Saturday, April 4, 2009

Switzerland: The Platzspitz, or "Needle Park" 2

Before reading this post please read the one posted immediately before...

I took a walk in the "The Platzspitz" today, and as my previous post mentions it is a relatively "normal" park in the centre of Zurich.... to be honest though, it did seem a little eerie. It was very quiet and tucked away behind the Landesmuseum...

Not many people and a couple of relatively shady characters hanging around... on the surface though, it looked pretty ok.... maybe I had some pre-concieved ideas here...

Click on the smaller pictures for a better view!

Grafitti near the entrance to the park...

































I know it has been 15 years but there was nothing other than the Grafitti on the sign near the entrance which gave away what "The Platzspitz" was "Needle Park". It is merely a memory to some, but substantially more than that to those who came here...

For R&R, on the 13th October, 1989, I hope that it was forever... and I hope forever was everything they had hoped it would be....

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

has it closed,then?

Sean said...

As "needle park" yes, some years ago now.

Anonymous said...

The same thing os now at the langstrasse

Friend of Leap said...

Needle park is long gone. It's been closed in 1992, the scene moved to another place down the river called Letten. Despite lots of repression death tolls rose, people continued to suffer and mafia to prosper. In 1994 Letten was closed and Heroin Substitution was implemented. Today over 60% of heroin addicts are substituted by the state with a number of medicines, living mostly normal lives not causing harm to themselves, their families or to others. Many of them being reintegrated, working honest jobs and contributing to socienty. It's a huge success story. 1$ spent on substitution = 8$ previously spent on prohibition!