Jackson West over at the SF Appeal, who just moved to to the neighborhood and therefore isn’t qualified to have an opinion, gives his two cents about Dolores Park and the community meeting the other night:
…A few dozen others arrived, most from the blocks directly around the park but a few from further afield in the Mission and beyond. And everyone did admit there was a problem, at least with trash. Other problems cited included the bathrooms, hipsters, Mexicans, irrigation, wind, people who don’t own property next to the park, Critical Mass, politicians and, despite all these apparent defects, too many people.
And that, friends, is the essential irony. For a park that is “dying,” it is quite popular! Internationally so. Leaving the younger crowd counter-intuitively arguing to maintain the status quo, and even the older crowd admitting that it’s a better place than it was at some arbitrary point in the past when it was ruled by gangs and drug users, as opposed to now.
But there was a clear generation gap, with the introduction period amounting to one-upsmanship as to who lived closer and longer. The implication being that somehow factoring proximity and longevity mathematically lent one’s point of view more weight. Which it does not. Especially when it is matched with complaints about people and their sense of entitlement.
Its called manners.
People who move to SF and leave their manners (if they ever had any) behind are obnoxious, and all you young-uns (who take the welcome you generally get from the long time residents of this great city for granted), if you have any talent, and drive, and a significant other who keep saying “can we buy a place and get out of this whole renting trap?” … well you young-uns will someday know exactly what I mean.
People who are smart enough, and bestowed with a decent upbringing enough and have wanted for little enough in their lives except for maybe a big fat “I’m cool dammit, notice me” ENOUGH… owe it to themselves and their fellow residents to show a little fucking respect for other people.
Burma Shave.
Respect is a two-way street and proper manners includes not making sweeping generalizations or smug and self-satisfied pronouncements. It means dealing with other people as people, not caricatures drawn from prejudice. It also means having the humility to realize that moral authority does not automatically accompany sedentism.
And I say this as somebody who’s been wandering around the streets of the mission since I was a child.
Yeah, no offense Mistaken, but you’re the last person to come on here and lecture about mannners (Well, maybe Zinzin is
)
sounds like a fun meeting!
Glad to hear that people generally agreed that trash scattered in the park is bad. Come on, people, there’s a giant floating garbage patch in the middle of the Pacific, and we’re on a coast which feeds it. Though most of that might just come from Capp Street.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
hipster ritual macbook dolores fixed gear keywords for any comment. shut up get over it
unless you live near the park, you are just visiting, no matter if you riding in, taking BART, driving from Marin to see the symphony,or walking from 20th and Folsom. 95% of visitors are great, 5% are assholes, the problem is that now there are 5X more assholes in the park than there were 5 years ago
FACT!
Anyone know the schedule for the unusual games that get played on the tennis court? I’m talking about dodgeball and bicycle polo. Are there more?
Oh, and about the trash. Yeah, pick up your trash. Leave no trace. No MOOP.
And about the people who wait in line for the bathroom forever… We could use some troughs for the guys. And I don’t know what makes a women’s bathroom more efficient.
Sunshine FTW!
thanks to everyone that came out Sunday at 2pm and picked up trash, cig butts, broken glass and bottle caps. Actions, not words….
fix the playground and install freewheel hubs and smoke dove and play Purple Rain and Slayer.