Ferry Building
Castro Street
Eureka Valley
SoMa / East Cut
Salesforce Tower
Salesforce Park
Salesforce Transit Center
Rincon Annex / Rincon Center
3 Embarcadero Center
The Gateway Apartments & Townhomes
Noe Valley
Openhouse
Waller Street Public Park
Hayes Valley
San Francisco City Hall
Thursday December 5. Jordan & Steve flew to San Francisco on Alaska Airlines. We left from SEA at 10AM & arrived at SFO at 12:30PM. We took BART from the airport to Embarcadero Station in San Francisco. We each bought a 3-day Muni pass. We had lunch at Gott’s Roadside in the Ferry Building at the Embarcadero. It was dark & cloudy.
We took the Muni F Market heritage streetcar to Noe Street & walked a short distance to
Beck’s Motor Lodge. We had a large room in the back of the building. It was a nice room with a king-size bed, chest of drawers, television, couch, coffee table, armchair, desk & a small gas fireplace attached to a wall. The room had an odd, hexagonal shape. Each of the 6 walls was a different length. One of the shorter walls had a window overlooking 16th Street. We were glad that our room was not overlooking busy Market Street.
At 3:30PM, we went through Duboce Triangle north on Noe Street to Duboce Park. We crossed the park, then continued on Carmelita Street. We moved on to Scott Street then turned east on Haight Street in the
Lower Haight aka Haight Fillmore. The Lower Haight business district on Haight Street had more shops & restaurants, was more vibrant than ever before. Jordan lived in that neighborhood for more than 2 years in the 1980s. It was a bit moribund then. We turned south on Webster Street & saw the lovely house where Jordan once lived. It looked the same, but the street trees had grown a lot. We went to Safeway supermarket on Market Street & bought food. We went west & uphill on Market Street, returning to Beck’s Motor Lodge at 5PM.
We walked to Castro Street at 6PM. There were few people on the street & quite a few empty retail spaces. That was odd, because the Castro business district had always been a bustling place. An article online attributed the decline to rents that were too high, absentee landlords with no personal investment in the neighborhood, rules barring chain stores & restaurants, new residents (burdened by high rents) who didn’t leave their apartments to eat, shop or meet people & felt intimidated by homeless people living on the street. We saw a lot of homeless people in the Castro. We went down Market Street as far as Church Street, where we had bad Chinese food. We got back to Beck’s at 8PM. The day was cool, cloudy & dim. There was no rain that day.
Friday December 6. Steve went out for breakfast. I ate breakfast in the room, then went out to walk around the Castro. It was cloudy & a bit dark at first, then fewer clouds with sun. It was a pretty morning. The residential part of the Castro was lovelier than ever. I took photos.
At 9:30AM, I took Muni Metro (subway) to Montgomery Station in the Financial District. The train was very crowded. I walked south of Market Street to
Salesforce Transit Center. There was an amazing park & botanical garden on the 4th floor (the roof) that was 4 blocks long & 1 block wide. There were great views of downtown skyscrapers. The garden was excellent. That made me excited & happy. I stayed for an hour & took many photos. I went down to the 2nd floor where there were bus lanes for the transit center. Buses entered the building over a bridge connected Interstate 80 that crossed the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The whole building was huge & impressive.
I walked through SoMa (South of Market) an extension of the Financial District that was recently renamed the East Cut. I went inside
Rincon Center, a small shopping center in a restored post office from 1940. I thought that was impressive when I worked near there. The complex was renovated & expanded in 1988. But it felt small in 2019. The most interesting part was the 1940s WPA murals. I crossed Market Street to the
Embarcadero Center. I was happy to see it was prospering. Shops & restaurants were connected by open-air passages on the lower levels of 4 office towers completed around 1975. I used to go there on my lunch break. There were also pedestrian bridges on the 2nd level connecting One Embarcadero Center to One Maritime Plaza & The Gateway Apartments & Townhomes, all built around 1965. That was much more interesting than I remembered. Sydney G Walton Square (a grassy park) was less so.
