By SUZANNE DOWNING
Aug. 16, 2026 – At the corner of 10th Avenue and E Street, in the shadow of Anchorage City Hall, one of downtown’s public spaces looks less like a family park and more like a squatters’ paradise.
The playground equipment is surrounded by chain-link fencing. The low municipal building beside the outdoor rink is boarded up and covered with obscene graffiti. Tarps are visible in the windows of the cab of historic Alaska Railroad steam locomotive No. 556, where persons have set up camp.
This is what residents and visitors encountered this weekend at Frontierland Park.
It was once the kind of downtown park where parents could bring their children. The locomotive, playground and skating area gave families a place to gather just blocks from the center of city government.
Today, the children’s play area is inaccessible and the neighboring building bears the signs of vandalism and abandonment.
In a few months, winter will return and Anchorage’s hockey community will again use the outdoor rink at 10th and E. The Municipality still lists the location among its maintained outdoor skating facilities. The hockey community will do the clean up then. For now, however, the rink and surrounding park are not safe for children, and maybe not safe for adults.
The contrast with the official message from Mayor Suzanne LaFrance’s administration is difficult to miss.
City officials have repeatedly emphasized statistics showing declines in homelessness and crime. The Anchorage Police Department maintains public dashboards tracking reported calls for service and crime trends, and the administration has pointed to those numbers as evidence of progress.
But statistics are not the entire story.
They do not erase what residents, downtown workers and visitors experience at street level. Nor do citywide averages make a boarded and vandalized public park feel safe or welcoming to a parent with young children.
The photographs from 10th and E show a public asset that has effectively been surrendered.
10 thoughts on “Anchorage’s welcome mat: Vagrants, vandals, and no place for kids to play anymore”
This is exactly what the Left wants: A place where those that have built and enjoy Western Civilization regret their communities and live in fear. A lovely dystopian landscape. The Assembly, the current mayor and dozens of non-profits must be so proud.
Weird to me that you have so little breadth of analysis and you are keen on admitting it.
Oh, please do explain to all of us how your leftist policy preferences have not led to exactly this dystopian nightmare. Please do tell us how wonderful the once-lovely City of Anchorage has become a cesspool of addicts and degenerates, crapping in public, spreading trash and needles all over our streets, and passing out on sidewalks in full view of kids. Tell us how we came to abandon our own bike paths which were the envy of the world, all because they are lined with addicts and degenerates who menace both adults and children, steal bikes and part them out, steal camping gear and start fires in the woods that need response by the AFD. Do explain how paying to “support” addicts and degenerates does somehow NOT lead to this illegal and disgusting infestation. We will wait.
What about Donald Trump’s breadth of analysis? Well, he is, after all, your president.
Less bad could possibly be acceptable or less bad could be unacceptable. In the case of Anchorage’s homelessness situation are we now acceptable or is the homelessness situation still unacceptable? I apologize if I didn’t’ use the latest euphemisms.
While adjusting the poorly fitting eye glasses ( and teeth) the question is asked, “What would Mayor Wilson do?”
Shame on the Mayor and the Assembly for what they have created in Anchorage. They have officially succeeded in turning Anchorage into a first-class cesspool modeled after Portland, Seattle, Oakland and SFO. As the decline continues, it will actually become much worse. Remember when Anchorage received the “All American City” award. That’s now a very distant memory.
The coalition of leftist freaks that have controlled the Anchorage Assembly the past decade or more are actually proud of their vile and dirty creation. It’s too bad most visitors to the Great State of Alaska have to travel through Anchorage and experience this leftist, liberal, communist created mess. All it would take to correct it, is to enforce the laws that have been on the books for decades. No illegal camping wherever you choose. No public drunkenness and drug intoxification. No public pissing and defecation. No dirtbag adult men riding around on obviously stolen kids bicycles – looking for additional stuff to steal and put in their filthy backpacks.
I don’t understand it – it’s entirely preventable and correctable. The voters of Anchorage must like this.
Wasn’t that building a boys and girls club or a red center years ago?
Blah automistake again. ‘Rec” center.
Guess our wish came true.
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LaFrance failed.
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Peoples’ public places gone to crap, half the damn population hit the Eaglexit button.
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Seems like time to get noisy on social media …flood of before-and-after LaFrance pics. What was a fairly decent place to live, is now a perverted crap palace all thanks to LaFrance.
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Won’t shame this POS out of public office, but could put a serious kink in its political aspirations.
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Best we can hope for until we regain control of our grand jury and election systems.