The F-Market redeemed.
I rarely take the F-Market because it is so slow and the double-seats have no butt dividers. The former is more important than the latter, of course, but the latter is really important if you have ever had a stranger smelling of grain alcohol be all gropey with the side of his leg. Not that that has ever happened to me before. (All the time, on the F-Market.) I took the F-Market yesterday because going underground on a day like that was a crime, the kind of crime that unicorns would ticket you for while crying tears of Nutella. It was an astoundingly beautiful San Francisco day. I should have walked. But I took the F-Market instead. The redeeming quality about the F-Market is that it is usually populated with cheerful tourists. I like to eavesdrop and pretend that...
Read More1940s-era Coca-Cola billboard in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights to be covered up
How disappointing. From the article: “The suddenly infamous Bernal Heights Coca-Cola billboard will apparently be covered up with siding in the hope that it can be preserved until a possible historic designation makes it legal to display once more.”
Read MoreNIMBY vs. Vintage Sign: The Lost History of the Former Tipton’s Grocery Store
For those of you following the Bernal Heights Coca-Cola sign saga, here is the update from Bernalwood.
Read MoreHistoric Bernal Heights Coca-Cola Sign Outlawed
I had the pleasure of photographing this sign during a SFlickr photostroll a few years ago. Although I am no fan of the brand, I care about protecting the sign as a piece of San Francisco history. If you care too, please help me in searching the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection for evidence that the sign existed before 1965. I have already searched Flickr Commons, to no avail, but could always use a triple-check. The sign is located at the corner of Tompkins and Banks. (via James) Update, 17 February 2011: I searched Flickr Commons, but found no results. I also searched the San Francisco Historical Photographs collection at SFPL, but didn’t find anything there either. I contacted SF City Guides and the Mechanics’ Institute Library....
Read MoreThe opposite of reverse.
I found myself wandering-with-purpose in the Financial District tonight. It was a perfect 65 degrees and the buildings quietly churned with swing-shift tidying. On a street I have walked hundreds of times, I found myself staring at the new location of an old employer. There was no rush of feeling, bad or good, just a slow smile. Well, there you are again. And I kept going. I wish I understood San Francisco. For a researcher like me, the city is frustrating. Parts of it I want to make sense, and they don’t, and they won’t. Parts of it are like the transit system I’m always going on about, and you wonder why I just don’t shut up already. When I hear myself even start to talk about it, I cringe. But this is my first and closest interface with...
Read Morea photo a day, day 22
For the photo a day meme: a photo of your town. My town. My town. This subject is fraught for me because I have struggled with the concept of “my” in regards to San Francisco. Although I have lived in the Bay Area for 11 years, I still feel fairly detached from it. As a result, I haven’t taken any astounding photographs of this place. That said, this photo captures a little part of my SF experience.
Read MoreThe City of Stolen Time
If you don’t live in San Francisco or care about city infrastructure, skip this post. I am compelled by my own impotent rage to document the abject absurdity of commuting in this city. This is anecdotal and subjective in nature; for statistics, please see Joe Eskenazi and Greg Dewar’s excellent SF Weekly article, “The Muni Death Spiral”. Today the N-Judah train I was riding during rush hour stopped at Church and Duboce due to “train control problems”. (For those of you who do not commute in San Francisco, that stop is the last above-ground stop for the N, meaning that all the commuters trying to get downtown and to the Caltrain station are out of luck.) Above-ground, all the F-Market trains and shuttle buses were packed. I did...
Read Morewhat to say
I had this idea during dinner that I would get out my laptop and write something about the Big News, but I don’t know exactly what to say. Forgive my befuddled rambling. For those of you who haven’t yet heard, I was one of the 15,000 City and County of San Francisco employees to receive a pink slip on Friday. Only I was on vacation and, in an effort to unplug, had not checked work email or RSS feeds all week. We returned home late Friday night, and my pink slip arrived in the mail on Saturday. To say that I was shocked in that moment … well, I was shocked, but I was also a mess of other emotions. I opened the envelope, expecting a direct deposit slip, and received something very different. (It wasn’t pink at all, if you’re...
Read Moreone more smell
The dashboard widget said 8 minutes, so I power-walked. As I slid onto one of the last non-senior seats on the bus, I caught a whiff of rubber cement. The last time I smelled rubber cement on the bus, I was sitting next to the same person. The smell was not entirely unpleasant. It reminded me of when I used to decorate my Chandler’s assignment notebook in high school, cutting out strange pictures from magazines and pasting them on the pages. And so I catalogued one more smell that will not make me give up my seat on the bus.
Read Morerestroom
I stepped off the 19 Polk with a mad grin. The driver had been brilliant, announcing all the stops and transfer points, and even complimenting riders as they stepped onto the bus. “I love those boots, girl!” “C’mon up, beautiful!” She told me she loved my hat and called me cute as I thanked her and hopped off. Trader Joe’s was aflutter with pre-dinner preparations. The cashier tried to make small-talk with the women in front of me, but they were dour and busy. He gave me a look and a shrug as if to say, I tried. He, too, complimented my hat, so I thanked him, and we exchanged those small pleasantries that make the line go faster. As I was waiting for the 27 Bryant in an unfamiliar part of town, a young man, scruffy but cogent,...
Read MoreHello What
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