The ride

I had planned out the first three days of my vacation starting with Friday. Yes, I was still at work on Friday, but in this business you have to plan for getaway day else you’re liable to be trapped by someone else’s last-minute emergency. “Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part” is a great retort, but if the ultimate responsibility lies with you to provide the result it isn’t much comfort.

I won’t get into the details of the day. It’s enough to say the day started well and ended in overtime. I had ridden my bicycle  in that morning, getting a late start from home. Because of that, I planned to cruise in so as not to arrive too sweaty. Despite those good intentions I was led astray by the traffic conditions. I really tried to be good, but all it takes is one rider who doesn’t anticipate traffic down the street and one truck that turns first and signals later, and there it goes: me pedaling faster to stay in front of the crainium-vacant and barking at the hearing-impaired-by-iPod.

My point for riding in was to participate in the Ride. It was the last Friday of the month, the weather was fine, and it would be a great way to start my week off of exploring and relaxing. Unfortunately, I didn’t leave until 6:45 and by the time I hit the street, the plaza was empty and the Riders had gone. I was not dispirited, though. I rode up Market Street, asking likely folks along the way if the group had passed this way. A couple of times I ran across people who needed directions. They didn’t ask but you can tell just by how they stand agog at streets that don’t line up across intersections, and even if thy come close, don’t have the same name on either side of Market. Usually I try to help, but I was selfish today and didn’t volunteer time.

I came upon a small cluster of people helping one person fix a flat tire on a bicycle. That was a sure sign the Ride was somewhere near by – no one ever is left to fix a bike by themselves. Someone helps work on the bike, and someone watches for traffic. One of them pointed up the street and there was the tail end of the group, climbing the hill up to Haight Street.

The Ride gets a lot of bad press, but the message gets lost in the action. Sometimes, the message is best told by a picture:

The mobile quick-fix guy

This guy is actually a Muni inspector. He rides a bicycle around at rush hour triaging broken-down Muni buses. The operator is on the sidewalk making a call.

What will be reported is this scene in the opposite direction:

The intersection of Haight and Stanyan.

They cheered a hovering helicopter that lit us up with its spotlight.

Police copter or news copter? The illumination provides anonymity.

We made our way down to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Warren Hellman’s annual gift of music in Golden Gate Park.

The entrance from John F. Kennedy Boulevard

The event organizers provide parking for thousands of bicycles. All the racks were full.

Racks further up the Drive.

I lingered here too long and lost the group.  I rode back up Cabrillo and through the Park to the Inner Sunset, and up 7th to Portola. I stopped at Tower Market to buy makings for salad. I rearranged my backpack and rolled down dark and twisty O’Shaughnessy back home. I still had four hours or so of work to do, but I decided later to park it all until Sunday night and get on with the weekend. And so it was.

TWoTwotw0

It’s 2:22 in the morning and I should be asleep, if not in bed pretending to go to sleep. I’m supposed to be at work in about five hours, but truth is I’ve been working for the past four  hours on spreadsheets and charts. Strangely, I’m not sleepy but then fully half the world is awake right now.

And so it is I get an email from a friend on the other side of the world with a link that makes me realize my sore back, lack of sleep and unending stream of challenges at work are insignificant when faced with a power like this force:

http://fragg.me/video/japan-tsunami-inside-car

 

 

 

If you must know, the driver was able to escape after the 4:19 point in the video.

July Fourth

If you read the About screed, you know one of the best-kept secrets of Mission Terrace is that we host the city’s only Fourth of July parade. It’s so well-kept the owner of the house next door, who came by today to do some maintenance work, didn’t even know about it  – and she raised her son here.

The parade is just a neighborhood affair, but the SFFD sends a hook and ladder truck and the Ingleside Police Department contributes a couple of cars with officers. The local car club sends a contingent of rods for display, and the Roxie Market contributes burgers, dogs and associated fixings including a birthday cake for the old U.S. Our association secretary bungees an ancient boom box to a hand truck, cues up a patriotic march on a cassette,  tapes some American flags to the handles and leads the parade, followed by the police, the hook and ladder, and all the kids in the neighborhood towing wagons, riding trikes or just walking.

