I saw nothing like this when I visited San Francisco in the 1990s. Things have gone downhill there since then.
Never been there and don’t want to.
I’ll stick with reruns of The Streets Of San Francisco, Ironside, and McMillan & Wife reruns for any SF fix.
I spent a day in the Marina district last month and saw none of this. I guess it depends on where you’re looking.
The Tenderloin has always been the seediest part of the city, a part sane citizens know to avoid. I moved to SF in the summer of ‘73 and we knew even then it was a no-go area of winos, addicts, crazy people and filth. The human debris has always been contained in that district. It’s weird that the old upscale theater district abuts the Tenderloin. As the Tenderloin has spilled out, the Theater District has deteriorated. Lots of huge conferences at the Moscone Center hold overflow events and presentations at hotels next to the Tenderloin. It makes for a fun time going to those presentations.
“I saw nothing like this when I visited San Francisco in the 1990s. Things have gone downhill there since then.”
I was in Sacramento in 1993...that was the last time I was in CA. California was still a nice, fun, optimistic, tfull-of-life place...near as I could tell. Apparently the intervening 25 years have not been kind.
Some people have suggested that the opioid sales that started in the late 1990s...started the trend. Heroin started up about fifteen years ago as a trend in general.
I took my mother to see Riverdance at a theater in San Francisco one Friday night in 1991. After the show, we had to step over people sleeping in doorways and on the sidewalk all down the block to the parking garage.
I said then that I would never return to SF unless I had to. I've kept my word. I've only returned once, to the passport office.