After all that walking, I felt very tired. I went through Jackson Square, the original commercial district. I ate food on a bench beneath the
Transamerica Pyramid. I walked on Montgomery Street to the Montgomery Street Station. I took a train to Castro Street Station. I got to Beck’s Motor Lodge at 1:30PM. By that time it was cloudy & fairly dark. I spent the afternoon in our room while Steve met with people at Openhouse. He returned late in the afternoon.
At 6PM, we walked across Market Street for Steve to get coffee at Peet’s Coffee. It was raining lightly. Steve summoned a Lyft car that took us from there, over Dolores Heights to
Noe Valley. The business district along 24th Street was heavily decorated for Christmas. I walked the length of it while Steve browsed a bookstore, Folio Books. 24th Street was a vibrant contrast to Castro Street. There were many people on the sidewalks & no empty storefronts. The street was even more upscale than when I was there in 2014. And it was much nicer than it was when I lived in Noe Valley in 1992. We ate dinner at Hamano Sushi on Castro Street near the intersection of 24th Street. It was a very nice & popular restaurant. The food was quite good. Over dinner, I told Steve the story of the 4 places I lived in San Francisco. Then we got another Lyft car back to Beck’s Motor Lodge.
Saturday December 7. We had breakfast at Squat & Gobble on Market Street near Beck’s Motor Lodge at 9AM. Steve went to Peet’s Coffee to work from his laptop. I walked down Market Street to Laguna Street where I saw the
Openhouse &
Alchemy apartment complexes. They filled the former site of the University of California at Berkeley Extension Campus where I studied garden design. It was near my home in the Lower Haight. Openhouse had 119 units in 2 buildings of affordable rates of $800 to $1150 for a 1-bedroom per month. Alchemy filled the rest of the space with 450 units in 9 buildings at market rates from $3500 for a studio to $7500 for a 3-bedroom per month. It was all very nice. There was a community garden open to the public as well as a broad public staircase with landscaping through the center. Aligned with Waller Street, that was named Waller Street Public Park.
I walked downhill on Laguna Street into
Hayes Valley. Laguna Street had some very lovely Victorian houses. I turned east on Hayes Street to Civic Center. The Hayes Valley business district on Hayes Street had many upscale shops & a new park. When I lived in San Francisco in 1989, it was sort of a slum. I hadn’t been there in all that time. The change was astonishing. Civic Center was disappointing. It was a mess of construction for repairs on City Hall & the setup for a Christmas fair. I took the Muni train back to Castro Station from Civic Center Station & arrived at Beck’s Motor Lodge at 1:30PM. Steve came at 2PM.
We had lunch at Orphan Andy’s, a venerable restaurant in the Castro on 17th Street. We went in Cliff’s Variety Store, another longtime establishment. Then we went in Dog Eared Books. It began to rain quite heavily while we were in the bookstore at 3PM. It was a flash flood. Sheets of water rushed down the streets. We got quite wet on the way back to Beck’s Motor Lodge, even though we shared an umbrella. Our pants were dripping from the knees down. Our shoes & socks were wet. It never rains that hard in Seattle. More than 0.6 inches fell between 2:30PM & 3:30PM. Rainwater flooded subway stations & caused power outages. Muni Metro subway was shut down from 3:30 PM until the next day. Homes were also flooded. We were lucky to have little rain until then. Much more was predicted than actually fell.
Steve took a Lyft car to
Japantown that evening. He had an 80-minute appointment for Japanese massage & sauna. I stayed at Beck’s Motor Lodge & ate in our room. I dried my clothes near the gas fireplace, packed & read news reports on my phone. I was bored. Steve stayed out until midnight. I was asleep when he came in.
Sunday December 8. We had breakfast at Squat & Gobble again. A Lyft car came to Beck’s Motor Lodge at 10AM & took us to Civic Center Station. We took BART to SFO & arrived at 10:45AM. BART was affected by flooding, but not too much. Our flight left SFO at 12:30PM & landed at SEA at 3PM. Rusty picked us up at the airport. We were home at 4PM.