As in years past, I worked the grill line for the affair, but I had time to take a few pics.

 

From left to right: Ron, who has done this before; Juan, who works at the Roxie and is a cook by trade, and Paul, who has lived in the neighborhood for ten years and is just fine with the idea that people don’t know where in San Francisco Mission Terrace is.

 

We always feed the first responders first. That gives them time to go and show their stuff.

 

This qualifies as “stuff.”

 

Everyone is a volunteer here, even the tweeners who are drafted by their parents. The tables and canopies are pulled out of people’s garages. I brought my own spatulas and Juan drove me back home to get a grill brush and fireplace poker.  The grill is borrowed from a church across the street from the Roxie.

A line of hungry people. The gent in the wheelchair is 94 years old, and used to work at the Roxie. Before that he worked in the laundry for the Fairmont Hotel. Before that he was in WWII. Before that…well, it doesn’t matter what anyone who’s 94 did before that.

Change is coming to Balboa Park. Some of the trees in the background are due to come down as part of a park renovation. The building to the left houses an indoor pool. The park also has a soccer field, two baseball diamonds, tennis courts, a children’s play park, a dog run and will soon feature a skateboard park – necessitating the removal of trees on the other side of the park. All of this and more will be upgraded as part of the renovation.

Waiting for the F car

Monday was as close to a day from hell as my morning commute ever gets, starting with my getting to the stop late. A major reason to leave early every day is to escape the crowds starting to work in the morning. There is a major difference in traffic both on the roads and in public transit, between starting at 6:00 and 6:30.  If you wait until 7:00, all hope is lost for zipping along at the speed limit or getting a seat if you are boarding a train in the middle of the line.

Anyway. I’d checked the NextMuni predictor before leaving the house, and as I expected, a F car was due in about 8 minutes. The F line would be fine because I wanted a slower ride in that morning. It runs above ground, and the place where I get off at Market and Fremont has a Starbucks. There are three Starbucks on the four blocks that face  that intersection, but only one makes muffin sandwiches.

That’s what I looked forward to as I opened the front door to discover heavy drizzle. I don’t mind walking in the rain but standing in it is another matter so I reached back inside for the umbrella before heading up Santa Rosa. And once there I did indeed wait. And wait. And wait some more, the predictor assuring me a streetcar would be along in three minutes, then 5, then three again, and then announcing one was arriving. Except  there was nothing on the tracks but heavy mist, and the occasional car tire, as myself and several other people stood waiting for anything to show up. A woman near me took out her phone and spoke to someone in Chinese. A few minutes later a van pulled up and in she jumped. Two women across the street that I see every morning called out to ask I heard anything.  I crossed to tell them what the predictor said. Suddenly a J car approached from downtown, and I dashed to the platform to learn what he knew. But he did not even stop, making a slashing motion across his throat as he he flew by. One of the women decided to walk to the BART station, a half mile away, and after a few minutes so did I. And that was the morning commute.

In the evening I left early to get a haircut. I took the F since it gets closest to the barber shop, but the wait was long and the F was too slow. It’s summertime and the line is crowded with tourists. The F is as bad as  the cable cars when it comes to attracting people looking for a fun San Francisco ride.  I should have taken the underground and walked the extra two blocks.

After the cut, I walked down to catch the J back home. It was a ten minute wait and when it arrived, it was only going as far as 30th Street. There we were all ordered out of the car, which turned around and headed back downtown. The next car was due in five minutes according to the predictor, but from 30th you can see the track for ten minutes of length and there was no J in sight.

But then the most amazing thing happened. An old Italian F car rattled up, and the irascible operator stopped, opened the doors and said “Get in.”

