in 1972. The Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad (later known as the Central Railroad of New Jersey) was founded by magnates who conquered the mountains and tapped the Wyoming coal fields.

I’ve been struggling with this location. The reason is this: I often hesitate to reveal locations to the public because their revelation often leads to their destruction. At the same time, there are certain stories that simply have to be told. This is one of them.

In the heart of Pennsylvania coal country at the fringes of a small city is a brewery. The brewery has become a federal building, and its hulking brewhouse still proudly displays the pomp of the Gilded Age. Within the shadows of its countenance is a small, shuttered train station. Like most abandonments of our modern era, this diminutive edifice tells the story of corruption, mismanagement, and the ineptitude of bureaucratic sinecures.

The interior work was top-notch for an era that prided itself on craftshmanship.

The modest Italianate structure facing the railroad tracks along Wilkes-Barre Boulevard was known as the Lehigh & Susquehanna Station (and later the Central Railroad of New Jersey Station). From the outside, it looks like most small-town stations in most rail-towns of mid-19th century America, but looks are deceiving.  Within its walls are awe-inspiring works of original craftsmanship: hand-carved mahogany, hand-laid terrazo, and – perhaps most compelling – a resplendent, curved staircase banister, a spiral exemplar of roccoco. Just look inside this station and you’ll immediately know why it earned its place in, “Great American Railroad Stations.”

The story of this station, however, isn’t told through its beauty. There is a sordid side, too. This station – as it exists in its dilapidated state – is a manifestation of boss politics that still seems to thrive despite the death of the “Tweed” gang and Tammany Hall. Granted, Wilkes-Barre is one among hundreds of cities with rampant corruption. All too often, we pay too much attention to national politics when the true turpitude rests in our local leaders (dare I call them leaders).

Market Street Square, the property in which the railroad station rests, was owned by convicted (and admitted) felon Thom Greco. Greco has been called a real estate mogul by some, but at least one anonymous online comment finds the title humorous. “‘Mogul?’ Really? I’ve sold to that guy 4 times over the last 20 years, and it took threats of all kinds to get my money. I always got, ‘Mr. Greco is unavailable’ from some young woman on the phone.”

But Greco is just a strand of much larger, much more Machiavellian web. Fact is: He was not part of the County Redevelopment Authority, who decided to purchase the station from him in 2005 for $5.8 million. Unlike the commissioners who accepted bribes and extorted flat screen televisions in exchange for Greco’s largess, he wasn’t the guy who had control over taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars. Truth is, to properly tell this story, we have to start in 1868 – when the station was built. Yes, this station has more layers than its recent ignominious decline.

A Product of Pennsylvania’s Coal Boom

When the station was born, the Steam Age was at its apex. Locomotives bombasted their way westward to join the continent by iron rail. The same year that the Wilkes-Barre station was built, the Golden Spike was driven into its Laurel Tie at Promontory Summit, Utah. Suffice to say, the country was hungry for coal – both to power its steam engines, and to cast the increasingly voracious appetite for steel. Wilkes-Barre was conveniently situated between two canals. Getting coal from one canal to another meant that the two waterways had to be connected by rail. These were the Wilkes-Barre station’s inchoate moments.

The rabid enthusiasm of the era was immediately apparent within its original walls and accouterments, but only once I was inside. I was a week into my journey, so it wasn’t easy to elicit any sort of enthusiasm out of me, especially after exploring dozens of awe-inspiring sites-in-decline. The station feigns curiosity with its exterior. Honestly, it isn’t much to look at from the outside. Its embellishments aren’t like a vainglorious wedding cake, but rather like a hollow birthday cake (with opportunity for surprise of course).

Like many cakes, this station also had layers; additions and extensions attenuated its hidden corners and serendipitous potential. In the early 20th century the Central Railroad of New Jersey was the sole leasor of the tracks. Many a luxurious Jersey passenger passed through its hallways. No doubt, the ornate frosting within its walls was spackled on after the fact; fireplaces were later added and aristocratic comforts became prominent. Whereas the early station served the needs of industry, the improved station became the playground of quixotic entrepreneurs, tycoons, and political bosses.

A Grand Train Station in Decline

Those halcyon days quickly came to a halt by the Great Depression. Passenger service precipitously declined while anthracite coal prices plummeted. The CNJ went into receivership for an entire decade, beginning in 1939. By the time it was finally able to emerge from its financial straits, the railroad found itself in the midst of a burgeoning American love affair with the highway. It didn’t take long for the Wilkes-Barre station to receive its final passenger on July 1, 1963. Train NO. 301 feebly rolled into the Wilkes-Barre stop with a single passenger coach in tow; its two passengers exited the car; and, according to railroad historian Ed Gardner, “thus ended a period of passenger service inaugurated 120 years earlier.”

