PROBLEM AND SOLUTIONS

It should be obvious that the fountain is not the cause of the social problems that plague the neighborhood, but rather is the victim. There is no landscape architecture "fix" that will correct the problems of homelessness and anti-social behavior.

However, that is not to say that there aren't things that can be done to begin to obviate some of the problems surrounding this modern landmark.

As Jane Jacobs noted in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, (1961), bad uses do not drive out good uses; bad uses come in to fill up the vacuum where good uses have already left. The entire San Francisco Civic Center, generally regarded as one of the most complete American Beaux Arts civic ensemble, is a series of Beaux Arts and now, post modern pseudo Beaux Arts government buildings – with rare exceptions, open only during business hours.– each with few entrances on the street, and no small-scale retail. They surround a large plaza, with no uses in it, and little reason to linger. So we find people doing business in the Civic Center scurrying through the plaza, dodging the homeless, on their way to an underground parking garage.

Fulton Street Mall, the now-bricked former street running from U.N. Plaza to the Civic Center works fine on the three days a week a market operates there. While there is a contingent of homeless, they are far outnumbered by merchants and shoppers, and behavior is generally reasonable. The problems on Fulton Street occur on the other four days, and in the evenings, when nothing is going on. The lesson is pretty clear here: have more activities on more days – the farmers market, a flower market, sidewalk art exhibits – San Francisco has no shortage of potential users, just of an organization anxious to organize them. For years there have been suggestions of running a spur of the F-Line trolley from Market Street up the Fulton Mall – a relatively inexpensive and easy project with a real transportation purpose that would further activate the area.

The worst behavior at U.N. Plaza is at the northwest corner. Here, in Leavenworth Mall section, the unfortunate collection of a solid wall extending from the Old Federal Building (50 U.N. Plaza), the unused entrance to 50 U.N. Plaza, and the highest part of the fountain, all conspire to form an area hidden from public view. The solutions here can be several. For example, the General Services Administration (GSA) could remove a portion of the offending wall while the City Department of Public Works, which has responsibility for the fountain, could engage Halprin to see how he might open up the area.

In terms of programming opportunities, 50 U.N. Plaza has a cafeteria – as most government buildings do – internal to the building, keeping workers inside at lunch. Why not set up a sidewalk café for them at this corner? Everyone would benefit.

The Leavenworth Mall also needs to be activated. Here, the ground floor of the single private office building on the east side of Leavenworth mall has been vacant for years. If the city, state or federal government were to install a high-traffic pedestrian office there, problems would significantly diminish during business hours of operation. Better yet, if the nearby Hasting Law School, which needs development entitlements from the city, were induced to locate a student bookstore and coffee shop in that space, it could be busy day and night. Combine that with a day care center for workers in surrounding government buildings and the Halprin fountain has the potential to become an iconic center of a vibrant space, both day and night.

Additionally, the U. N. Plaza is but a short walk from Hallidie Plaza, the cable car turnaround and a central locale for hundreds of thousands of tourists annually. Because of its strategic locale, visible from Hallidie, and on the route to City Hall, another popular visitor destination, the space has the potential to entice some of these visitors to talk this walk, animating all the sidewalk along Market, and further bringing up the whole neighborhood.

Within the context of these general recommendations, it is important to remember that the single great resource this area has is the Halprin fountain design – an exciting feature in an otherwise unremarkable location. It suffers dearly from the wanton neglect of the city of both it and the environment around it. Figuring out what to do to improve this environment is frankly not that hard. How to do it is more difficult. But it should be clear that destroying the one best resource of the neighborhood is not the way to improve the area.

Continue >>