by John Wildermuth
Civic Center is the perfect San Francisco neighborhood: centrally located, plenty of businesses, scads of public transit and a world-class array of cultural amenities, including the Opera, Symphony and Ballet.
But when the thousands of government workers disappear at 5:30 each weekday evening and the concert halls turn out the lights, Civic Center Plaza and the surrounding streets become an urban desert, populated by blowing papers, a handful of cars and buses and the occasional person hurrying through on his way to somewhere else.