The five decades that followed were largely modest years for the station. Vacant cars – skeletons of an earlier era – stood in a pall-like atmosphere to be eaten away by time. The station itself was painstakingly restored in the mid-70s, and it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 12, 1975. Reading MU cars and Fruit Grower Express cars began to occupy the adjoining lot. Around 1980 it opened as “The Station,” a high-end bar and restaurant. Some of the nearby Reading MU cars were converted into charming Bed & Breakfast-style overnight accommodations.

According to Michael G. Rushton of NEPA Railfan, the place was quite “ritzy” by 1984, and it hosted political functions with expensive, gourmet cuisine. The station was then owned by Marvin Roth, but he passed away and the park was auctioned. A single, lonely plaque bears the Marvin’s (and the station’s?) epigraph: “Marvin Roth, a local entrepreneur, rehabilitated this edifice so posterity may forever enjoy its presence.”

The Choo Choo Inn (the train car sleepers) were phased out, and “entertainment magnate” Thom Greco acquired the property. “The crowd started changing,” Said Michael Rushton. “It was not the college crowd, but thugs from out of town… There were shootings, stabbings, robberies, fights, breaking into cars.”

Its final incarnation was as Banana Joe’s, a restaurant chain with cocktails and American fare. Rushton said nobody really went to it, and for “whatever reasons, it failed.” The nearby rail cars met a similar fate. By this time they had become occupied by the homeless and were the victims of fire at least twice a week. Such was the state of the Station when the Luzerne County Redevelopment Authority considered buying the property in 2005.

Rebirth as Market Street Square and Chess Piece in Corruption

By early 2006 the Luzerne County Redevelopment Authority decided to purchase the building for $5.8 million. By then, it was dilapidated and in need of millions in restoration work. It soon became apparent that the Authority had purchased a white elephant, and it stands to this day an embarrassment to all taxpaying Luzerne County citizens. Even more egregious are the stories of the men embroiled in this controversy.

Thom Greco worked with numerous Authority commissioners in the negotiation for the building’s sale.  Soon after it was sold, Greg Skrepenak asked Greco for $10,000 worth of flat screen televisions, presumably for his father’s sports bar.  Greco complied, but when he asked for payment, Skrepenak alluded to the fact that the televisions were recompense for the county’s purchase of the Market Street Square Station. Unfortunately, Skrepenak is difficult to reach these days… He’s in jail for accepting $5,000 in bribes for another completely separate deal with a developer.

Skrepenak wasn’t the only Redevelopment Authority official to be tied up in legal trouble. Back in 2005, Allen Bellas was drumming up the purchase of the Railway Station in the local newspaper. “It’s going to tie into all the downtown projects. It’s obviously going to help out the passenger rail service.” Of course, five years later, the station is still not helping out passenger rail service and is far from helping downtown Wilkes-Barre. As for Allen Bellas, who was then the Executive Director of the Redevelopment Authority, he’s in jail for a $2,000 bribery scandal that’s unrelated to the Station. Even the owners of the property leased to Big Ugly’s Sports Bar (the Bar that received the tainted $10,000 worth of flat screen TV’s), were ensnared in October of 2009 for paying a $1,400 bribe to Gerald Bonner and William McGuire, both one-time bureaucrats in the Luzerne County Housing Authority.

All of these events transpired so quickly that the Redevelopment Authority had to respond with its own Public Relations campaign. Their first order of business was to verify the accuracy of the price they paid for the station. This is generally done by using two neutral real estate appraisers. Before they purchased the property, they chose Stanley Komosinsky and Alan Rosen, neither of whom appear on the roster of the Appraisal Institute (the nationally recognized professional organization for appraisers). Perhaps not coincidentally, both appraisers valued the property at exactly the same price: $5.74 million. And it gets even deeper: Alan Rosen works for the real estate company owned by the Mayor of Wilkes-Barre, Thomas M. Leighton.

A Dilapidated Symbol of Corruption

These days, the Central New Jersey Rail Station (now euphemistically known as “Market Street Square”) sits in neglect. But the station serves as a very salient symbol of bureaucracy run amok and the loss of accountability in local government. It’s highly likely that the men involved with embezzling the public coffers in various ways will receive nothing more than a few months in jail and a slap on the wrist. They’ll return to their lives agrandized by the lucre from the backs of their constituents.

The fact still remains: It is a beautiful building, filled with wonders, curves, craftsmanship, and symbology. If one spends moments inside of this grand structure, one is easily transported beyond the depressing story of how it came to be what it is. I left the disheveled box cars that line the building and walked back to my car. When I photographed it, I was oblivious to its history; and in those innocent moments I had truly discovered a different world inside of a tiny little train station among the once-prosperous anthracite valley of Pennsylvania.

