Talk:Platzspitz park

There should be an article on "Needle park".

Comment on another site from a frequenter of the place. It is picturesque now.

"platzspitz was an apocalyptic version (sic), unbelieveable. the smells and sighs are beyond description and anything i ever experienced, the masses of people showing and shouting -crazy . rats crawling over your feet and again as wide as your eyes can see- a sea of people. the images are festered in my mind forever and sometime still come up in my dreams." via: http://picturesandperspectives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/switzerland-platzspitz-or-needle-park.html

In the article related above, there is a photo from the time, of the gazebo; area in front. This article shows how that is today.

81.157.162.39 (talk) 06:55, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

There was an erroneous number (20,000) given for how many addicts could be in the park. Unless it was a simple typo, it could be related to the number of heroin addicts in Switzerland as a whole, at the peak of the wave of drug use. See for instance the following reference:

"Die Zahl war erschreckend. Gab es in der Schweiz 1975 noch 35 Drogentote, wurde 1992 ein trauriger Höhepunkt von 419 Todesopfern erreicht. In den meisten Fällen war Heroin, alleine oder in Kombination mit anderen Substanzen, dafür verantwortlich. Was war geschehen? Die Zahl der Konsumentinnen und Konsumenten von Heroin hatte sich in der Schweiz im selben Zeitraum von rund 3000 auf über 30'000 erhöht."

(From: Adrian Ritter: "Ein fataler Kreislauf", Universität Zürich, UZH News, 2010-01-27)