Krims Krams Palace of Fine Junk, Turk Street
Day 52
Neighborhoods Covered: Western Addition, Civic Center, Tenderloin
Streets Completed: Dodge Place, Olive, Myrtle, Hemlock, Ophir, Trader Vic Alley, Cosmo, Shannon, Isadora Duncan (Adelaide), Hobart, Derby, Elm
The Tenderloin may not be the most hideous neighborhood in the city (What is? Check back in December.), but it's definitely up there on the list. Though there are some lovely old buildings, a good smattering of mini parks, good cheap restaurants and dive bars, and several places to catch live music or theater, there are also many, many examples of what happens if you throw your life away and don't do much (if anything) to try and retrieve it.
On Sunday, I headed out from home and did a weaving back-and-forth on the short east-west streets running roughly between Van Ness and Larkin, then headed into the 'Loin. Although the parting of the clouds and the sudden, bright arrival of the sun made for some warmer strolling and some striking photos, the improved weather did nothing to help the neighborhood as a whole. It was still deeply, seriously grungy and overwhelmingly redolent of urine.
Perhaps because it was Sunday afternoon, I passed several families with small children as I was out and about, often right before I passed (or stepped around) folks weaving down the sidewalk or sprawled out on same, incoherent and messed up on something. At the corner of Hyde and Turk, I passed a woman and a man sharing hits off a crack pipe literally moments before I nearly walked into a couple pushing a stroller and leading two slightly older kids by the hand--and that just depressed me.
This might be a borderline Republican thing to say, but I have such limited sympathy for the inhabitants of the 'Loin who cause and then wallow in their own misery, and I feel so much for the people who make their homes in this neighborhood because, by and large and like it or not, it's where they can afford to live. There are complexities and subtleties to addiction such as it's manifest on these streets, and I don't dismiss them easily. But still, it's so incredibly frustrating and sad to see the polarities of existence in this grid of city blocks.
Eleven years in the city have shown me many things, and I've long been inured to most of them. On Sunday, though, long after I'd walked home and moved onto other things, the image of those two groups at Hyde and Turk stuck with me. I hate to think what those parents have to teach their kids not to see.
Neighborhoods Covered: Western Addition, Civic Center, Tenderloin
Streets Completed: Dodge Place, Olive, Myrtle, Hemlock, Ophir, Trader Vic Alley, Cosmo, Shannon, Isadora Duncan (Adelaide), Hobart, Derby, Elm
The Tenderloin may not be the most hideous neighborhood in the city (What is? Check back in December.), but it's definitely up there on the list. Though there are some lovely old buildings, a good smattering of mini parks, good cheap restaurants and dive bars, and several places to catch live music or theater, there are also many, many examples of what happens if you throw your life away and don't do much (if anything) to try and retrieve it.
On Sunday, I headed out from home and did a weaving back-and-forth on the short east-west streets running roughly between Van Ness and Larkin, then headed into the 'Loin. Although the parting of the clouds and the sudden, bright arrival of the sun made for some warmer strolling and some striking photos, the improved weather did nothing to help the neighborhood as a whole. It was still deeply, seriously grungy and overwhelmingly redolent of urine.
Perhaps because it was Sunday afternoon, I passed several families with small children as I was out and about, often right before I passed (or stepped around) folks weaving down the sidewalk or sprawled out on same, incoherent and messed up on something. At the corner of Hyde and Turk, I passed a woman and a man sharing hits off a crack pipe literally moments before I nearly walked into a couple pushing a stroller and leading two slightly older kids by the hand--and that just depressed me.
This might be a borderline Republican thing to say, but I have such limited sympathy for the inhabitants of the 'Loin who cause and then wallow in their own misery, and I feel so much for the people who make their homes in this neighborhood because, by and large and like it or not, it's where they can afford to live. There are complexities and subtleties to addiction such as it's manifest on these streets, and I don't dismiss them easily. But still, it's so incredibly frustrating and sad to see the polarities of existence in this grid of city blocks.
Eleven years in the city have shown me many things, and I've long been inured to most of them. On Sunday, though, long after I'd walked home and moved onto other things, the image of those two groups at Hyde and Turk stuck with me. I hate to think what those parents have to teach their kids not to see.
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