While the Marina exports an element to Hayes Valley, a plugged-in tipster reports that the Marina seems to be importing elements of the Tenderloin.
Recently, a friend of mine living in the Marina had their bike stolen from their garage. Since the thief (or thieves) physically broke into a home, the police had to take the report in person – versus over the phone. The police told my friend that there was a very good chance the culprit(s) were living just a few blocks away, in one of the many hotel/motels on Lombard Street.
It seems that as part of the Tenderloin “gentrification,” the city has been giving those hotels on Lombard “assistance” with relocating several of the notably more sinister Tenderloin residents in an effort to make the Tenderloin appear more neighborly and better situated for gentrification.
The police claim that the board of supervisors (actually referenced by the patrolmen as the “board of stupidvisors” to my friend) had a big hand in this effort. The police said that at least once per day, the SFPD responds to some type of incident (sounded from them to be typically drug related) either at a hotel or nearby in the Marina, and that the people in question are usually ex-Tenderloin residents.
We can’t confirm any specific “assistance” to which our tipster or the police refer, but our tip line is open (tips@socketsite.com). And our tipster’s closing sentence, “If true, if I was my friend, I would ask their supervisor to personally repay the cost of the stolen bike.”
UPDATE: According to CrimeMAPS, and as mapped above, a total of 295 offenses were logged for the half-mile radius around Lombard and Fillmore over the past 90 days. The top five offenses by count: Larceny/Theft (114); Burglary (66); Vandalism (41); Assault (31); Vehicle Theft (17).
That being said, and recognizing it’s far from sound science, back in January 2007 we mapped a 30 day count for the quarter-mile radius around 3208 Pierce Street which returned a total of 38 offenses. The count for the same radius and past 30 days: 29.
Editor: I love the site and check in all the time. But this post is nothing more than gossip and fear mongering. If you want to report stories like this, then do the research and check the facts like any resposible journalist would do. Then report accordingly. Otherwise you lose credibility.
[Editor’s Note: Please see comment below. Regardless, and as always, thank you for plugging in. Cheers.]
I wonder if it’s the infamous Bridge Motel on Lombard? Seems odd since the City Attorney’s office sent out a mass e-mail saying their suing the Patels. Anyway, very little surprises me these days. I’d love some proof of this though. Paper trail anyone?
All that said, it’s not as though criminals living in the ‘loin weren’t coming into Pac/Presidio Heights and the Marina to rob us anyway.
The Marina is still a good neighborhood but it’s showing its age and wear, not unlike Polk Street in the 50’s. Just look at those motels. And the uber-hip who’ve always chosen it for their roaring twenties now want their granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, and higher R-factor insulation. Call them spoiled, but they’re a different generation than the RE Pros who want to keep spinning the Marina while wondering why Mission Bay is fetching such high rents.
ditto what anon67 said….
I’ll second Sleepiguy’s comment about the Bridge Motel. I live right around the corner and the place is a complete hole with some of the worst looking elements going in and coming out. It’s too bad, because Dooley’s was a fun spot back in the day. I won’t even walk down that stretch of Lombard at night.
And the uber-hip who’ve always chosen it for their roaring twenties
Well, that’s a new one on me.
A few weeks ago, I had a friend pistol whipped in the marina by some oaklanders. They were actually caught a few days later getting off the bridge coming back for more free money.
That combined with the time i saw someone taking a dump into a laundry washing machine pretty much sums up the marina.
where is ronny reagan when we need him?
Credibility gap? Can’t imagine that Socketsite’s impeccable & thoughtful editorship could be tarnished. Just go next door and see what passes for editorship (replete with daily expletives and vulgar writing).
On a day in Mr Roger’s Neighborhood where we simply aren’t stunned enough to hear Caltrans exclaiming that the truck driver wouldn’t have fallen twenty stories to his death if he weren’t going 50mph and not the required 40mph, we have many urgent things to worry about. Organizational apologists to start with.