Sources

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/ls.html
http://www.mtn-top-hs.org/njcrailroadhistory.pdf
http://nepa.railfan.net/articles/mssid.htm
http://www.allbusiness.com/legal/criminal-law-plea-agreements/13223135-1.html
http://purebunkum.com/?p=3352
http://sightsonpennsylvania.blogspot.com/2010/05/great-train-robbery-part-1.html
http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?t=75059
http://www.allbusiness.com/legal/criminal-law-plea-agreements/13223135-1.html
http://www.timesleader.com/news/2-appraisals-performed-on-station-tracts.html?showAll=Y
http://www.timesleader.com/news/2_appraisals_performed_on_station_tracts_07-28-2010.html
http://citizensvoice.com/news/greco-pleads-guilty-admits-knowing-of-gratuities-1.904564

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The history of Binghamton’s First Ward leads many to stand in front of a given area and say things such as, “Here was once a great scale-making factory,” or “Here was a factory that sold Matthew Brady his supplies and went on to make the film used on the first moon landing.” These are gone now. But something was there then, which everyone knew, saw, worked with or around, that now hardly anyone knows is still there. Imprisoned in the 1920s, it still lives, and from time to time escapes into the streets. Unlike the Jones Scale Works, or the spot on Charles Street where Ansco employed tens of thousands of people, this forgotten entity spans the entire First Ward.

There is no spot in the First Ward from which one can say he is far away from Trout Brook, or Trout Creek. It was once a peaceful little brook, but it became a mosquito-ridden dumping ground as the ward grew. It was once loved, and then it was shunned. Much money was spent hiding it as a shameful nuisance. It is a natural spring, here before any settler, and it is here still.

“Trout Brook” is only known now to the very old timers, or to people in the water department. From a ravine in Glenwood Cemetery, it can be seen running freely. There is a mention of it on a plaque in St. Michael’s Cemetery next to Glendwood Cemetery. The only other visible mention is on a large sign at the creek’s far end (near McDonald Ave.), which gives warning with a phone number to call in case of flooding. Thus, the only two public notices of its existence bookend its whole length.

Today, Trout Brook runs like this: … visible from the Glenwood Cemetery ravine it runs free, and then it runs in a large square tunnel under Route 17. It discharges from there on a series of cement steps next to the teacher’s parking area for Woodrow Wilson School. Hidden amongst the overgrowth there is a stone boulder plaque from the builders of the earthen dam on Mt. Prospect, which is now the major source of control for Trout Brook. On the grounds of Wilson School one can see the fenced-in area of Trout Brook running through its “screen chamber.” These iron bars are meant to catch debris before it flows into the tunnel.

I live a few blocks from there, and began researching this water system three years ago during the noted floods of 2006. I have a manhole cover in my yard, which is clearly noted: “TROUT BROOK, 1927.” I came home from work at 10 p.m. to find all my neighbors’ yards a lake, and my manhole cover ajar.

After the screen chamber near Wilson School playground, the water is not visible again unless one actually enters the tunnel. The tunnel goes under private residences on Baxter St., and makes an abrupt left turn on to Julian St. A manhole cover can be seen in the sidewalk on the north side of Julian St. about three housed in from Glenwood Ave. Just before this area one can see an odd-shaped piece of wood about the size of a door or table that apparently was a stop-gap repair job, or was once used for entry. It forms the ceiling of the tunnel for about 6 feet, and is not in keeping with the rest of the tunnel workmanship.

The tunnel, which in most areas is about 5 feet high, proceeds down Julian St., and has a manhole cover in the middle of the intersection where Julian meets Johnson St. Because that cover is a little loose, when cars hit it, the reverberation can be heard blocks away even above ground. The sound is deafening if one is anywhere near it inside the tunnel.

Another manhole is visible where the tunnel crosses Holland St. at Julian, clearly marked “Trout Brook.” As the tunnel crosses Holland and goes under a vacant lot, the workmanship changes. All this way the tunnel is made of reinforced concrete; these sections were made whole and installed in 1927. But there appears to have been some trauma here; some segments are made of indented plastic, and others of clay shingles.

The tunnel heads briefly towards Clinton St. for about the space of five private yards on the West Side of Holland St., and then crosses Colfax Ave. near May St. Four manholes can be seen covering it in the area many old timers refer to as the “May Street Dump,” the raving below Berlin St. I found a rather large salamander clinging to the walls in this area, and later brought a professor from BU who specializes in such creatures, to rescue it. We could not find it again. (His name is Dylan Horvath, and when he saw Mt Prospected nearby he felt that it was no longer unusual that such creatures would make their way there from such terrain.

