I’ve worked to save the historic brick buildings at the Potrero Power Station on 23rd Street since 2018 when the site’s developer told me all these buildings would be demolished. Thankfully, plans changed. Station A, the largest historic building, will be saved and added to. I was told in January that the 100 year old Gate House would be torn down this spring but promised that I’d be given more specific dates. In the meantime, the Save the Historic Gate House petition online received more than 1,000 signatures. I hoped to attract funding to move the Gate House to Warm Water Cove Park, estimated to cost up to $200,000; artist Ben Wood and I planned to project historic images onto the little building to publicize this effort. When we met at the site on March 18, the Gate House was half demolished and completely gone by the end of the day. I was shocked. I had not been given the notice I was promised from the developer. On March 20 and 21, our public artwork became a memorial to a vanished piece of neighborhood history. ~ Peter Linenthal