And again I’ve gone off topic.
Oh, the Tenderloin is gentrifying?
A while back on Socketsite there was discussion of a rash of muggings in the Marina. No neighborhood is immune to crime.
It’s ridiculous for the tipster to blame the TL for every bike stolen in the city. Actually, TL residents should be pissed that so many of the Bay Area’s troubled and troublemakers are re-settled into the TL.
Slow news day SS? Really, this post is pure dribble…
Happy in SF: Agree with Annon. I hope you were being sarcastic!
Did Socketsite sell a minority stake to News Corp? Ridiculous.
The current standard for hot properties is South of Market, so a lot more crazed homeless antics and public pooping is going to be needed to move the Marina forward to the point of being competitive. It is a good thing the SF BoS knows what really drives gentrification.
Great another: Blame Tenderloin article.
(think south park and its blame canada song)
This is a ridiculous article. Did anyone consider the Marina police might be spinning this situation to get the neighborhood are upset about a few cheap residential hotels? The SF police can be very political. If there is more crime in the Marina, the police stationed there can not hang out at Starbucks as much any more.
By the way: The tenderloiners do not complain when the Marina people invade our bars on the weekend (the Ambassador), act all VIP, drink too much and then vomite all over our sidewalks.
UPDATE: According to CrimeMAPS, and as mapped above, a total of 295 offenses were logged for the half-mile radius around Lombard and Fillmore over the past 90 days. The top five offenses by count: Larceny/Theft (114); Burglary (66); Vandalism (41); Assault (31); Vehicle Theft (17).
That being said, and recognizing it’s far from sound science, back in January 2007 we mapped a 30 day count for the quarter-mile radius around 3208 Pierce Street which returned a total of 38 offenses. The count for the same radius and past 30 days: 29.
Lol, tenderloiner, on Marina folks invading other neighborhoods.
If we build a Berlin Wall along California Street, there will be relieved parties on both sides!
…this post is nothing more than gossip and fear mongering.
The intent of this piece isn’t to rabble rouse or fear monger, it’s to draw out information and bring a discussion that’s happening behind the scenes out into the open. Ideally to either validate or bust any “gossip” that’s already making the rounds.
Once again as noted above, we can’t confirm any allegations of so called “assistance.” If you can, now’s the time to share.
Dribble” and “drivel” originally meant the same thing: drool. But the two words have become differentiated. When you mean to criticize someone else’s speech as stupid or pointless, the word you want is “drivel.”
That is more of a colorful dartboard than my “horrible blighted, why would anyone want to live there?” Bayview hood. Check out same map for Palou and Lane.
Of course if you want to trade houses, I would be happy to. Surprising how much “activity” is going on in the Marina. Wonder how much perpetrated by fake blond hair, fake boobed, black dress wearing, cell phone smacking, BMW driving……you get the idea.
This is really bad reporting. I live on the north side of the city where there was a rash of garage break-ins at many of the posh apartment/condo buildings last year (lots of bikes stolen). Anyone who had a sighting of the criminals reported that they were WHITE and looked EXTREMELY YUPPIE!!!!!
This thread reeks….
oh please… People of every ethnicity commit crimes… The couple (from the Tenderloin – hack cough) that committed repeated break-ins at my old apartment were white. The people that broke into the apt building on my current block were latin. The guys that stole tools from my construction site were black. Crime knows no color! lol
Anyway, most of these incidents are probably car break-ins, which are rampant in Pac Heights. Take a walk around at 6am on Sunday morning and you’ll see piles of glass everywhere. Most of the robberies were committed within 5 blocks of the Bridge Motel, which is telling. Also, I’d wager that most of the reported assaults on Chestnut are just the drunks.