The storm drain then crosses Charles St. near the steep curve, and crosses under the land where the Ansco plant used to be for so many decades. The path of its course is surrounded by chain link fence on the Ansco side, and the wrought iron fence of Spring Forest Cemetery. It passes under Spring Forest Cemetery, and at Mygatt St., there is a dramatic change in workmanship. From Mygatt to Wilson School the work is generally plain even cement piping. But from Mygatt to the Chenango River outfall, near the old Cutler Ice House, the tunnel is made of beautiful stone work with a large keystone where the stone portion begins.

The tunnel makes its way down Lydia to Gaines, and then under Winding Way, which owes its winding shape to the course of the brook.

The stone portion was built about 1924-25 by a contractor named Fitzgerald. While work-in on the drain, one of his vehicles backfired in such a way as to start a Lydia St. house on fire. A change in patent laws regarding concrete during this time made it cheaper than stone work when another contractor named Clarence Rose got the contract to build the segment from Mygatt to Prospect St.

Mr. Rose stood on the hill in Glenwood Cemetery for his mother’s funeral with the Trout Brook running freely nearby while the work was going on down below. Mr. Rose was an avid hunter, and once slightly wounded himself with a gun. He was swindled out of several thousand dollars by a con man from Los Angeles in the 1930s. Involved in politics in the Chenango Forks, he left an estate of $750,000 when he passed away in 1958. His retirement party a few years before that was held at the IBM Country Club with over 800 guests attending. Someone left flowers on his grave in Katellville Cemetery during the Christmas season of 2008.

A careless typographer at the Binghamton Press on Sep 19, 2927 marred much of the meaning in an article headlined: “Trout Brook Sewer Is Two Thirds Finished,” but this detail can be made out: “Clarence W. Rose has completed the Trout Brook sewer to a point west of Colfax Avenue near Holland Street.” Other articles of this period show Rose to be working on the screen chamber at Wilson School and on the pump houses, which are still visible in a state of decay on the Ansco property on Charles St. Interestingly, on the same day a New York Times article tells of the death of a former Binghamton mayor’s wife.

Mayor George E. Green, during the 1890s had to deal with a large group of angry First Warders who blamed the City for flooding their basements during water main installation work. They claimed that the city had destroyed ancient wooden storm drains put in place by Daniel S. Dickinson as he drained the “swamp” and developed the land for parcel selling. Mayor Green took the position that the people were after “Free improvements” to their lands .The First Warders petitioned Governor Levi P. Morton, who had to spend months investigating the complaint. (The whole saga is captured in word for word letters on Google Books viewable by searching for “Wolcott Street Swamp Nuisance.”)

Gov. Morton, though forgotten today, was previously a Vice President of the United States under President Arthur. Before that he was Minister to France, where he accepted the Statue of Liberty for the United States. Much loved in France, he was given the honor of driving the first rivet into the statue (in a big toe).

The wooden storm drain in question drained spots of swampy water into Trout Brook. The incident became known as the Wolcott Street Nuisance, but we know Wolcott St. today as St. Cyril Ave., a one-block street just below Spring Forest Cemetery running to Starr Ave. where the Jones Scale Works once Operated.

When he died in 1910 Mayor Green was buried in Spring Forest Cemetery. Just as Contractor Rose was busy burying Trout Brook under Spring Forest Cemetery in September 1927, working on 20-foot-deep pumping houses just next door at the Ansco site, the former Mayor’s wife came home from Albany, where she lived, and as she tended to the family plot she dropped dead on her husband’s grave.

“As she was turning away from the plot, employes (sic) in the cemetery saw her collapse. Physicians said that the death was caused by heart disease.” (New York Times, Sep. 19, 1927). The widow Green was probably not happy with the way the main lawn of the cemetery looked at that time. She was buried beside her husband.

From 1904 to 1927 there was a peaceful little pond using Trout Brook water in the main lawn, reported to be part of the improvement work going on in 1904 when Architect Issac G. Perry (of State Hospital “Castle” fame) designed the cemetery gates as his last job, and then promptly died becoming the first body brought through the gates. That local history story is fairly well known, but those articles also mention the intent to use Trout Brook to create a lake.

No one knew Trout Brook more fondly than Senator Daniel Dickinson. He built his home so as to look upon it, and picked his child’s, and thence, his own burial spot so as to be near it.

He was robbed of the above ground appearance of this brook next to his grave fifty years after his death, but it still runs at about the same level under Spring Forest Cemetery as he is in his grave. Mr. Dickinson built his home, “the Orchard,” on the West Bank of the Chenango River near the Erie Railroad Bridge. When his body was brought home from NYC, thousands followed the hearse from the depot to his home where present day McDonald Ave. is located (and where one can see a Trout Brook flood control sign). Maps show his home to have been between Trout Brook and the rail bridge. One map of the 1800s actually signifies the brook as “Dickinson Creek,” but it apparently didn’t take.

