It wasn’t so long ago that anyone walking from San Francisco’s Civic Center BART Station to a job at City Hall, or a performance at the Opera House, had to pass through a gantlet of despair: slumped-over drug users, unleashed dogs, street peddlers rolling out blankets of stolen goods.
Now, that two-block stretch is utterly enchanting, starting with the skate park at United Nations Plaza and culminating in a Beaux Arts square lined with London plane trees and manicured grass. The transformation is so complete that people manage to forget what it looked like before.
BART officials want to achieve the same magic at 16th and Mission Street Station…