On Common Ground?

"'There's everyone here - junkies, lovers, tourists, and lots of rats, probably more than people,' Jack Hills, 49, said near the end of his overnight shift looking after the Frog Pond for a private foundation. 'I see everything here.'

Over the past five centuries, save a period when British soldiers occupied the area with trenches and redoubts, the 48 acres of the Boston Common have brought together the state's most powerful politicians with the city's most down and out, the gentry from Beacon Hill and the Back Bay with immigrants from the North End and South Boston, skateboarding teens from the suburbs with inner-city children moving to music.

In recent years, however, the nation's oldest park has also become a common ground for crime. As of earlier this month, police have made 344 drug arrests in the area this year - more than double the amount during the same period in 2003. Aggravated assaults have jumped 65 percent since 2003, and robberies have climbed 25 percent."