I think back, back to a time before Queen Liz was embalmed and Roe was interred and Brittney was freed and the 7 letters “chatgpt” were nothing more than a typo, back to when I was last in San Francisco. It was a different city then.
These past 2 years have taken a toll on the grande dame of foggy enchantment. Techies have fled and downtown has hollowed. The most prized real estate has flipped from Victorian flats in the Mission to tent spaces along Ellis or Van Ness. Fentanyl has bled out of the Tenderloin, leaving its lethal stain across even the toniest of neighborhoods. And the Tenderloin, a conflict zone in the best of times, has become biblical in its desolation; Old Testament desolation.
It is against this backdrop that I will spend these 2 autumn weeks in the city I love; one that nurtured a career and afforded a home and helped shape 3 rascally Magill kids. Despite my 13 years in la très belle Provence, it still lures me back. L’amoureux I can never quite quit.
Dispatch #1: All Quiet on the Western Front
The mercury was climbing through the 70s as Stella and I stepped into the downtown metro train this morning. In another hour it would hit 85 under full sun. October in San Francisco; always a lock to be gorgeous.
The news out of San Francisco has been gloomy of late, and for fair reason. A full third of the downtown office space sits vacant. Drug-related deaths are averaging over 2 per day. Videos abound of tent cities and boarded-up storefronts. Would we emerge from the Union Square Station to a dystopian scene from Escape from New York, menacing gangs and baby-clutching moms and roving packs of feral dogs? I envisioned an urban wasteland running the length of Market Street, pulsing to the mix of boomboxes and street evangelists exhorting the end of times, standing on the hulks of still-smoldering MUNI buses, bullhorns in hand.
But no, quiet was the word. No gangs or dogs or endless tent cities, no Snake Plissken. My concern turned to bigger worries than carnage. It was the quiet.
Stella and I walked through the regal Westfield Mall. There was a scurry of first-shift staff rushing to their shops for the opening hour, but about 50% of the stores have shuttered, including the anchor tenant, Nordstrom. Clean and tidy, but lots of quiet.
We passed by the cable car turnaround, where a trolley was being boarded by a group of tourists, Starbucks in hand. But, the long lines that typically snake up Powell Street were missing, as were the buskers and jugglers and pervasive panhandlers. Soiled and aggressive? No, just calm and quiet.
Union Square was the same. There were some notable closures, but many of the major chains circling the plaza were still operating. What caught our attention was the absence of sidewalk banter and bustle. The calm and quiet.
Navigating the sidewalks in Chinatown and North Beach is usually a bob and weave through tourist herds, but we seemed to own the pavement that morning. The counter stools at Mario’s Bohemian Cafe stood empty and the book stacks at City Lights unattended; great for us, not so good for them. Even the Condor and strip clubs along Broadway were shuttered until more promising evening hours, an ominous sign for the reliably unruly 24/7 Baghdad by the Bay.
First impressions from an indomitable romantic? No San Francisco apocalypse, at least along our trek on this lovely fall day, but a deeply unsettling level of empty quiet. Everyone we chatted with - the waitress at Mario’s and security guard in Chinatown and salesman at Ray-Ban’s (a Stella suggestion) - shared the same sentiment: we need the tourists back, we need more feet on the street, we can only last so long.
Ending on a note of hope I will submit this: the salivary splendor of Mario’s meatball sandwich on focaccia bread remains very much at its peak. And I always welcome a stool and glass of house red along its storied counter.
Click these links to read dispatches #2 (Welcome to the Jungle) and #3 (Across the Universe) from this San Francisco journey.