By Erin Pangilinan
September 2005

“Long live the I-Hotel! Power to the people! Long live the struggle!” the crowd chanted during the opening of the new International Hotel (I-Hotel) Senior Housing complex on Friday.

Cutting the ceremonial ribbon was Senator Dianne Feinstein, who was San Francisco's mayor from 1978 to 1988, around the time of I-Hotel's demise. She convened the International Hotel Citizens Advisory Committee to study plans for the hotel's rehabilitation. She had hoped that the building would be up by 1984, but was still happy to see that the building was now finally in place after a long battle.

The old 152-unit I-Hotel provided affordable housing to elderly Filipinos, manongs , and Chinese residents for nearly three decades. It also provided office space to 10 community-based service agencies and businesses.

This piece of real estate was torn down in 1979 to give way to high-rise condos, swank boutiques and parking garages. The seniors who made I-Hotel their home for many years were forcibly ejected by San Francisco sheriffs, effectively clearing the zone for gentrification.

An air of nostalgia was thick in Friday's opening as Manong Gaudiosio Galincia and Ernest Cinco played the guitar and violin, while manong Ros Daga sang Dahil sa Iyo. The three musicians are applying for housing in the new I-Hotel. They also accompanied San Francisco Poet Laureate Al Robles read from his poem “Rapping With 10,000 Carabaos in the Dark,” expressing the spirit of Manilatown. Robles said the opening transformed the I-Hotel “from nightmare to dream.”