Dreary melodrama along Mid-Market
Arts groups distressed by crime, homelessness
Patrons of the magnificent theaters that dot San Francisco’s Mid-Market and Civic Center neighborhoods know that some of the most jaw-dropping drama isn’t happening onstage at all. It’s happening on the sidewalks and in the BART station just outside.
There we see scenes that we can only wish were the stuff of imagination. The men and women jabbing needles into just about every part of their bodies, the mentally ill people screaming, the shifty characters selling stolen goods at Seventh and Market streets, the drug dealers hawking their wares in broad daylight.
In December, I took my 7-year-old son to the San Francisco Ballet’s “Nutcracker.” On our way to the ballet — which started at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday, mind you — I saw a man passed out on the floor of the Civic Center BART Station with his pants and underwear around his knees. A group of men was shooting up outside the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. Thankfully, I was able to distract my little boy with conversation of happier things.
But plenty of arts patrons aren’t willing to look the other way. I was recently forwarded an email sent to SHN, which produces shows at the Orpheum and Golden Gate theaters. It was from a Livermore woman who was canceling her subscription because the journey to the theater had become so miserable.
“Between the odor and filth, the crowds of homeless hanging around the Civic Center and Powell stations, and the ongoing news stories about unaddressed crime problems on both the trains and in the stations, it’s not worth the stress,” she wrote. “We’ve decided to stay in the East Bay and see shows in Berkeley.”
Are we really willing to cede our longtime, trea-
sured status as an epicenter for creativity and the arts to this? To shrug and say, well, two-stepping through feces, needles and puddles of urine, and rushing past blatant criminal activity is the unofficial surcharge for purchasing tickets to the theater in San Francisco?
Finally, it seems the pleas for help from arts organizations to City Hall are beginning to be answered.
On Dec. 3, Alan Jones, dean emeritus of Grace Cathedral and a member of the board of trustees for the American Conservatory Theater, which operates the Strand Theater on Mid-Market, sent a letter to Mayor Ed Lee and a few other city officials. Lee, of course, died just nine days later. The letter was one in an organized campaign of complaints from ACT board members.
“There is the making of a civic crisis on Market Street which needs to be addressed,” Jones’ letter began. “The establishment of the Mid-Market arts corridor is a major commitment that the city has made, yet the reality is floundering due to the issues of street crime, drug addicts and homelessness, as well as the boarded up store fronts . ... It is in danger of falling apart.”
The Strand, a striking, bright red building that stands out amid the grimness of the neighborhood, opened three years ago with the pledge from City Hall that it would help usher in a renaissance in downtrodden Mid-Market and turn it into a glorious arts corridor.
But it turns out that adding a theater to a neighborhood didn’t make its problems go away, and some ACT officials feel the city overpromised and far under-delivered.
ACT Executive Director Peter Pastreich said the company receives complaints from many of its 12,000 subscribers, especially older ones, who feel unsafe parking nearby and walking to the theater or riding BART and coping with the notorious Civic Center Station.
“Our audience and our staff feel compassionate for the homeless and drug addicted on our streets,” he said. “What we’re not very patient with or sympathetic to is the criminal element that is preying on our city.”
ACT has been forced to spend $170,000 annually on private security, money it should be spending on its education programs and theatrical productions, Pastreich said. Management is pleased that no patrons or staff have been attacked, he added, which seems like a ridiculously low bar when it comes to feeling good about your neighborhood.
Lee was struck by the letter campaign from the ACT board members, and it further cemented his laser-like focus on dealing with the city’s widespread street misery.
Jason Elliott, the chief of staff for Lee and now Mayor Mark Farrell, recalled his boss’ lecture shortly before his death: “We can’t let arts organizations fail. We’ve done too much to bring arts organizations into this neighborhood, and we’ve got to be successful here.”
Elliott, who has the program from Lee’s memorial service displayed in his office, was distraught by his boss’ early death and seems personally committed to ensuring that his goals are fulfilled. On Jan. 26, Elliott attended a meeting at the Strand with Pastreich, police brass and representatives from Theater Bay Area and Alonzo King Lines Ballet to discuss what arts institutions need from the city.
Pastreich said small changes are helping, including the Tenderloin Police Station being informed of performance schedules so it can send extra officers to the block before and after each show.
In the months before his death, Lee had a keen eye on Mid-Market and would regularly grab staffers and march them over there to check on the quality-of-life issues, preferably with a stop at Pop sons Burgers or Sam’s Diner for his favorite fattening fare, Elliott recalled.
“It would completely blow up my schedule for the day — and my diet,” Elliott said with a laugh. “Trying to order the egg white omelet at Sam’s doesn’t really work.”
Elliott continues to walk from City Hall to Mid-Market three or four times a week, often grabbing tea at the Strand’s cafe. He outlined remedies the city is trying to address the quality-of-life problems on the streets.
Navigation Centers, doubling the budget of the Homeward Bound program to provide free bus tickets home for people living on the streets, the unified command strategy of placing representatives from the Police Department and other agencies together in the same room every day, the drive to get 1,000 homeless people off the streets.
“When he got focused on a problem and he believed it was solvable, he was tenacious,” Elliott said of Lee. “We lost our boss and our friend, but we have not lost a step in moving forward on these initiatives that were important to him.”
The mayor’s administration thinks these efforts are working, but it’s not easy to find members of the public who agree.
“There can be a gap between data and perception,” Elliott acknowledged. “People don’t perceive a difference, and you can’t deny what they’re experiencing.”
Let’s hope for a day when San Francisco arts patrons’ most memorable experiences happen inside the theater, not outside it.