Platzspitz

This guide to Platzspitz in Zurich opens with a question: was a doctor's bus of clean needles, parked on this lawn, mercy or surrender? It follows Dr Andre Seidenberg's work here from 1984 onward, the park's Baroque origins as a pleasure garden, and the 1987 decision that let the world start calling this wedge of land between two rivers Needle Park. You'll hear how thousands came here daily at the crisis's height, and what the city ultimately chose to do about it. Stand on the grass now and notice how ordinary it feels underfoot.