The Streets of San Francisco
A brief journal
How is San Francisco lookin’? Okay, I think. I have been going to that city since the mid-1990s—pretty regularly. I have seen its ups and downs. Today I think it is at about a B-minus, C-plus. Something like that. Is that grading on a curve or on an absolute scale?
I’ll have to think about that.
I was in the city for a couple of days early this month. I don’t claim to have done some study. But I took my usual long walks and you notice things.
My assessment—or rather, impression (for “assessment” sounds too formal, almost scientific): fewer street people; fewer needles; less menace; less filth.
Than when? Fewer needles, less menace, etc., than when? Oh, than in the recent past, I would say.
I’ll tell you something new—new since my first visits, that is: The street people, including junkies, now stare and tap at their smartphones (like everyone else). Under bridges and so forth, they look at their smartphones. I hope the phone provides a balm, some relief from daily afflictions.
Let me say something elementary: Politics is important. Government is important. Good government, or bad, makes a significant difference.
This is a point that Bill Kristol stressed many years ago, when I was working at The Weekly Standard (and he was the editor). A lot of us on the right were kind of glibly anti-politics and anti-government.
No, he said: Without good politics and good government, life is blighted. You cannot leave these arenas to charlatans and knaves.
I can tell you something from (almost) 30 years of living in New York: A city is like a garden. It needs constant tending. A little neglect, and things go wrong, and a lot of neglect, things go to pot.
All of this is elementary, almost embarrassingly so. But the elementary needs stressing and re-stressing.
Okay, I’ll now switch to journal mode—present tense and all ...
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Is San Francisco the most beautiful city in America (whatever its problems)? The most beautiful city—big city—in the world, even? That would not be an outlandish claim. The natural setting can’t be beat. And what is man-made, is very good.
Stretches of Chicago—magnificent (as in Mile). Stretches of other cities—also magnificent. But I think San Francisco may take the cake.
When San Francisco was at its worst—with crime and degradation—I said, “When you lift your gaze up—above the streets—everything is incredibly beautiful. When your gaze is at street level—look out ...”
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When you live in New York, other cities can seem like ghost towns. Let me explain. There are just fewer people on the streets. You don’t realize—or at least I don’t realize—how crowded New York is until you go elsewhere.
At the moment, I am walking on a block of a major thoroughfare here in San Francisco. There are three of us—two on one side of the street, one on the other. It’s shortly after noon, on a sunny Thursday.
(I’m not saying this is good or bad. I’m saying it’s so.)
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The public library in Chinatown (dating from 1921). When I see it, I think, “This is so American.” Also, we must add: “Thank you, Andrew Carnegie.”
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As I approach the water, the first thing I see is a restaurant advertising “Maine Lobster.” I can’t help thinking, “This is just wrong.” I mean, Maine is 3,000 miles in the other direction! On the other end of the continent!
You know?
I mean, does Bar Harbor hit you with, “Get your Ghirardelli chocolate and sourdough bread!”?
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Well, this is a pretty San Francisco-y scene:
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I must say, I never saw a more attractive, or a more fetchingly shaped, hotdog stand:
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As firehouses go, this must be an unusual one—and all decked out for Christmas:
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A small park, but well designed, and very pleasant:
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Kind of neat:
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A song enters my head—or rather, one lyric from it: “Let me beat my feet up and down Market Street.” That’s what I’m doing at the moment. Isn’t that a wonderful rhyme, a wonderful lyric?
It was written by Gus Kahn. Born in Prussia in 1886. The song comes from the 1936 movie San Francisco. The music was composed by two men: Bronisław Kaper, born in Warsaw in 1902, and Walter Jurmann, born in Vienna in 1903.
Would America let those guys in today?
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Here is a lovely amalgam (again, very American):
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When I saw this sign from a distance, I thought it said “Rosa Park’s Way.” But no. Rose Pak was a Chinese-American activist (1947–2016).
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Care for a language item? Even when I do a travel journal, you can’t quite escape a language item ...
If you want to write “Café,” great. “Cafe” is fine too. But “Caffé”? Non esiste. In Italian, it’s “Caffè,” with the accent going the other way.
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A word for the young: The heading of my article today is “The Streets of San Francisco.” This was the title of a TV series—a crime drama—that ran from 1972 to 1977. It starred Karl Malden and Michael Douglas, and was very popular.
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Thank you for joining me. I think I’ll close with another shot of Chinatown. San Francisco has its problems, heaven knows (even if they’re ameliorating). But my gosh: what a thrill, this city. It has made hearts palpitate for many generations and I hope it keeps on doing it.
Your upbeat-ness is a blessing this morning, Mr. Nordlinger.
I'd welcome a chance to return to San Fran! I went there for an academic conference once in 2009, when I was in my twenties, but a fellow student was wise enough to persuade me to fly out a day or two early so we could sightsee more before the conference began. There were lots of fun moments, but my favorite to tell when I only have a moment is from a late-night city-bus ride: Friday night, coming back from a restaurant, my classmates and I were jam-packed as more and more people seemed to board. One was a pure surfer-dude - stringy blond hair, white t-shirt, maybe some kind of surfing-gear logo on a bag - who grinningly commented to his friend, in perfect surfer-dude voice and shifted California vowels, "Dude! Who knew there'd be this many people on the bus?"