Heroin in the Park? Surely you jest!

It’s probably not that uncommon an occurrence on Capitol Hill and a lot of parts of town: a merchant arrives at his shop in the morning and discovers drug paraphernalia strewn around outside his door. But likely it's news to some that it can also happen here.

In the last couple weeks two Madison Park merchants, each with stairwell entrances to their places of business, had just that kind of experience. Tim Walsh of Tim Walsh Salon (4105 E. Madison St.) made the first incident report to the Madison Park Blogger last week. Tim even forwarded a picture of what he discovered upon his arrival one day: a fix kit (shown above). He notes that it was accompanied by the remains of what had once been a teriyaki meal. His comment: “It might all be a little rough for the ‘hood.”

Joan Rogers of Joan Kruse Rogers Design (1803B 42nd Ave. E.) has now reported a similar experience earlier in the month. In that case there was just a used syringe. No evidence of any teriyaki meal. Her somewhat secluded stairs, like Tim’s, had served as a cozy hideaway for someone’s evening hit.

Of course we don’t think of our neighborhood as the kind of place where this kind of drug activity happens. Not outside in a stairwell! For our part of town, the thing is best done indoors. But summer changes the scene in the Park, with a lot of people coming here from who knows where--and college kids arriving back home for summer vacation. I’ve been told that the beach is transformed in the evenings once the lifeguards leave for the day. In the words of one of my neighbors, "Broadway Hipsters” descend on the Park as the sun begins to go down, high school kids congregate noisily on the pier, and mysterious figures light beach fires to do we-know-not-what at secluded road ends.

I’m not sure that anything happening here exactly qualifies as rough. But a bit edgy?

Perhaps for us.