I walked through there once, purely by accident. Definitely an "action" zone, junkies and crackheads scuttling about like roaches everywhere, shooting up and lighting up right on the street. Seemed like there were a hundred tweakers on every block, I knew something was up as soon as I crossed the boundary. Made me fear for my safety a bit, although everybody was too busy scoring or getting high to pay attention to little ole me.

I'm fascinated with "containment areas" like the Red Light District in Amsterdam and the former Christiania in Copenhagen (or even the Tenderloin). Any more good ones I should add to my hit list?

lechero wrote:

I walked through there once, purely by accident. Definitely an "action" zone, junkies and crackheads scuttling about like roaches everywhere, shooting up and lighting up right on the street. Seemed like there were a hundred tweakers on every block, I knew something was up as soon as I crossed the boundary. Made me fear for my safety a bit, although everybody was too busy scoring or getting high to pay attention to little ole me.

I'm fascinated with "containment areas" like the Red Light District in Amsterdam and the former Christiania in Copenhagen (or even the Tenderloin). Any more good ones I should add to my hit list?

Does anybody remember Hamsterdam from The Wire? Seemed like a good idea, plus all those junkies in one place is one hell of an effective PSA. It makes it a lot harder to enjoy shooting up the first time when you have Bubbles tweaking out right next to you.

Last edited by ah297900 (2008-11-18 16:33:50)

choad wrote:

lechero wrote:

Any more good ones I should add to my hit list?

Things can't have changed much in 30 years. How about Five Points, or anywhere on East Colfax. Closer to home, eh?

I lived for awhile in a speed commune in the heart of Five Points.  Really, a great neighborhood except for the police...

Colfax & Five Points are still colorful in places, but relatively benign. They don't exemplify containment as much as a seedy skid row.

The Vancouver containment zone stunned me mostly because I would have imagined such a thing could exist in Canuckistan.

And while Christiania is a containment zone, it's not dangerous or even criminal in the slightest. We're talking about prissy Danes after all. They evicted the hard drugs back in the late 70s. I saw the most impressive public display of cannibus products when I went there, with better variety and presentation than even Amsterdam. Supposedly that too has now been driven underground.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania