Angelika/Mike Schilli |
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Angelika Around the corner from our home is a popular San Francisco recreational area called Dolores Park. Mainly people from the surrounding neighborhoods, like Noe Valley, Castro and the Mission are hanging out there on the weekends.
Dolores Park fills up quickly on the weekends, and until recently, the crowds were very considerate, kids were playing on the playground, friends met for a picnic, ripped guys from Castro's gay scene sun-bathed in tiny swimming suits, Mexicans from the nearby Mission district played soccer on the lawn, dog lovers walked their dogs, and tennis fans played their matches on the adajacent courts, fantastic views of the skyline of downtown San Francisco included.
As a long-standing tradition, park officials have always looked the other way when they saw park visitors drinking alcohol or letting their dogs run off leash, both of which is clearly against the prominently posted park rules. Since everyone got along just fine, nobody said anything. But lately the park has turned into some kind of Carnival in Rio fest. Loud music is pumping from various speakers hauled in by the party people, who get totally wasted and then unabashedly urinate into the bushes or nearby neighbors' driveways. Marihuana is consumed in all imaginable ways, but that is also a long-standing tradition in Dolores Park. Come Monday morning, the park is littered with trash, because apparently none of the party people is capable of bringing a plastic bag, collect their trash and put it into or at least next to one of the provided garbage bins.
The city workers assigned to tend to the greenery in the park are instead occupied all Monday to collect the strewed out trash. Nearby neighbors in their expensive houses are getting upset and have been pressuring the city to maintain law and order. As of recently, park violations are actually being ticketed by the park officials. I'm not sure if that's going to help, though. It'd probably more effective if violators would instead be convicted to join a community service clean-up task force. But who's listening to me! One directly related problem is definitely that due to the recent boom in building ugly multi-story appartment buildings in the nearby neighborhoods, the park gets filled up beyond capacity on the weekends, because those newly moved in residents want to enjoy the greenery.
What makes things worse is that one half of the park is currently closed for a big renovation project. And California is in a drought, so during the winter we've had much sunnier weather than usual, which is when people frequent nearby parks more often. Some old-timers claim that we're in this pickle because of droves of nouveau-riche Silicon Valley workers, cashing in big down south and living in the city, thinking they own the world and don't have to abide by any rules. I'm not sure this is 100% true. If you look at the park's history, it has been through a lot of interesting times. Way back, the Ohlone Indians lived on the land, then came the Spanish missionaries and cattle farmers. Between 1861 and 1894 there was a Jewish cemetery on the premises, and after the big quake in 1906, the city erected baracks there to provide a living space for the people who became homeless in the quake's aftermath. We hope that residents figure out eventually how to get along with each other and the park stays here for a long time to come.
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