F I R S TP R E V846NEXTLAST

Macaulay Park, The Tenderloin
Things are tough for a child growing up in the Tenderloin. The dirty streets are filled with drug addicts and intoxicated people and even the rare playground, like Macaulay Park above, is located across the street from the New Century, a strip club. The Tenderloin, a historic area full of preserved hotels from the early 20th century, remains the city's center of crime, drug sales, prostitution, sex shops, and liquor stores. All that despite being located only a few blocks from San Francisco's prestigious real estate districts of Nob Hill, Union Square, and the Civic Center.

What makes the situation in the Tenderloin even worse is that the district has one of the city's highest concentrations of children as well as homeless, elderly, and disabled populations. The dot-com boom of the '90s started a short-lived gentrification movement in the Tenderloin but the scatterings of bohemian art galleries, clubs, and ethnic restaurants have done little to change the squalor of the area. It's sad to say, but despite all the hard work of local government, private, and faith-based groups, perhaps it is inevitable for all major cities have an area near downtown like our Tenderloin.
[ MAP G-13 ]