The High Bridge is is accessed through a park on the slopes of Manhattan (map here), where there are still signs of decay from the financial crisis (the one from the 1980s, not 2000s) when NYC was on the ropes.
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But then there was this:
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A temporary sculpture exhibition, similar to our Biennale, with pieces lining the allee that leads to the water tower.
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Several people, young and old, seeing us with a map, spontaneously offered directions, and then engaged in conversation (one was a retired linguistics professor who had good memories of Vancouver “except for the surprising number of homeless people.” Yup, that was from a New Yorker.)
memories of Vancouver “except for the surprising number of homeless people.”
It might at first appear as a homeless issue but anyone who has spent any time on the East Side knows that it’s really an issue of tragically dysfunctional people that mostly can never be reintegrated into society, even if homes were available to purchase for a few thousand dollars.
Has anyone seen anything like the DTES anywhere else in the world?
I’ve been in tin-shack slums in Mexico and the Caribbean and I’ve seen the slums of India and the back streets of China, Mongolia and some of Africa. I’ve also stayed in some seedy hotels where I used a chair to block anyone breaking in. The difference is that poor places can be dignified. They do not have to be teeming with self-destructive madness and filth as the DTES is.
Nothing I’ve yet seen comes close to the Officially Sanctioned squirming, fetid depravity of the Downtown East Side of Vancouver. It is a study in Darwinian anarchy.
What a beautiful passage to kick off the weekend. No mention in your Poem of the Natives that suffered physical and sexual abuse while being in our lovely government care over the years. No mention of the mental health victims pushed out from Riverview in the 90’s. God forbid one of your Grandchildren could have a traumatic life event and end up down there.
So if trauma occurred anarchy and unlimited self-destruction are permitted and we must just facilitate, finance and stand back?
Where does that work well?
You make this out like its the worst example in the world. Have you been to LA’s Skid row? Even Portland has people living in tents around East Burnside. This is concentrated in two blocks that has now been cleaned up by the city.
Ron, I’ve spent lots of time in Los Angeles. It has become somewhat sadder than it was. With some associates I actually looked over a building for renovating right around 6th and San Pedro. You can seriously damage yourself a couple of blocks away from the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco too. In Vancouver it’s just hands off. Let it be. I don’t think many people still think this is the right thing to do.