The handrail on 48th Avenue at Balboa. The circled area is where a portion was sawed off on Thursday afternoon.
In May of last year, after urging from residents and Supervisor Eric Mar, the DPW installed a new handrail alongside some very steep stairs on 48th Avenue at Balboa.
The railing had been wiped out by a truck with runaway brakes a few years back. After an elderly resident fell and injured herself on the hill, neighbor Gabriel Lampert went on a personal crusade to get the handrail replaced. With help from Supervisor Mar’s office, the DPW stepped up and replaced it.
But as they say, no good deed goes unpunished. Gabriel returned home on Thursday afternoon to find that a portion of the handrail had been sawed off by vandals.
“Skateboarders had been out here often mumbling to themselves that the segment impeded their best jumps, so I’m guessing that’s who did this,” Gabriel told us.
The vandals removed the top portion of the longest stretch of the handrail.
Certainly not the crime of the century, but a shame to see something that many worked hard on be so carelessly vandalized.
Sarah B.
OK, so some thief stole 20′ of copper roof drain piping on a house a block away from me. There’s been tons of copper theft in the past several months, city and country wide.
So, who’s buying the stolen metal? what are the city powers doing about it? seems to be nothing, just letting a problem get bigger and bigger, but then what else can you expect? isn’t that the way today? ignore things until is out of control.
If these were scrap metal thieves, wouldn’t they have taken more of the railing?
Sarah B.
That’s it, I’m not going to be nice to the skateboarders up there anymore. Jerks.
I encourage the residents of the block to contact SF Safe at http://www.sfsafe.org or 415-673-7233 and learn about organizing a Neighborhood Watch. It could help stop this kind of vandalism.
If these skateboarding groups are regulars in the area, does anyone ever call the police when they see them around there? Surely they stick around for a while when they come to “grind” those rails, no?
I heard some tall people complaining about something once. I’m not going to be nice to tall people anymore. Jerks.
Hey, name, good one!
C = Cath, I caught it too late.
Name, I also live on 48th, lobbied like Gabriel to get the railing installed, and have co-existed peacefully with the skateboarders (who don’t usually make a mess or create too many problems beyond some noise and minor traffic disruptions) for 7+ years. I’m disheartened that someone did this, and shouldn’t jump to conclusions that it was them. Point taken. It’s just sad that some person would rather put my elderly neighbors at risk than have that piece of railing there.
I’m with “Name” – let’s not jump to conclusions or go treating every one with a skateboard like garbage.
@Gary one of the local news channels did a segment on all the missing copper and scrap metal and asked the same thing. They went to three or four junk yards (parts and metal dealers) and found that pretty much every single one of them made some “questionable sales”. It already is a huge problem, and I think the government just plans to keep avoiding it.
Cass Phillipps, thanks for the info on copper theft, it’s a shame we all end up paying for this stuff.
re: metal sales to junk yards. How is the dealer to know the source of the material which is presented to them for sale? They can ask, and the seller can lie.