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21.03.2019 04:30

The City's Dark Past

As i was drinking a beer or two with friends the subject turned to the Letten area of the city. Many may know it as a vibrant and lively place, especially in the summer. If you walked through the Platzspitzpark and along Limmat before, you may also know Primitivo, a bar and diner where people gather for food and drinks and to soak up the last few rays of sunshine after a days work. But the tranquil walk from the Landesmuseum, through the park and over bridge hides a dark and disturbing past.

The conversation quickly became bleak and my friends, young, and from the UK, couldn’t believe the tale i was relaying: a real-life horror story of drugs, depravity and murder that took place right in the centre of this wealthy and salubrious city.

If you are a child of the seventies or eighties you may have heard of Needle Park but for the locals, the true nature of it is etched into their minds forever. A place where up to 3000 people a day fed their heroin habit in an environment of death and uncontrolled criminality. For those born in Zürich it is part of the fabric of the city but it occurred to me that not everyone, particularly people born from the mid-eighties onwards, would be aware of what took place back then. Because in spite of the misery, Zürich found a solution which provided a positive template for other cities to deal with similar problems. Take a read of this amazing and very comprehensive narrative.

www.tagesanzeiger.ch

www.swissinfo.ch