I knew SF was spiraling the drain after the following bizarre frightening experience in 2015....let me first say that I grew up in SF in a middle class family. During my school years there , from the age of about 10 , my brother and I walked around the city together , without our parents, traveling by MUNI bus and BART to get to school, …
I knew SF was spiraling the drain after the following bizarre frightening experience in 2015....let me first say that I grew up in SF in a middle class family. During my school years there , from the age of about 10 , my brother and I walked around the city together , without our parents, traveling by MUNI bus and BART to get to school, visit friend’s houses, etc. This was not unusual for elementary school age children living in SF. Once I was a bit older I went downtown alone to orthodontist appointments, getting to my part time job, etc. Never had a problem with any of this and almost never felt unsafe. Fast forward to 2015. My husband and I were attempting to take our young daughter to a children’s theater performance downtown. We found the entire Civic Center BART station to be occupied by wall to wall vagrants and addicts passed out in the station or actively shooting up drugs, needles all over the place, human excrement along the walls, etc. We picked our daughter up, ran out of the station, entered onto the sidewalk and found the streets lined with more of the same in the middle of the afternoon. Many of the people passed out looked dead to me. Before we could hail a cab to get the hell out of there vagrants were lunging at us, throwing used syringes at us, trying to trip us and yank my backpack off of me, etc. We never even made it to the theater that day. We high tailed it home in a taxi. So much for a fun day in the big city with the family! That was 7 years ago, it’s much worse now. Those kinds of scenes are now common throughout SF. That old beautiful historic theater is now boarded up.
I knew SF was spiraling the drain after the following bizarre frightening experience in 2015....let me first say that I grew up in SF in a middle class family. During my school years there , from the age of about 10 , my brother and I walked around the city together , without our parents, traveling by MUNI bus and BART to get to school, visit friend’s houses, etc. This was not unusual for elementary school age children living in SF. Once I was a bit older I went downtown alone to orthodontist appointments, getting to my part time job, etc. Never had a problem with any of this and almost never felt unsafe. Fast forward to 2015. My husband and I were attempting to take our young daughter to a children’s theater performance downtown. We found the entire Civic Center BART station to be occupied by wall to wall vagrants and addicts passed out in the station or actively shooting up drugs, needles all over the place, human excrement along the walls, etc. We picked our daughter up, ran out of the station, entered onto the sidewalk and found the streets lined with more of the same in the middle of the afternoon. Many of the people passed out looked dead to me. Before we could hail a cab to get the hell out of there vagrants were lunging at us, throwing used syringes at us, trying to trip us and yank my backpack off of me, etc. We never even made it to the theater that day. We high tailed it home in a taxi. So much for a fun day in the big city with the family! That was 7 years ago, it’s much worse now. Those kinds of scenes are now common throughout SF. That old beautiful historic theater is now boarded up.