Since living and working downtown again I’ve really gained a different perspective on it after being very critical of how the City/private enterprise maintains their spaces.
Yes, there are lots that business and property owners that could do better—heck just a quarterly pressure wash job on building frontage and sidewalks would do wonders for most—but the scale of what they’re up against is mind boggling to the point I can understand why some just don’t care or refuse to put money toward it.
Commerce Place along 102 where the old Kasia space were are basically used as urinals. Just reeks of piss and there’s pools of it all over. Quadreal is out regularly washing with soap and water but they finish up and within a few hours it’s disgusting all over again.
Same with garbage. There’s one determined gentlemen who sets up in the alley behind my building regularly. Sometimes it’s everyday for weeks on end. Everyday he accumulates all sorts of crap—tents, tarps, blankets, pallets, carts—plus an almost unbelievable amount of just miscellaneous garbage. Every morning the City comes by and cleans it up. But if the wind is blowing in the right direction, a lot of his crap just blows away everywhere before the City gets there, and things end up looking like shit.
What can be done? It is not like there is no effort being put toward it. But the burden levied on those here in downtown is really unfair given they (plus those in Chinatown, Boyle Street, McCauley, etc) who are bearing the brunt of all the social disorder.