In a “Testimonial of Respect of the Bar of New York” (viewable on Google Books), it is stated that the Statesman’s “body was laid in the Northwest parlor and the vast concourse that thronged to take a last look, entered from the south, passed around the coffin, and was permitted to leave from the East entrance.”

Upwards of 6,000 people escorted the casket to Spring Forest Cemetery from The Orchard. All of them had to have stepped on little bridges over the creek, not only on the Dickinson property where it would have been visible from that parlor window, but all along the route to Spring Forest.

Dickinson often visited his child’s grave and sat there writing poetry. He chose the family grave plot next to Trout Brook. In its coverage of the funeral, The New York Times referred to the stream as “insolent.” Let’s end with the coverage from the Testimonial of Respect.

“How sweet the grave wherein he (Dickinson) lies entombed. A little mound, shaded by an adjoining hill was the spot selected for the final resting place of this great and goodly man. A little fretful brook, whose wandering course leads along the base of the mound, sings gentle dirges on its rippling surface, as if to soothe the calm sleeper who rests so near its borders.”

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Editor’s Note: What follows is a retrospective of the controversy surrounding an abandoned site in a secluded spot near the Chevron refinery in Richmond, California. Since I moved to the small city in the East Bay, the site has been on my list of places to photograph.  But Point Molate also represents a darker side of city politics that few are willing to talk about. Interspersed with photos of the abandoned “castle,” I’ll tell you about the very prescient influence of Indian Gaming on city politics in California.  I hope you enjoy.

Plagued with the highest homicide rate on the West Coast, Richmond, California often gets the brunt of bad media attention.[1] The East Bay city of 100,000 is gripped by the problems of urban blight and industrial legacy. On the North side of town is the Chevron oil refinery.  Since 1902, its effluence has seeped into the surrounding air. The winds from the San Francisco Bay sweep across the former Bay island of Potrero (now a peninsula) and carry refinery pollutants towards the impoverished neighborhoods to the East.  But on the West Side of the Chevron refinery is the city’s best kept secret – a small, little-developed waterfront stretch of 423 acres that reached the BRAC cutting room floor during Clinton-era military cutbacks.[2] As a result, a former military fuel depot has fortuitously landed on the City of Richmond’s doorstep.  This gift – sold to Richmond for $1 in 2003 – has quickly become a veritable ‘toxic asset’ for the city, which now finds itself at the center of controversy and competing interests.[3]

The 423-acre plot at Point Molate represents the very distillation of the struggle between Use Value and Exchange Value in local land use politics. At stake is a billion-dollar Native American gaming project; the interests of a coalition of environmentalists, municipal parks, and biking groups; the third most profitable corporation in the U.S.; and a slice of the $5.1 billion Native American gaming industry in California.[4] Few other examples in California development history portray the intricacies of local land conflict as much as the conflict over Point Molate; knowing that, this paper will assert that Native American gaming compacts present some of the most controversial and challenging problems of modern urban planning history, and their implementation lacks the consensus that serves the best interest of most communities. Ultimately, Point Molate represents the continuing struggle between community autonomy, Federal law, and big business.

Brief History & Background

Point Molate began its life of land use over 5,000 years ago, as a home to the Ohlone tribe. The Native inhabitants left behind shell mounds (heaps of discarded shells) as evidence of their presence.[5] The Guidiville Rancheria band of Pomo Indians say this is definitive justification for the land’s designation as federally recognized reservation; however, opponents – including Randall Milliken, Ph D. of Davis, California – claim that the same justification refutes the claim made for the Point Molate casino. “Pomo Indians have no traditional cultural connection with lands on the east side of the San Francisco Bay,” writes Milliken in his letter, which is included in the draft EIR. “It was the homeland of the Chochenyo Ohlone speaking people and remains the homeland of their descendants today.”[6]

Richmond’s industrial base was born when Standard Oil Company moved into the East Side of what was then Potrero Island.  The surrounding hills served as a perfect, terraced holding-place for a large tank farm, which was continuously replenished through oil tanker arrivals at the nearby pier in the San Francisco Bay. Prior to 1900, the unique geographic assets of Potrero Island (which had become a peninsula in the early 1900s) led to its formation as a Chinese shrimp camp;[7] after 1906, Point Molate was further exploited by the growing shipping needs of the California Wine Association, whose headquarters in San Francisco was devastated by the Great Quake.[8] The California Wine Association – once the “world’s largest winery” – had gone largely out of use during Prohibition. By 1941, the United States Navy entered the fray.  War-time demand for petroleum meant that Point Molate would be ground zero to store and distribute oil for the Pacific Ocean theater of operations at Iwo Jima, Marshall, American Samoa, Bikini, and beyond.

