Gary, just to make a comment without entering this debate - I stayed at that Holiday Inn a few years ago and it was perfectly fine. We didn't do a whole lot of walking after dark - we had a rental car anyway - but during the day found it an interesting spot to be in. There were some outreach groups in the park working with some of the homeless people and I think they do a great job. My work is with people that have chronic and severe mental illness, and the folks in that area of SOMA were not scary to me. Many of them were reasonably pulled-together and none of them seemed especially aggressive.

Sorry, I just realized you said you were staying at Howard Johnson - it was a Holiday Inn that we stayed at, but it was on or near 9th Street.