In San Francisco, Red-Light Denizens Fight to Stay Seedy

[PatrickHenry]

The Wall Street Journal - Philips Free Friday
This article caught my attention when glancing at an old WSJ.

I find a lot of things objectionable about the newspaper of monopoly capitalism, but this one on social issues blew me away with its relevance.

SAN FRANCISCO -- When Carolyn Abst moved into this city's harsh Tenderloin district several years ago, she thought she would be welcomed. As owner of an architecture firm, she was bringing in jobs and ideas to revitalize the area. Instead, some of her neighbors called for her head. "Wanted" posters went up around the Tenderloin last year, featuring Ms. Abst's photo. Someone circulated pamphlets disparaging her. Residents yelled at her in the street. Ms. Abst's offense: trying to plant 400 trees in the area. "I had no idea that cleanliness, beauty and safety could get people so riled up," the 58-year-old says.

In San Francisco's Tenderloin, residents aren't fighting the usual gentrification battle over displacing low-income families. Instead, they are fighting for the neighborhood's gritty ambience. Often described by tourist guides as San Francisco's worst neighborhood, the Tenderloin has for years been a gathering point for pimps, drug addicts and transvestites and transgender residents, some of whom work as prostitutes. Some residents say that's what gives the Tenderloin its personality and makes it a crucial piece of San Francisco's diverse cityscape. Cleanup efforts, these residents contend, threaten to destroy an atmosphere that welcomes people on the fringe of society, who otherwise could find no refuge. And it distracts from the issues the neighborhood really cares about, such as safety for sex workers and affordable housing. "This was a place where people who don't fit in, the ostracized and cast-off, could find a place of their own," says Tenderloin resident Matt Bernstein Sycamore, a former prostitute and now a member of a local gay activist group called Gay Shame. The group, which was behind the "wanted" posters that targeted Ms. Abst and her tree-planting campaign, has been joined by other neighborhood activists in efforts to combat what it calls a "sanitized vision for the future." Mr. Sycamore, a sometime club host who is also known by his drag-queen name, Mary Hedgefunds, says he has now moved out of his one-bedroom Tenderloin rental because the neighborhood is no longer a place where he wants to live. At least one city official is sympathetic to the local activists' cause. "Yes, people are addicted to drugs and, yes, there's homelessness," says Chris Daly, a Democrat who represents the Tenderloin district on San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, the city's legislative branch. But "why shouldn't these people have a place of their own?" Mr. Daly, a proponent of affordable housing, has steered funding to nonprofit social services and tenant-protection programs for the area. Carolyn Abst 'Wanted' poster The Tenderloin is a 20-square-block area sandwiched between downtown and the tony neighborhoods of Pacific Heights and Russian Hill. It bears the old name of a district in Manhattan, where patrolling cops in the early 1900s who profited from extortion could afford the choicest cuts of meat. In the 1970s, Polk Street, the main thoroughfare of San Francisco's Tenderloin, became a cluster of sex shops, spurred by the area's cheap rents. In recent years, with the city reeling from some of the nation's highest housing costs, professionals like Ms. Abst have also eyed the area's affordable real estate. And they are remaking the district. Along the Tenderloin's western edge, chic new digs are replacing the dives and hangouts that catered to sex workers. The Polk Gulch Saloon, where transgender patrons and drag queens once congregated, is now the Lush Lounge, serving watermelon martinis to an upscale clientele. The Giraffe, a working-class gay bar since the 1970s, is now Hemlock, a venue for rock and punk bands that attracts the college crowd.

What do you guys think of keeping an area of a huge beautiful city "seedy" so that lowlifes can feel at home there?

[Milton Bradley]

How dare she try to interfere with HUD's plans to "revitalize" the neighborhood.


Doesn't everybody like drugs, prostitution, and violent crime within walking distance of their home, or business?

[kubedawg]

Trees rebuild themselves. Let nature do it's own work. I hate advocates like her.

[Captain Chaos]

Quote by: PatrickHenry The Wall Street Journal - Philips Free Friday This article caught my attention when glancing at an old WSJ. I find a lot of things objectionable about the newspaper of monopoly capitalism, but this one on social issues blew me away with its relevance. What do you guys think of keeping an area of a huge beautiful city "seedy" so that lowlifes can feel at home there?

Can't lowlifes continue to be lowlifes with trees around?

[grandpa]

Quote by: Captain Chaos Can't lowlifes continue to be lowlifes with trees around?

Yeah, I don't understand the point. This defies logic.

Grandpa h.

[brien]

Wonderful. Now we have an advocate group that supports a lifestyle of drunkeness, drug addiction, crime and poverty. Now political activism has surely come full circle.

Perhpas Carolyn should plant poppies instead of trees.

[Captain Chaos]

I think we should start advocating for people who p!ss off the locals...

Speaking of which - I should start a new thread.