William Gibson & Others Note, Celebrate, Mourn SL's Hangars Liquides

Here's the correct teleport link to visit and explore Hangars Liquides, Second Life's legendary cyberpunk city that's still set to close at the end of this month. Thanks to a retweet of my story by William Gibson, this viral Reddit thread, and massive social media shares by Second Life users past and present, the city has been inundated by visitors. However, my post originally included a teleport to a store in Hangars, and not the official landing spot. (Shopkeeper Beev Fallen helpfully added the proper teleport to his showroom.) 

The original post also includes some lovely tributes to Hangars and its lead creator,  Djehan Kidd:

No one builds like Djehan anymore, from scratch, doing research and experimental art. Many of her textures are hand painted. Top Italian architect who teach at MIT, who I showed her work to, told me she's genius, despite having graduated as a multimedia artist and not as an architect. I am always surprised as LL doesn't get that good content, especially real new and groundbreaking art, like what Djehan is creating, should be supported and cherished. - Lawrence Celestalis

[I]t's such a work of love and labour where each piece of it is in essence, handmade. It goes far beyond than just the build, the music and the whole atmosphere of the place all work to captivate you. If anything within this silly game is worthy of considered being art, I feel as though Hangars is. - Coralineo

JohnC struck a discordant note that's still worth reading:

Having owned quite a few well known popular sims, all with strong communities, each one easily as popular as Hangars Liquides in their time, and all of which have had to close because of SL's crippling costs, I actually find it unfair that one should be singled out in any way and preserved. I also think it is just weird when people who are driven out of SL then decided to patronise Sansar, which is without doubt one of the reasons SL is in such a mess anyway. I also think it's just funny the amount of times people have IM'ed me after a sim is closed to tell me how terrible and sad it all is, when the sim had stood empty for months. Or people turn up 6 months after it is gone and ask where it is because they loved it so much.

Much more to talk about here, and hopefully, some more news about Hangars Liquides soon.

Comments

[Annie Brightstar]

Yes, John C is right, there are other sims and clubs teetering on the brink.
For example, I believe Euphoria - Alice in Wonderland, formerly Dysphoria, a sim which featured in a Berry Singh video https://strawberrysingh.com/2018/10/04/exploring-second-life-alice-in-wonderful-on-euphoria/ has just days left despite the best efforts of the owners.

[Lawrence Celestalis]

I strongly disagree: it's not because LL for ages had no real policy to make things sustainable for talented and technically gifted artists, that they need to keep being wrong and lose more good artists (if there are any left beyond Djehan Kidd). This makes no sense at all.

[Dantelicia]

If a sim is self sustainable with rentals, let it be, it's already enough that SIMs costs are outrageously high but stopping a SIM with such an artistic set up from being break-even makes absolutely non sense, LL are shooting themselves in the foot. I dont think Hangars' creator is asking to be "preserved" but to simply be allowed to live off her rentals fees. Therefore John C's point is not only cynical but bluntly irrelevant.