For over 18 years, I lived in downtown San Diego, and while the next line in the song “Downtown” is “You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares … so go downtown …” it’s really not like that anymore. In fact, it’s a little scary.
But here are two photos (above and below) of the Balboa Theater, which was my next door neighbor for all those years. For about the first half of my time there, it was a shambles, sitting there pretty much abandoned. And then it was restored. All the rats that were in the building were pushed out during the restoration, into nearby structures, including Horton Plaza (which sadly no longer exists, at least not as a mall), and–at least one of them–into my apartment ceiling. One day I noticed white dust on a dark blue blanket in my walk-in closet (that closet was like half the size of the rest of my place), and I looked up to see a tiny pair of teeth gnawing on the plaster around my sprinkler. The rogue rat–evidently the only one found in my building–was eventually tracked down and eliminated, but it was another nail in my downtown coffin, although it was a long, slow death.
Enough doom and gloom. I don’t live downtown anymore. I escaped.
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innocent bystander 
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