Anchorage Parks and Recreation is moving forward with plans to upgrade Peratrovich Park, at 4th and E Street in front of the Old City Hall building, aiming to turn it into a vibrant downtown destination. With taxpayer dollars, city officials are crafting a design to improve user experience, address “existing problems,” and make the small park a focal point for the community.
But the vision of a revitalized park contrasts sharply with the reality on the ground. On Monday morning, Aug. 25, Peratrovich Park is the site of a sprawling urban encampment. Several individuals, some asleep on benches or sprawled across the grass, others gathered in groups with shopping carts and piles of belongings, occupy the space, even though the sign says the park is closed from 11 pm to 6 am.
While planners draft blueprints for a more welcoming civic hub, the downtown core continues to struggle with vagrancy, drug abuse, public intoxication, and safety concerns that deter visitors and local businesses alike.
In our series on the decline of Anchorage, here’s our photo gallery from Monday morning in downtown Anchorage — photos you won’t see in the visitor brochures:
Glamping in the greenbelts: Anchorage’s luxury lawlessness, with free tents for vagrants
Video: Drone footage reveals sprawling vagrant occupation expanding in S. Anchorage greenbelt
Photo tour of a vagrant TarpMart, where everything must go (because it’s probably stolen)
Gunfire in vagrant encampment brings in large police response near Mulcahy Stadium
Parks-and-Wreck photo tour: LaFrance celebrates Davis Park cleanup, as vagrants relocate downtown
Video: As Anchorage begins to abate vagrant encampments, the squatters set protest fires
Anchorage Assembly’s Tuesday agenda has millions to deal with vagrancy and homelessness
Trump executive order targets vagrancy, lawlessness, and urban decay in America
Man arrested for sexual assault within yards of Anchorage City Hall — in broad daylight
They can’t even maintain the park sign…
Maybe society should address the elephant in the room and admit alcohol is destroying communities for hundreds of years in America…how many homeless in Alaska are veterans as well?
Aww the good ol Alcohol tax. I’ve noticed it get worse since that. So it is not the alcohol alone but the mis handling of said funds to help. Money may not be the answer.
This town is disgusting. Don’t spend your money there. Don’t stay there Don’t go there. Right now downtown is not safe for anyone. Yet they let it continue to occur.
Is this what you voted for Anchorage???? To have homeless bums destroying the city? We have to drive thru to go to Kenai every year, all you see is garbage. Human garbage. Funny, other big cities that actually care about their people that pay taxes don’t allow this crap. Yet here we have Anchorage slipping into what Portland and Seattle look like. Hmmmmm coincidence? I think not!
Is this what we voted for?
No.
Is it what 100% mail in voting and overall voter apathy gets us? Yes. No doubt about it.
.
Ask your friends/coworkers if they know who their representative on the Muni Assembly is. I bet most cannot say. Ask them if they voted in the last Muni election, I bet more will say no than yes.
.
If you are not already doing so, get involved. Talk to your friends and neighbors and encourage them to pay attention to what the local government is doing. Yes, the President and Congress is important and their decisions can impact you. But, to really screw up your quality of life on a day to day basis, that is your local government.
What a welcome surprise for our visitors this summer. VERY, VERY SAD. As usual our assembly and mayor don’t care.