Chevron

Since 1902, oil has played a major role in the development of the Point Molate area. As one of the earliest industrial heavyweights in California, Standard Oil’s Richmond Refinery used the promontory of Potrero Island to their advantage, eventually becoming “one of the world’s largest refineries.” Today, Chevron produces 243,000 barrels a day from its Richmond facility; the company boasts of contributing $61 million to community development in the city of Richmond.[9]

Chevron is just as vehement as the Guidiville Rancheria tribe in establishing their interest in Point Molate. In fact, the company hired former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to lobby for them with the Richmond City Council.[10] Community leaders contend that Chevron’s interests in the land are to provide a “buffer” of security between their refinery and any further human habitation.

Gary Fisher, a Chevron external affairs manager noted that wildfires and security are some of Chevron’s top concerns. “The opportunity for trespassing and vandalism, including an avoidable increased risk for a potential terrorist act directed towards the refinery, increases with public access,” Fisher wrote.  What Fisher doesn’t mention is perhaps the most compelling reason for Chevron’s interest in the land: Liability and the concern of class action lawsuits. According to an environmental report from the Navy, “an ammonia leak at the refinery could create a toxic cloud,” which would endanger the life of anyone who is nearby.[11]

Chevron offered the City of Richmond $83 million for Point Molate (in addition to the ongoing property taxes assessed for the property) making it the most lucrative up-front offer for the land (the Guidiville Band offered $50 million).[12] Chevron maintained that it intended to keep the land as a privately owned open-space preserve. This produced an unlikely partnership: Environmental groups that are generally “anti-Chevron” joined forces with the oil company to oppose the Point Molate casino project.

Development, Investment Interests and the City of Richmond

Even more powerful than Chevron were the development special interests. They were able to provide the promise of long-term revenue and infrastructure improvements for the cash-strapped city of Richmond. Point Molate development interests are largely represented by their ‘patriarch,’ Jim Levine. Levine is a successful Berkeley developer who made his riches in the toxic cleanup market. The development interests – not the Guidiville tribe – were the first to conceive of Point Molate as a casino Mecca. According to the Berkeley Daily Planet, Levine’s Upstream Development Company “went out and recruited [the Guidiville]… to take the land as a reservation and claim formal ownership of the land.”[13]

Surely, money was a big part of the motive for all parties involved. The city of Richmond hired a consulting company to analyze the casino potential of Point Molate – most telling was that the city did this before they received ownership of the land from the Navy. What the consultants found was a gold mine for the city, but more importantly, for the developers. The report estimated $500 million in economic activity each year; Upstream signed an agreement that the city would receive $20 million annually.[14]

Early in the process, Levine contacted the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (the “leading lender in the world of tribal casinos”); and, ultimately, Harrah’s signed on as financial partner.[15] Thus, the world’s largest gaming corporation had come into the fray, along with Levine and other financial backers. Further cementing the backing Levine’s Upstream had in government circles (particularly in obtaining reservation status from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and approval from the State of California), the powerfully connected William Cohen, Republican from Maine who was Secretary of Defense under President Clinton, joined the team as “consultant.”

In the midst of it all, Levine sold his plan to the public through a combination of promises of largesse (3,000 onsite jobs, 3,600 offsite jobs and 1,000 construction jobs); ^[16] environmentalism (Levine greenwashed the development as the “greenest project ever erected in California”);[17] and rehabilitation of the historic Winehaven buildings (probably to appease the Design Review Board).

Of course, along the way, there was plenty of opposition. Some opposition to the Casino Plan hailed from the County Board of Supervisors (who retracted their opposition upon learning that they – too – would receive $12 million a year from the casino).[18] Later, the State of California filed a lawsuit against Upstream; Governor Schwarzenegger’s office penned a letter to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Richmond’s mayor, saying the project “undermined the constitutionality of California’s Indian gaming regime.”[19] The state cited Proposition 1A as reasoning for their opposition, and Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer wrote to the Secretary of Interior that they had “serious concerns about the recent practice of tribes and municipalities seeking advantageous gaming opportunities on lands that are not traditionally tribal lands.”[20] It all culminated in April of 2005, when the State Attorney General’s Office joined a lawsuit with Bay Area park agencies against Levine’s Upstream and the city. The suit claimed that that the sale of the land failed to adhere to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). An Environmental Attorney for the Attorney General’s Office, Janill L. Richards spoke for the Attorney General’s office, saying that there was not adequate review “before a decision [was] made on an important piece of public property with significant public interests.”[21]

For a while, it looked like the project was dead in the water, but City Council member Gayle McLaughlin  (who opposed the project) said that the city – perhaps a bit too giddy with their newfound wealth – had already spent some of the $15 million in deposit money that Levine and his partners paid early in the process.[22] Upstream simply restarted from scratch, hiring consultants to draft a behemoth 3000-page Environmental Impact Report. Perhaps most telling about the project, however, came through silence that followed.  There was relative lack of large-scale community involvement in opposition to its plan. Perhaps the Environmental Impact Report was just too long?

