John / Billybob
It still is. It once took me two hours to go 1/2 mile on a Friday afternoon. I think I could have crawled faster.
Anyone wishing to spend a day in San Francisco should leave their car at the Oakland Colesium and take the train.
My brother who lived in San Francisco for many years said that if you didn't get an apartment with a view in that city, you got screwed.
My wife and I took our motor home there once. We were climbing to the top of one of the hills behind a city bus on a street where every cross street is terraced, when the city bus went over the top the rear end went up in the air. You could see just about the entire under-carriage of the bus...my wife gasped and held on for dear life.
Yes, a beautiful city...
I fear you would find the current inhabitants to be several rungs down the evolution ladder, with many as obvious genetic defects --- from the time you spent there.
I live nearby, visit only when out of town/country guests at my home request it - and minimize the money I spend in the city proper, not wanting to subsidize the bastards.. For meals, we slip across the bridge to Sausalito.
Merry Christmas to you, partner.
I've always enjoyed reading your measured input to the forum.
Semper Fi
Brings back wonderful memories. At about the same time you were there in the city, I lived just around the corner (Taylor and Washington) from the trolley barn and would go the few down the hill to Chinatown and look for the restaurants with the longest lines of orientals...hmmm, mighty good eats.
Walk-around crab cocktails on the Wharf, cioppino, Ernie's, Chinatown, fresh hot piroshkis out on Geary Street, DUNGENESS CRAB, the Caprice in Tiburon, brunch with Irish coffee down by the Powell & Hyde turntable at the Buena Vista...
Slurp!
And a very Merry Christmas to you, too, sir.
...very nice. Thank you. Twin Peaks. What a place to live!
Thanks. And Merry Christmas.
A San FRancisco Bay Area, Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas BumP
I visited Paris before I visited San Francisco. I had thought that Paris must be the most beautiful city in the world. That was short lived. A few years later, we flew from Seattle to San Francisco and the pilot flew a circle around the city as we prepared to land. I saw the whole of the city with the bay and the bridges and I still can't imagine a sight more beautiful than that.
We have been back many times since and every view of San Francisco is just spectacular. Thanks for the great article.
San Francisco, one of the most beautiful cities in the world! It's one of the places I miss since I moved to Washington State.
I found that walking could be a little hazardous to your health a few times, what with people running red lights and such, but loved riding the cable cars around the city.
I lived in the old People's Hospitol, on the Presidio of San Francisco. My room was on the 6th floor, overlooking the city.
At the time, the bulding was used as a branch of the Defense Language Institute (1984).
Dad's company moved him from their LA to their SF office, and Mom, with a baby daughter in tow, followed after wrapping up the household in Glendale.
She says she arrived the week the Bay Bridge opened, which was convenient because they settled in Oakland.
So the elder brother was born in East Bay. If Dad's asthma could have resisted the cold and dank weather, he would have stayed. As it was, he got hemself reassigned to the office in his home town, Chicago.
So that's how I missed being a SF Boy.
I visit when I can.
Just a little query.
I was there in '65, and worked on Market, and I don't recall any cable car line going from anywhere near Twin Peaks to Market street. Where the heck did you drive to in order to catch a car downtown, Van Ness and California, or down to the wharf?
I love 'Frisco. I used to live in The Bay Area and would take BART to The City all the time, (I lived in Santa Clara.)
I loved the Presidio, the aquarium, the architecture, the hills, North Beach, Golden Gate park, and places right outside like Henry Coe, Felton, Boulder, Highway 17 and the Marin Headlands.
I used to love reading Herb Caen, Stan Delaplane, Charlie McCabe and Scott Ostler before he got stuck permanently in Sports, I also liked reading Ruthe Stein and the Outdoors guy, Tom Stienstra (sp?.)
It's too bad it is such an evil city, just like Ithica, another of my favorite cities because of the Finger Lakes and Gorges areas, but inhabited by purely evil politicians, (in my opinion.)
Thanks for this Christmas card, Billybob!
Twenty years ago one of the Dominican brothers at St Vincent's in San Rafael showed me the still quite visible ruts made by the old Wells Fargo wagon. I thought that was so cool.
Poignant and wistful...
Merry Christmas, my Friend!