Ripple Labs co-founder Chris Larsen is back with another splashy donation, this time $5 million for a plan to add new security gates to businesses on Larkin Street, plus to power-wash the sidewalks more and put up more lights.

Mayor Daniel Lurie has been passing the hat among his ultrawealthy friends lately to get private donations to clean up San Francisco’s ills. But Ripple Labs co-founder and local $15 billion man Chris Larsen has been on that jam for years.

Larsen notoriously paid for privately funded surveillance cameras all over town in 2019, and last year donated $10 million for SFPD drones and surveillance tools. On less controversial notes, Larsen donations have also single-handedly saved this year’s Fillmore Jazz Festival, propped up Downtown First Thursdays for another year, and also helped to fund the Downtown Development Corporation that put those murals on the dead mall SF Centre, so that it does not look like a dead mall to Super Bowl tourists.

And Larsen is at it again. The Chronicle reports that Larsen has made a $5 million private donation to revitalize Larkin Street, the Tenderloin corridor that’s home to popular restaurants Naan n Curry, House of Thai, and Draymond Green’s new place Meski, but many feel has been a more blighted area since the pandemic.

“Now it’s time to really think big — how can you go beyond anything that’s been there before?” Larsen told the Chronicle. “If the Tenderloin’s not doing well, the city’s not doing well.”

The most significant aspect of this donation is that it will reportedly provide 20 of these “decorative security gates” that will be backlit (with changing colors!) to look cool at night, and additionally protect the storefronts from break-ins or vandalism.

According to the Chronicle, “The project will also include enhanced lighting, daily pressure-washing to keep sidewalks clean, and expanded street ambassador teams to provide additional security.”

So why Larkin Street, instead of Polk or some other street? As the Chronicle explains, Larsen’s wife is a native of Cambodia, they like eating at Little Saigon neighborhood restaurants, and they think the neighborhood looks awful lately.

Larsen sells himself as an anti-crime crusader, but his company has been on the wrong side of the law before. Biden’s SEC tried to fine Ripple Labs $2 billion for selling unregistered securities as if they were registered. Once Trump was in office, Ripple Labs brown-nosed Trump to the tune of $5 million, and that fine was reduced to a mere $125 million.

So it is fair to connect Chris Larsen with other tech companies that pay-for-play when it comes toTrump. But if this effort succeeds in improving the quality of life in the Tenderloin and on Larkin Street, we’re happy to see that $5 million of Larsen’s crypto money was spent to that end.

Related: Fillmore Jazz Festival Back On Thanks to Donation [SFist]

Image: Google Street View