Drop City

Hello, old hippies...

I'm sorry if this question has been asked before on this forum. Apparently I haven't seen it though...

Actually, I have never (yet(but soon!)) read T.C. Boyles "Drop City", but because of an article I read about that book, I started to get curious of the history of the real Drop City.

Its history, the philosophy behind its architecture, how did its idea spread & made other dropper-inspired communes in New Mexico, and why/how did it finally take an end? :-/

It could be interesting if somebody had an experience with that commune, and tell a few lines about it.

I will also be glad, if you have a suggestion how to wake it up once again.

love,
-wolf-

 

P.S.
And what was/is the true definition of a "dropper"?

 

I heard about Drop City in the 70s when I was living at Wheelers Ranch commune in Northern Cal. -I have never met anyone who lived there but knew people headed there.

 

---------Here is the story of it:
In 1965, the four original founders, Gene Bernofsky ("Curly"), JoAnn Bernofsky ("Jo"), Richard Kallweit ("Lard") and Clark Richert ("Clard"), art students and filmmakers from the University of Kansas and University of Colorado, bought[2] a seven acre tract of land near Trinidad, in south eastern Colorado. Their intention was to create a live-in work of Drop Art, continuing an art concept they had developed earlier at the University of Kansas. Drop Art (sometimes called "droppings") was informed by the "happenings" of Allan Kaprow and the impromptu performances, a few years earlier, of John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg and Buckminster Fuller, at Black Mountain College.

As Drop City gained notoriety in the 1960s underground, people from around the world came to stay and work on the construction projects. Inspired by the architectural ideas of Buckminster Fuller and Steve Baer, residents constructed domes and zonohedra to house themselves, using geometric panels made from the metal of automobile roofs and other inexpensive materials. In 1967 the group, now consisting of 10 core people, won Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion award for their constructions.

Soon the community grew in reputation and size, accelerated by media attention, including news reports on national television networks. The peak of Drop City's fame was the Joy Festival in June 1967,[3] which attracted hundreds of hippies, some of whom stayed on.[4] With the complex of eight domes and geometric buildings constructed, Curly and Jo, the only official owners of the property, signed it over to a non-profit corporation consisting of the entire core group (then about a dozen). The deed stipulated that the land was "forever free and open to all people". [5] Tensions and personality conflicts were, however, already an inevitable problem within the group, and they soon became unbearable. By the end of 1968 the original occupants of the community had moved to Boulder, Colorado to start an artists' cooperative, "Criss-Cross", whose purpose, like Drop City's, was to function in a "synergetic" interaction between peers (no bosses) to create experimental artistic innovation. Among the innovative endeavors to evolve out of Drop-City are:

• in 1969, the early solar energy company - Zomeworks, in Albuquerque, NM;
• the artists' group "Criss-Cross", operative in New York and Colorado in the 1970s;
• the development of the "61-Zone System" by ZomeTool of Boulder, Colorado;
• and in the early 1980s, an important discovery of a cubic fusion of interpenetrating fractal tetrahedra by Richard Kallweit.

[edit] Legacy

By 1970, Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico were littered with intentional communities, some which sprang up on their own, and some which were inspired by Drop City. Libre, north of Gardner, Colorado was founded by several ex-"Droppers", and was among the more well known. Some communities continue to exist in some form today.

At Drop City, debris and building remnants from the original settlement remain at the site today, though it is not inhabited. In parallel with the demise of the Berkeley collective movement after the end of the Vietnam War, the energy ran out at Drop City. By 1977 it was abandoned, and the members of the non-profit who were still in touch decided to sell off the site to the cattle rancher next door.[6]



[edit] Sources

one who lived there but knew people headed there.

 

Thank you very much for bringing the link, robspace2.


It's sad that such an exciting & visionary initiative as Drop City was abandoned already 12 years after its establishment. But it seems like it was not a wasted effort to establish Drop City, since it inspired many other people to establish lots of similar communes - not only in the United States, but also here in Europe.



Unfortunately this "Ask the Old Hippies"-forum apparently aren't very frequented. That's a pity, I think, since it could be the obvious forum for "reaching the torch over", as Skip Stone wrote (as far as I remember - sorry, if I'm mistaking! )


But I must try to investigate a bit more to find these folks 'Curly', 'Jo', 'Lard', 'Clard', or anybody else who were living in Drop City, or anybody who had close relations to some of these folks...


Which forum could be the most obvious place they're hanging out here in hippieland, if not in here?


love,
/wolf

 

I like to go to the site of Alicia Bay Lauel-she wrote Living On The Earth while living at Wheelers Ranch and probably knows most if not all those people. She did alot of research for the book-check it out at-http://laurelrose.com/

 

Thanks alot. I'm checking it out. Wheelers Ranch also seems to have been an interesting commune to be a part of.

 

I lived there all of 71' and it was fun most of the time-we had alot of love but there was challenges in the fact that it was an open commune' anyone was welcome and some folks don't always have good intentions in mind.-I was the bus driver!-alot of time-

 

Try over at the Diggers forums..

