At 3:30 p.m. on this spring Saturday, there are no children in Kid Power Park.
Just around the corner from the 16th Street BART plaza, the Hoff Street park is a little green refuge amid the neighborhood’s urban melee.
The plaza is all action: Men chat on the stoop of the BART station, women sell fruit in front of police cars, and Muni buses rumble by. On neighboring side streets — like Capp, Weise, and Caledonia — groups of people mill about trash-strewn sidewalks.
At Kid Power Park, all is calm: “Aqui esta tranquilo,” confirms Josue Reyes, one of four men who sit on the green wooden benches around a fountain at the center of the park.
Reyes doesn’t live in the city, but he occasionally stops here before his night shift at a local bar. Two of the other men were coming from work, their jeans covered in paint. They listen to music through wire headphones and smoked cigarettes.
A parks and recreation employee comes by to pick up the trash.
Aside from its Hoff Street entrance, residential buildings encase the park on all sides. Nasturtium grows in wooden garden beds and birds of paradise peek out beside decorative wrought iron arches.
Playground equipment flanks the seating area around the fountain. Signs notify visitors that “Adults must be accompanied by a child,” but there are no children here.
On the right side, one man naps in the turf beside some swings, his head propped up on a backpack. Another man sits by the slide.
Douglas, wearing a worn grey fedora, stands on the left side with his Pitbull — also called Douglas — and a friend who is napping on a bench. The park, he says, is a place to “get one’s mind together.”
Kids, Douglas said, aren’t at the park too often because they’re in school. He said he wished there were more activities for them in the area. “It can really be a nice place if they keep it up.”
A couple and their toddler arrive a few minutes later. It was the family’s second time trying out the park.
The last time they stopped by was in October, said the mother, Danielle, and they “wrote it off.” Needles and syringes lay on the rubber safety surfacing underneath the climbing dome, and there was only one other child.
“The Park itself is really nice,” said the father, Nate. “But the neighborhood has its challenges.”
The couple pointed out that a dog should not be able to wander around a children’s playground without a leash. As their daughter began chasing a soccer ball, Douglas the human and Douglas the dog ambled over to the seating area near the fountain.
Back in the day, residents of the neighboring Julian Avenue say, the park used to be a place where neighborhood kids ran free.
“My daughter grew up playing there,” one said. “Now there’s adults hanging out in there shooting up drugs, even though there’s a sign that says, ‘You can’t be here without children.’”
No drug activity was visible on Saturday. But neither were groups of children playing.
How tragic.
Just like the childrens park at Myrtle and Larkin.
The drug dens on Myrtle next to the park are still not addressed after seven years .
It appears the city supports the drug dealers and addicts rather then the children and neighborhood .
Millions spent to redo the park that is empty here .
Please come and visit and help expose the Lower Polk/Larkin drug fest and harm.
That playground is actually called Sgt. John Macaulay Park. It was named after a cop who got killed on duty. SFPD promised to provide upkeep for the park, but they haven’t in the 16 years that I’ve taken kids there. Police have repeatedly told me that that area is at the border of three precincts (Northern, Central and TL) so none of them bother to do much and when they consider it they decide it’s probably the responsibility of one of the other precincts. Captain Noble (TL Station) is the most recent one to copsplain that to me.
The larger concern for families is finding a way to the park. Inside is rather safe and clean, and it is stewarded by TLCB staff. Trying to navigate along O’Farrell or Hyde to get there is difficult. Larkin is a bit better, but more kids live to the east. Some after school programs use the park, but kids don’t arrive until 3:30 or so.
That used to be a pretty active destination for families with kids of the right age. But you learn pretty quick to avoid the parks where the drunks hang out.
It’s a push and pull. The one on Valencia between 19th and 20th was full of drunks, then the renovated it and the drunks were gone. It’s stayed kid friendly since, near as I can tell.
If rec & parks wants to reclaim Kid Power, they can easily enough.
Photos taken without consent of those with no social capital and in a compromised physical state is suspect. Given that there is no mystery on how this one ends, I question whether it’s worth it.
“No mystery on how this one ends”
What does this mean? How will it end?
Besides the off-leash dog, mentioned in the article, there is an unaccompanied adult in the playground. Kids have very little space in this city. I used to take my kid to Kid Power Park occasionally. It’s a nice spot. SF Rec and Park needs to figure out a way to keep kids’ spaces for kids.
It’s great that so far two people have down-voted this. What is the problem with providing kids places to play that don’t have off-leash dogs (and piles of dog shit) and adults loitering in the playground?
So how do you propose to kick adults out anyway?
Think harder.
So there’s one passed out junkie, one awake junkie, and another random guy with an unleashed dog. Shocking that parents don’t bring their kids there.