the GAP goes under
Posted December 29, 2008
Or, the “Gap” falls into the gap, as it were…
This picture is from several months ago, when the Gap on Haight Street finally closed after sticking it out in a hostile environment for several years. When it first opened, it was greeted by innumerable protests from neighbors and local shopkeepers, many of whom had been in the neighborhood since the glory days of the Sixties. Their slogan was “Don’t Mall the Haight”, and they feared an onslaught of large chains moving into what had become a fairly “hip” area from which they were ekeing a living. Many shopkeepers doubtless felt they had earned the right to escape such unbalanced and unfair competition simply because they had stuck it out and endured the hard times and weirdness that goes with living in the Haight-Ashbury.
For years the Gap toughed it out and hoped to ignore the local opposition by means of it’s own deep pockets – but it was not to be. After years of broken and tagged windows and other versions of the Haight-Ashbury Welcome Wagon, plus the fact that nobody would be caught dead in their store, they finally had the good grace to vacate. Shortly thereafter the empty storefront was tagged in Wildstyle – I think it’s fair to say it was Mega-tagged.
I can’t read it, but the fart reference seems obvious. If anyone who sees this CAN read it, or otherwise knows what it says, please please comment. For all I really know, it could have been done by people from the GAP itself, flipping a final finger at the hood that ousted them… but I doubt it.