Showplace Triangle Plaza

Showplace Triangle Plaza was supposed to be what all the parklets in San Francisco aspire to be: reclaimed public space for people rather than parked cars. It opened to great fanfare, and the design «community» was falling all over itself fawning over how wonderful and revolutionary and human and democratic and beautiful it was. I don’t know about all that other PR nonsense, but it was beautiful in a way. Go look at pictures of it after it opened.
Then something happened.
If you go back and really look through the search results for Showplace Triangle Plaza, you’ll find dozens of adoring articles about how San Francisco got it right with the project – and you’ll find exactly one curt press release describing how the triangle will be «temporarily closed» due to «nearby construction.»
So let me get this straight: The City and County of San Francisco goes to all this trouble and expense to close off and do construction work on a tiny street spur to make it into a public plaza, and a few years later, it levels everything so that a construction company can store its crap on what used to be a public street? It’s been two-​and-​a-​half years since the SF Planning Department announced the «temporary closure,» and God knows the construction in the area won’t end anytime soon. Why are we providing contractors with a free place to store their equipment again? Is it because they’re making money hand over fist by selling ugly, overpriced, out-​of-​scale real estate to people who don’t live in San Francisco yet? I live in San Francisco and pay taxes; can I store my stuff on public land without paying? Why don’t we just let contractors store their backhoes in Alamo Square or their pipes in Union Square?
The only beneficiary from all this is Wolfe’s Lunch. They got a free parking lot, albeit an incredibly ugly one, out of this mess. Oh, and the design companies got free pub for doing disruptive work that would last only a few years, and let’s not forget those contractors getting a free place to store their equipment.
I’m all for parklets and repurposed public space. I’m all against not maintaining public places. Anyone can start a project; it takes a dedicated community effort to maintain a worthwhile project. The SF Planning Department should be ashamed of itself – for dozens and dozens and dozens of reasons, including this one.