 

Shameless-Did the Diggers ever own land outside the city?-I don't think they had a commune in the country anywhere did they? If they did I never heard of it-It would have really been a great thing to have' especially in 67' just to get all the kids off the streets and out of the city. That was the beauty of Morningstar and Wheelers Ranch. I first heard about Wheelers when their bus picked me up hitching through San Fran late one night. This funky bus pulls over and I climb in and meet about 50 new friends-pass that doobie!-They gave me directions to the ranch and the next week I went there and stayed for the next year. It was great not having to worry about paying rent. There was plenty of land-360 acres and about 50 regular full time inhabitants-
Learning to live on brown rice and vegis took some time' and taking cold showers was no picknik in the winter but it was real peaceful and a great sanity break from the chaos going on by then in the city. The country always brings reality back into the picture and thats great.

 

Hmm, the member "Digger" has no personal forum... Google match no results either, if it was ment as a link out of hippyland. I need some further hint, please!

 

Wolf -the Diggers was not a member but a large co-op group in San Francisco that provided food and clothes to the homeless people coming in from everywhere.I know they have a website-I'll look

 

http://www.diggers.org/ go-have fun-

 

Thanks, brother. Sorry for all my questions.

 

Here is two links, I can give in return at my country...

The first you'll probably know:
http://www.christiania.org/

Another commune on the countryside, that is not just as known as the famous Christiania:
http://www.thylejren.com/

(At the moment the host has shut down thylejren.com - I hope it's not for good, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was!).

 

thanks-just wonderin-why all the intrest in the old communes?-Are you looking to join one or do you live on one now?

 

Me & one of my friends have often been talking about establishing a new commune - and to build our own houses from the ground.

We're both very interesting in the architecture - actually we can discuss architecture over a joint during a whole evening! (and my friend - especially - is very engaged in the dome architecture).

But more important than architecture - I'm interesting in experience & wisdom - especially about how to avoid the social conflicts that unfortunately teared Drop City apart. How to avoid that such an otherwise beautiful commune tear down after only 12 years. Such communes are ment to be exemplary for the future way of living, and it's definately the way I would like to live...

Peace,
/wolf

 

P.S.
I'm not living in a commune right now. I have often been dreaming about it, and right at the moment I'm facing many radical changes in my life...
That will include making my old commune dream true, not today, but not never too...

love,
/wolf

 

Well' Wolf' I can give you some advice about how to keep it going. Wheelers Ranch was 360 acres owned by Bill Wheeler-he bought the land in Sonoma County. Beautiful area' lots of trees about 80 miles North of San Francisco.

He did like Lou Gottlieb did over at Morningstar commune' which was just a few miles away. He opened it up to everyone. Then for tax reasons he deeded it to God and the named changed to Ahimsa Church-While I was there all through 71' Bill was in and out of court alot. The locals and especially the rancher next door wanted to close the place.
They went after Bill with every law on the book to shut it down and eventually they won.The county came in and bulldozed all the houses under and kicked everyone except Bill and his family off.Had the place been up to code with sewer and water etc. and had the buildings past the codes we would have been ok to stay.
I guess what I would advise is that if you buy a piece of land' be sure there is water and that all buildings pass code and you have toilets-or porta -potties or something. You need to find out how to do it legally so you don't run up against the law. We had police helocopters flying over at night and undercover cops move in to get info on the place.
If your going to have alot of people there -make a commitee to oversee the projects and make sure everyone knows that everyone has a job to do to keep it going takes work.-I hate to say it but you may want to do a background check on the members. We had cops there at times looking for not only runaways but people wanted for some nasty crimes. Remember' we let in anyone who wanted in and that can be trouble. Times have changed and the peace-love movement is underground.
There are plenty of communes already together in my state-Wa. and in Oregon-they always have room for people who want to join if they are willing to work.Good luck-
Just remember to build it to code or it may be torn down.

 

Dear Robspace2,
thank you very much for your clever advices. I feel a bit desillusionated right now. Cuz despite I knew that the governments in the US and Canada are not quite hippie-loving, at least I didn't expect them to harass harmless people building communes by helicopters & all other kind of state terrorism they come up with...
Here in Denmark hippies who want to live an alternative way, will always be hunted prey. Denmark is a small country with no big spaces, and there will always be some neighbours who feel big pain in their asses and call the police...

Right now there is a big underground campaign in Denmark, demanding "flere fristeder" = "more free spaces" = An attack on our conform socalled liberal government pleasing individualism, but in fact defining it as consumerism & personal isolationism.

That underground campaign is not just an "against" campaign - it's more a "for"-campaign for more free communities, as Christiania, Ungdomshuset, & Thy-lejren.

I'm a part of the next generation. I simply can't rely on the communes established earlier & just think everything is alright if I move into some commune that were build 30 years ago.

First of all I must have patience and breathe in calm - and thereafter I must decide which efforts I wanna throw in creating new, beautiful communes as Wheelers Ranch, Drop City & Christiania.

I thank you very much for the inspiration you're bringing...

Peace & Love & Hugs,
/wolf