Pretty San Francisco pictures aside... we did run into some trouble during our trip. We were heading home one evening and seemed to have gotten off at the wrong bus stop. Let me remind you that we were a group of 2 women with 3 young girls. We got off the bus in the area known as Tenderloin (although we did not know that at the time) Lets look and see what Wikipedia has to say about Tenderloin...
"The Tenderloin is a high crime area, particularly violent street crime such as robbery and aggravated assault. Seven of the top ten violent crime plots (out of 665 in the entire city as measured by the San Francisco Police Department) are adjacent plots in the Tenderloin and Sixth and Market area.
Prostitution is commonly seen on the streets in the area. Transgendered streetwalkers center on the area around Post and Polk Streets near one of the most famous transgender bars of the Tenderloin, Divas.[citation needed]
The Tenderloin had a rich history of crime and gambling during the early and mid-twentieth century, much of it centered around the Downtown Bowl at Eddy and Jones and the surrounding pool halls, card rooms, boxing gyms, cigar stores. news stands and during Prohibition, speakeasies. FBI interviews included in the Warren Commission Report state that Jack Ruby and his sister lived in an apartment on Jones Street across from the Bowl in the 1930s while they were selling tip sheets at a local mob owned horse racing track.[6] Edmund Brown, father of California governor Pat Brownand grandfather of governor Jerry Brown, owned a nearby cigar store and gambling room. The most famous boxing gym was Newman's Gym on Leavenworth, founded in 1924 and operating for over 50 years, where many great fighters trained including heavyweight champions Jack Dempsey[7] andGeorge Foreman and middleweight champion Bobo Olson.
The area was considered to be the origination of a notorious Filipino gang Bahala Na Gang or BNG, a gang imported from the Philippines. In the late 1960's to the mid 1970's, the gang was involved in extortion, drug sales, and murder for hire. Graffiti is common and this is the notable deathplace ofTie One, an 18 year old graffiti artist who was shot by a resident while climbing the outside of a Tenderloin building.[8] Dealing and use of illicit drugs occurs on the streets. Property crimes are common, especially theft from parked vehicles. Violent acts occur more often here and are generally related to drugs. Separate statistics on gun violence are not reported but it is known to occur.[citation needed] The area has been the scene of escalating drug violence in 2007, including brazen daylight shootings, as local gangs from San Francisco, and others from around the Bay Area battle for turf.[9]"
Now that you have a mental picture of the area here is the story...
We get off at wrong stop (it's getting dark) realize that we are perhaps not in the best of locations (especially with young girls) find the safest looking folks we can who tell us we should probably high tail it out of the area. "Take the subway" they say. We say if we aren't safe above ground we sure are not going to head underground so we keep walking.
Step on to a street full of cop cars when my friend Shelley asks "Do you think we are going to get caught in cross fire?" and the only word going through my mind is "probably" After a bit of heart failure we realize that there is an abundance of police cars because we are on the street with the police station - safety! We quickly run into the building and I start rambling on about our predicament to the nice police officer but pause when I realize he is not talking back to me but making hand motions to pick up a phone. It is then that I realize that he is safely seated behind a wall of bullet proof glass, I'm obviously on the wrong side of said glass and the only way I can communicate with him is with the phone. And yes, every prison movie I have ever seen flashed into my head as I conversed with the law on the other side of the glass.
After hearing my story he says, "It's nearly dark and you have 3 blocks left to go until your in a safe area. I would suggest getting out of here right now and moving quickly" Looking back I'm wondering why he didn't look at our little group of defenseless woman & girls and offer us a ride but hey I lived to tell the story so no harm done. We bolted out of the police station and walked/ran as quick as our pretty, little foot could go all the way back to Union Square.
Although we had no tears it was obvious the girls were a bit shaken up as were the momma's (we just tried to hide it a bit because of the girls) It was quite the experience.
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