By Timothy Karoff : sfgate – excerpt
A beloved farmers market’s tenure in U.N. Plaza is nearing an end.
City officials have elected to move the Heart of the City Farmers’ Market, a staple of Civic Center for 42 years, to the nearby Fulton Street parking lot, making room for a skate area, chess boards, pingpong tables and Teqball (a sport similar to table tennis) tables, according to a press release from the farmers market.
The market will move one street over to Fulton Street between Larkin and Hyde on Sept. 3, and construction of the recreation area is set to wrap up in November. The decision is an attempt at revitalization, with hopes that a vibrant hub of activity will make the area safer, as U.N. Plaza is known as a site for the sale and purchasing of drugs…
“Nobody has a food access program as large as ours,” Steve Pulliam, the market’s executive director, told SFGATE. “Certainly not in California. We have the numbers to prove that.”
Pulliam cited a host of issues with the new location. Compared to the U.N. Plaza location, Fulton Street’s space is limited. He pointed out that in the new location, vendors won’t be able to park their vehicles behind their stalls, leaving them exposed to smashed windows and break-ins. This also puts merchandise at risk, since some vendors use their vehicles to store extra produce…(more)
Why not just have the market extended to more days of the week? Or do some activities that don’t disrupt it on the off-days. Does anyone really think this is going to stop the activities around the BART station?