- By Natalia Gurevich | Examiner staff writer |
- Aug 20, 2023 (SFExaminer.com)
The fight converging over the future of beleaguered United Nations Plaza represents how San Francisco leaders and community members are divided over what constitutes a community space — and to whom such spaces belong.
The San Francisco Recreation and Park Department, directed by Mayor London Breed’s office, is breaking ground on a new pilot program designed to “activate the space” by establishing a skate park and pingpong tables, and pouring asphalt over the currently brick-covered plaza near City Hall.
But in doing so, the department is relocating a beloved farmers market from its 42-year home in a part of The City with few options for fresh produce.
“I think that The City has been very short-sighted in not looking at what the farmers market needs and providing it for them,” said Adele Framer, a Haight-
Ashbury resident who said she has been shopping at the market for nearly 20 years. “They’re an asset to The City.”
But city leaders contend that something must be done to combat the area’s safety issues, including open drug use and crime, which have deterred people from spending time there.
“We are dealing with a lot of public safety issues in terms of the open-air drug market,” said Pratibha Tekkey, the organizing coordinator of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic. “People always complain about how bad U.N. Plaza is at night and even during the day.”
Tekkey said that because the plaza is not a defined space, it’s opened up to safety risks. The decision to turn it into a skate park and a place for other games is a way to improve the space, she said.
“It’s a pilot project, and I completely support that because we’ve got to do something positive, something creative,” she said.
But others — like David Elliot Lewis, co-chair of the Tenderloin People’s Congress — disagree.
“U.N. Plaza is kind of a social gathering space for a lot of low-income residents and SRO residents who have nowhere else to go,” Lewis said. “People who live in single-room occupancy hotels don’t have a living room or often a recreation room, and their only recreation space is U.N. Plaza.”
The Tenderloin doesn’t have many parks, he said, or other free and accessible spaces.
“I believe a lot of support is coming from the mayor’s office to do something about U.N. Plaza — do something means brushing away poor people and those that make affluent people uncomfortable,” he said.
There are other ways to reinvent the space that won’t mean forcing the farmers market to move, Lewis said, such as bringing in food trucks or a craft market from time to time. “We’re not saying no to activation,” he said.
The farmers market is being moved to a parking lot nearby on Fulton Street, between Larkin and Hyde streets, to make way for a new initiative part of Breed’s “Roadmap for Downtown,” which was unveiled earlier this year.
But concerns have been raised by community members and groups about the new space’s size, which they say will be harder for customers and farmers to access. Many said they are worried about how the change will affect the farmers market.
If the market had been able to run seven days a week instead of two, that would have settled the issue. But despite being asked multiple times by the Recreation and Parks Department to expand its days and hours, the market couldn’t make it work, said Daniel Montes, a spokesperson for the department.
“These activations, like skating elements and new other activities, we want those to be there seven days a week,” he said. “We want people to have these options.”
Breed asked the department to take over stewardship of U.N. Plaza earlier this year as part of her strategy to revitalize downtown.
“What we do with parks and public spaces in our experience is bringing fun, healthy activities to public spaces and parks,” Montes said. “It’s what works and what draws people in.”
But ripping out the plaza’s bricks and pouring asphalt is a bridge too far for some residents. Ed Whiteman said he has been shopping at the market since it opened in 1981.
“They said this was an experiment,” he said. “What are you talking about?”
The City’s assurance that if the pilot program doesn’t work, the farmers will be able to move back, doesn’t make sense to Whiteman.
“By that time, those farmers will be gone,” he said. “We’ll lose the market.”
Steve Pulliam, executive director of the market, said the issue is about communication — or lack thereof.
“I think that one of the primary issues has been that it’s happening so fast,” he said.
Although he was alerted to the move in April has been in touch with The City over the last few months, Pulliam said he didn’t know the change was going to happen until he read about it in the news.
“According to them, we’ve been supportive of the project, and we’ve been working with them,” he said. “I guess technically that’s true, but it was more like they would show me a layout of us moving across the street and I’d say no, that’s not going to work for us.”
Ultimately, Pulliam wants to move past this.
“I’m gonna try my best to make a new location work,” he said. “Some of the information that’s gotten out there is that we’re going to close — I want everybody to know that we’re not closing.”
The market’s first day at the new location will be Sunday, Sept. 3. In the new location, the hours will be reduced from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays and 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Wednesdays to 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., according to a release issued by the Heart of the City Farmers Market earlier this week.
“We’re gonna try to make the best of the situation at hand,” said Pulliam.