That has to be the stupidest, whiniest bit of, yes, drivel I’ve seen in some time. Why do I get the distinct impression that this person regularly extols the virtues of “personal responsibility” and bemoans the lack of same. Well, as long as it’s someone else’s “personal responsibility.”
i work near the surf motel on lombard and pierce. there are a lot of unsavory looking characters (mostly white folk, since it seems to matter) strolling around very regularly. i’ve seen undercover prostitution stings take place there, i see the same people staying there for months at a time. these aren’t tourists coming to enjoy the city. i’m not sure what they are, but i definitely am mindful of what they’re up to. its almost as if lombard street is a neighborhood unto itself. everything around it is fine, but everything on it is shit.
Dribble” and “drivel” originally meant the same thing: drool. But the two words have become differentiated. When you mean to criticize someone else’s speech as stupid or pointless, the word you want is “drivel.”
Oops, “drivel” is the word I was looking for! Can someone now delete this thread?
Bulldoze the nasty commercial strip and turn it into a landscaped parkway with an auto boulevard down the center. For a city that constantly reminds the world of how beautiful it is, don’t you think it is strange that after arriving from the amazing Golden Gate Bridge, you are dumped into possibly one of the ugliest busy boulevards in the city? When showing friends around the city, Lombard is one street they will not get to see.
If people are staying for months at a time, then presumably some of the hotels are considered residential hotels, which con’t be torn down unless replaced.
Otherwise, there is a solution to Lombard’s blight: raise the height limits so that there is incentive for landowners to tear down and rebuild the old motels.
Did someone use the words “uber-hip” to refer to the Marina residents????
As someone who lives near the Tenderloin and has had to put up with the city’s concentration of its poor, crazy and drug addicted in that neighborhood for decades, I am not outraged that some of them are spreading out and the rest of the city is getting a taste of what we’ve had to cope with. The solution to crime is to send the criminals to prison, not to the Tenderloin. I cannot cry for the Marina.
Nice conspiracy theory. The funniest one I heard from some local officers was that the reason for the high homelesness in SF was because NYC (under Guliani) bought many of them plane tickets to SF.
Paseo – how many visitors come through the GG Bridge when they first arrive to San Francisco? I say clean up Sixth Street. With SFO being south of The City, I 6th Street is a stretch of city blight that needs a lot more attention than Lombard Street.
REpornaddict wrote:
> Did someone use the words “uber-hip” to
> refer to the Marina residents???
Marina guys that just got a new iPhone docking system for their Porsche Cayenne so they can show off the new urbanspoon app to friends think they are “uber-hip” (to everyone else they are dorks)…
Mission trust fund kids who just found some NIB 1960’s double strap Campy racing pedals to match the rest of the vintage Campy gruppo on their Legnano track bike think they are “uber-hip” (to everyone else they are dorks)…
Gasp! How dare someone tell it like it is and blame poor people for causing an increase in crime! This is San Francisco, where we let illegal immigrants drive around in their cars even after we’ve caught them! This is San Francisco where we don’t want to put illegal immigrants in jail but would rather just ship them back to Mexico because that wouldn’t be nice! How dare someone call out the criminals! They’re people too!
John Doe, wtf are you talking about? There’s hardly anything in this thread, pro or con, about your “illegals”. This is Socketsite, hardly a bastion of SF pro-immigration, yadda-yadda, liberalism. Crime is crime and nobody seems much to care about ethnicity except for you. Take your personal obsessions and lame attempt at co-opting the thread to SFgate where I suspect you intended to post.
No, “hip” right now is its own thing and the Missionites have it on lockdown. For better or for worse. Mostly for worse. All for worse (IMO).
For those complaining, this SocketSite post is worthy.
The map in this thread makes me believe that some of this city’s neighborhoods (or sections thereof) have the highest real estate expense per incident of crime anywhere in North America.
[Perhaps one equation: Real estate expense per incident of crime = (Average $/sq. ft.)/# of crimes per period]
Ah, San Francisco is so unique.
Occasionally, it hits me what a complete fraud this place can be.
What’s so wrong with this article, nothing biased, just good reporting. The Board of Sups export some Tenderloin rodents to a nice neighborhood, they cause problems, SFPD conducts a couple public hangings in front of Baby Gap on Chestnut, lattes get spilled, blondes scream, but ultimately problem goes away.
At least we can dream.
Cool! As a TL resident this is great news.
It has been pointed out again and again that SF’s overall crime rate is far higher than what would be predicted based on the city’s demographics. SF has too much crime, period.
Agree with sf jack and zzzzzzzz — crime in this city is ridiculously high relative to the price of housing. And it’s not like the crime problem is limited to Bayview. Some people like to blame this on external factors such as supposedly hoodlums coming from the East Bay on BART, but that ignores the fact that there is plenty of home-grown crime in the city (including in places that are nowhere near BART). The integration of project housing into the landscape doesn’t help.
I agree with JimBobJones, poor people shouldn’t be allowed near houses as expensive as those in SF.
or, perhaps, people shouldn’t pay quite so much money to live where there might be poor folks around.
bobTrouser is right, we need to get rid of the poor people in the city. Send them to Pelican Bay for repeat drug offenses or Bayview/Hunter’s Point so I don’t have to step over them to go to Walgreens on Divis/Lombard. I pay too much in property tax to have my car broken into a couple of times a year.
It is no secret to anyone, least of all to thieves and thugs, that the SFPD is not incentivised to vigorously pursue and arrest criminals. The DA’s office will frequently not bother to prosecute even when criminals are somehow apprehended. SF residents are accordingly easy pickings, and everyone knows it.
What do you expect when you vote in such incompetence in elected positions?
You are what you vote in. And it’s clear that San Francisco is full of idiots.
I recently noticed the bright yellow planters with the palm trees that were installed along Jones and other offshoot streets. I was wondering if the goal is to gentrify or create more stash spots. hmmmmm
I assume everyone saw the SFWeekly article, that flat out states that the Sheriff’s Department actively placed almost 60 violent criminals in the Bridge Motel from 07-09… BRILLIANT…
[Editor’s Note: The story continues: The “Assistance” Of Which A Tipster Spoke Last Month?]
Why do I feel a warm sense of schadenfreude over the stories I hear about rampant crime on Lombard? Must be ’cause I’m another one of those folks on the outskirts of the ‘Loin. I dunno, I’m a big fan of containment. I mean lowlifes are going to around and about always. The TL was and is an ideal place and will always be for containment. That’s its only purpose. The gentrification of the TL means that bad things are obligated to spread throughout The City. That’s the way it damn well better be.
Tenderloin = Hamsterdam
This is pretty random, but did anyone notice what WalletPop.com using data from NeighborhoodScout.com and the FBI called the safest neighborhood in San Francisco?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/24/americas-safest-city-neig_n_475413.html?slidenumber=%2BjMUrRGtqCQ%3D&&&&&&&&&&&&slideshow
Viz Valley? Weird… All of the Sunnydale related crimes must be coded right off the map. Most of Viz Valley is quite peaceful, but still this seems like a data error.
(in quick perusal, alot of the “safest neighborhoods” were census tracts which were undeveloped railyards or parks…the methodology seems quite flawed…they should have had a minimum population or something).
“in quick perusal, alot of the “safest neighborhoods” were census tracts which were undeveloped railyards or parks…the methodology seems quite flawed…they should have had a minimum population or something”
Yeah, the methodology is definitely off for many other cities. This was noticeable in several cities where the safest area would be a railyard, port, island park, etc.
FWIW, the CrimeMAPs site from SFPD seems to agree when I plugged in Rutland + Arleta at a 1/2 mile radius (compare it to the Mission, Pacific Hts, Marina/Cow Hollow, Russian Hill, Nob Hill) — seems more comparable to the Sunset:
http://gispub02.sfgov.org/website/San_Francisco_Community/wizard.asp