Depot Park — Attraction in Santa Cruz

It's plagued on one side by a soccer field with no seating, bathrooms with no doors on the stalls and no soap in the dispensers and to round out the category of shame the tressel is just to the other side where the junkies, tweakers and local vampires haunt. The local streets team has their beach crews shed here and you can almost bet there is someone shooting up behind it. If not, just wait for five minutes or follow the trail of needle caps. On the bright side, there is a skate park here. On Tuesdays you can catch dinner at the main building on the property with The Salvation Army and then walk up the street after waiting hours and stay at a crowded shelter where you can guarantee to be greeted at five in the morning by the sweet sounds of people with uncontrolled and rampant, symptomatic mental illness. These are also the exact people who frequent the "park." Too long, didn't read - It's a parking...

For as inhumane and inhospitable the city of Santa Cruz is, this park offers some of the only public restrooms for the public. This feature deserves its own review: they are those portable plastic ones, but a couple of them are even wheel chair accessible. The door hinges might be broken, so lift up to shut and lock yourself in properly. Street artists and local poets contributed to the atmosphere of authenticity, which, if that isn't appreciated then why are you here? You might ask yourself that question at 3:13am some soggy Wednesday morning, for they are indeed 24 hour access and never clean nor stocked. The mentally ill drug-addled homeless use them as emergency shelters during tropical storms and as places to hide from one another, and as such, places to find one...

The site of the old railroad yard. The train depot is now a small general use building. Voting for the downtown area takes place here. There is a large parking lot and a well kept soccer field, which is also used for emergency evacuation helicopters. After the great earthquake planners intend to use this location for long term logistics and supply as it is the only large open area in Santa Cruz, and very close to the wharf, which will be the route for relief supplies for at least several months. Currently the city is considering a permanent homeless camp here. There is some talk of using this space for a larger more permanent...