Local Environmental Groups/Citizen Groups/Historic Preservation Groups

If one were to read the news reports of the project, one would get the sense that the project was a well-conceived plan with little public opposition – if a bit susceptible to the whims of bureaucratic rigamarole.  Of the dozens of newspaper articles that describe the controversy, very few – if any – include comments from actual community members. In the case that community concerns are cited in stories, it’s usually in the form of concerns that the project won’t go through.  And even in the rare case that community opposition is cited it’s actually community members from communities other than Richmond. It appeared that Richmond wasn’t the developers’ only target – it was simply the most convenient. Napa resident John Salmon, who is a partner with Levine in the project, originally was strongly against casinos in a talk in 2005 to Napa Rotarians. Apparently, Salmon said that the Richmond casino was a good deal for the Napa Valley, because it would relieve pressure that might otherwise lead to a gambling in the middle of Wine Country (where the Guidiville Pomo actually did originate from). The March 5, Napa Rotagram quoted Salmon as saying, “Molate will bear a likeness to Ghirardelli Square, and with its high-end qualities, will take the pressure off Napa and other North Bay locations that may face future casino proposals.”[23] Additionally, The Guidiville had originally proposed a casino in nearby Solano county, but the Board of Supervisors were adamantly against it – along with all community members in attendance at the meeting.

However, the absence of community involvement portrayed in the media isn’t the entire story. When one looks at the appendix of the Environmental  Impact Report – nearly 2000 pages by itself – the true community opposition reveals itself fully.  In Section 4 of Vol.  2, starting at page 74, the public review documents are displayed – over 400 pages in all; many of them state ardent opposition to the plan. Members of the community cited crime, traffic, gambling problems and the need for open space. But towards the end of Section 4, is the impassioned transcript of James Easter, who has lived in Richmond for 57 years. His words sum up – I think – the very real issue of Indian Gaming, and ultimately it arrives at the crux of my thesis and the true reason why communities are most often affected negatively due to Indian gaming, despite their presumed tax bounty.

“So what – I’m against Point Molate. I have been to a casino six or seven times in my life. I don’t consider myself a gambler, but I go through.  I do know that there’s a time and place for all things. It’s hard for us on the South Side. We can’t even get a decent shopping center down there… I’ll donate a little bit of money to the Indian Affairs. And I’m not against Indian gambling, but it seems strange to me that Indians got[sic] so much money to do all of this all of a sudden… I’m against a casino here, because it won’t bring no dollars. We lost Safeway. We lost Ford Motor Company. We lost all the big jobs. And now we’re broke and going to bring a CASINO? I’m against it.”[24]

Footnotes

[1] “Richmond leads per-capital murder rate in California.”

[2] BRAC – which stands for “Base Realignment and Closure,” was an Act of Congress in 1988. The Act helps return former military bases to public and community use.

[3] “BRAC – US Gov,” para. 3.

[4] Korosec, “Exxon, Chevron Win in a Loser Year for Top 500 Companies | BNET Energy Blog | BNET”; “Indian Gaming in California.”

[5] Santiago, “Betting on Point Molate.”

[6] “Draft Environmental Impact Statement / Environmental Impact Report,” 138-139.

[7] Weinstein, “Storming the Castle,” para. 10.

[8] Fronistas, “Before Napa, there was Winehaven,” para. 3.

[9] “Chevron Energy and Hydrogen Renewal Project,” para. 6.

[10] Vega, “Point Molate Casino On Track After City Council OKs Proposal,” para. 3.

[11] Williams, “Point Molate: Waterfront Dream or Terrorist Nightmare?,” para. 6.

[12] Rosen Lum, “ChevronTexaco Hires Willie Brown to Undo the Deal,” 10.

[13] Brenneman, “Berkeley Developer’s Big Dreams Dominate Richmond Landscape,” para. 16.

[14] Simerman, “County ready to back Point Molate casino plan – ContraCostaTimes.com,” para. 8.

[15] Brenneman, “Berkeley Developer’s Big Dreams Dominate Richmond Landscape.”

[16] “Richmond OKs Point Molate casino project,” para. 6.

[17] Brenneman, “Point Molate Casino Gets Fast-Track Status,” para. 4.

[18] Simerman, “County ready to back Point Molate casino plan – ContraCostaTimes.com,” para. 1.

[19] Hoch, “Governor Letter Against Pt Molate,” 1.

[20] Tam, “Sides still divided over Richmond casino-hotel plan’s potential impact – Inside Bay Area,” para. 17.

[21] Brenneman, “State Attorney General Joins Point Molate Casino Fight,” para. 5.

[22] Ibid., para. 19-20.

[23] Brenneman, “Lawsuit Challenges Point Molate Casino. Category: News from The Berkeley Daily Planet – Thursday January 29, 2009,” para. 31.

[24] “Draft Environmental Impact Statement / Environmental Impact Report.”

Sources

“BRAC – US Gov.” Government. http://www.bracpmo.navy.mil/basepage.aspx?baseid=50.

Brenneman, Richard. “Berkeley Developer’s Big Dreams Dominate Richmond Landscape.” Berkeley Daily Planet, April 26, 2005. http://www.berkeleydaily.org/issue/2005-04-26/article/21243?headline=Berkeley-Developer-s-Big-Dreams-Dominate-Richmond-Landscape-By-RICHARD-BRENNEMAN.

———. “Lawsuit Challenges Point Molate Casino. Category: News from The Berkeley Daily Planet – Thursday January 29, 2009,” January 28, 2009. http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2009-01-29/article/32111?headline=Lawsuit-Challenges-Point-Molate-Casino.

———. “Point Molate Casino Gets Fast-Track Status. Category: Front Page News from The Berkeley Daily Planet – Thursday June 12, 2008.” Newspaper, June 12, 2009. http://www.berkeleydaily.org/issue/2008-06-12/article/30235?headline=Point-Molate-Casino-Gets-Fast-Track-Status.

———. “State Attorney General Joins Point Molate Casino Fight.” Berkeley Daily Planet, April 22, 2009. http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2005-04-22/article/21212?headline=State-Attorney-General-Joins-Point-Molate-Casino-Fight-By-RICHARD-BRENNEMAN&status=301.

“Chevron Energy and Hydrogen Renewal Project.” Corporation. Chevron, Spring 2009. http://www.chevron.com/products/sitelets/richmond/renewal/.

“Draft Environmental Impact Statement / Environmental Impact Report.” http://www.pointmolateeis-eir.com/documents/draft_eis-eir/report.htm.

Fronistas, Phoebe. “Before Napa, there was Winehaven.” Blog. Richmond Confidential, October 13, 2009. http://richmondconfidential.org/2009/10/13/before-napa-there-was-winehaven/.

Hoch, Andrea Lynn. Letter. “Governor Letter Against Pt Molate,” October 12, 2009. http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B2Vh92XtfvhnNWRkYjNmMTktMjFkYS00NDVlLTk4NjItYTdhNTU3OTA0NTU4&hl=en.

“Indian Gaming in California.” http://igs.berkeley.edu/library/htIndianGaming.htm#Topic1.

Korosec, Kristen. “Exxon, Chevron Win in a Loser Year for Top 500 Companies | BNET Energy Blog | BNET.” News. BNET, April 20, 2009. http://industry.bnet.com/energy/10001114/exxon-chevron-win-in-a-loser-year-for-top-500-companies/.

“Richmond leads per-capital murder rate in California.” San Francisco Chronicle, June 10, 2008. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/06/10/state/n103604D95.DTL.

“Richmond OKs Point Molate casino project.” Contra Costa Times, November 10, 2004. http://www.tombutt.com/forum/2004/041111.htm.

Rosen Lum, Rebecca. “ChevronTexaco Hires Willie Brown to Undo the Deal.” Contra Costa Times, November 11, 2004.

Santiago, Chiori. “Betting on Point Molate.” Bay Nature, 2005. http://www.baynature.org/articles/jul-sep-2005/betting-on-point-molate.

Simerman, John. “County ready to back Point Molate casino plan – ContraCostaTimes.com,” October 31, 2009. http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_13685421?source=most_emailed.

Tam, Katherine. “Sides still divided over Richmond casino-hotel plan’s potential impact – Inside Bay Area.” Oakland Tribune, September 19, 2009. http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_13368891.

Vega, Cecilia. “Point Molate Casino On Track After City Council OKs Proposal.” http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/11/11/BAG869PFRE1.DTL.

Weinstein, David. “Storming the Castle.” Preservation Magazine, July 25, 2009. http://www.preservationnation.org/magazine/story-of-the-week/2003/Storming-the-Castle.html.

Williams, Susan. “Point Molate: Waterfront Dream or Terrorist Nightmare?,” October 9, 2009. http://www.baycrossings.com/Archives/2003/09_October/point_molate_waterfront_dream_or_terrorist_nightmare.htm.

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