You have to understand, the F never stops going inbound. Once they are done hauling the hoi polloi up and down Market Street and along the Embarcadero, F operators head for home like greyhounds after a rabbit. They wouldn’t stop for a San Francisco fare if you waved fresh sourdough and a basket of steaming crab at them.  The folks standing on the 30th Street platform piled into the rickety streetcar like it was the last chopper out of Saigon. The operator engaged the drive and we were off.

Five yards later he stopped.

One of the passengers that boarded had been angrily berating a light pole while we were waiting. I’m sure the pole was just as apologetic as it could be, but the man’s anger wasn’t any less as he took a seat and continued his tirade from inside the streetcar. His vocabulary would have made the crew of the Carl Vinson sit up, and the passengers had all given him spitting distance clearance in the car. But the operator was having none of it. He set the brake, opened the rear door, strode to the back of the car, and ordered the man off. The guy looked at him and raised the invection a couple of levels, but he collected his bags and got off the car. The operator pulled a switch that closed the doors behind him, and went back to the controls.

And no one said a word the rest of the trip.

God, I love the F.

Synchonicity

I’m a little weird with movies. I don’t see them very often, and my likes/dislikes are all over the map. I see a lot of movies I like by accident, and other that I would like to see also by accident. So it was with Inception, which happened to be on as I was making the bed one recent Sunday morning. I didn’t watch the whole thing because something better came along, but two days later I get this:

http://www.flixxy.com/wedding-inception-day.htm

Keep on walking – Part II

I’m walking from the Financial District to my home in Mission Terrace. I’m still on Market Street, just near Gough, before the area known as Upper Market begins.  Not too far away is Hayes Valley, now one of the hippest places in the City to hang out. It became what this section of Market was striving for years to become, but this area just didn’t get the critical mass necessary to become a star like Hayes Valley. The hipsters and newly-come to S.F, will scoff it was never in the cards for this area of lost alleys and busy one-way streets, but it was not always like this.

This is Chris Daly’s place. The less said, the better.

Those who can't legislate, libate.

Caffe Trieste is a coffee house on the corner of Gough and Market. It has no dedicated parking spaces. There is no parking for private automobiles anywhere on Lower Market. For most of its length you cannot make a left hand turn and in fact, no private automobiles are allowed east of 11th street. So why Market Street merchants get into a snit every time banning automobile traffic on Lower Market is proposed  is really beyond me.  Both The Buck and Caffe Trieste seem to be doing fine without big lots – indeed any lots at all.

An exterior to an Italian coffee shop.

A few steps on is Valencia. This is San Francisco’s most ecletic shopping strand, peppered with restaurants and bars to fit every budget, taste and  lifestyle. One can arrive in S.F. for the first time, and find everything they need to live on Valencia; a U-Haul store, ZipCar, furniture and appliance stores, clothing and car repair shops, modern and classic apartments. Yes, this is true of many cities, but Valencia did it while remodeling the entire length to create a pedestrian-and-bicycle-friendly streetscape. The transformation to its current look from a run-down, grimy, four lane cross-town throughway was a bold social experiment that essentially re-invented the neighborhood. Two lanes of car traffic were removed, two bike lanes added, the sidewalks were widened, overhead wires removed, new lighting installed and sewer improvements made.  Commercial businesses along the route thrived. While gentrification played a big part in this, a few businesses from the day still exist, and many more have been added.

Munroe Motors is one of the survivors.  Way back when sportbikes were in their infancy and women riders were few, my friend Liz came here to check out the Moto Guzzi v50, the only offering that fit her. The sales guys were a little patronizing, to say the least. Now, female racers and riders hang out here, and all the makes have a few models comfortably sized for shorter inseams, and the selection of gender-appropriate clothing is un-remarkably equal – and I mean that literally.

Munroe Motors - a shop that feeds the need for speed.

The key happening thing on Valencia is food Basically, if you can’t find something to eat on Valencia, whatever you are thinking of is not edible. This doesn’t mean the street sports a line of crapulous dining establishments. There are no major chain restaurants, but you’ll find a lot of familiar cuisines – they just have a San Francisco twist.

A restaurant along Valencia

This joint is called We Be Sushi. The caption under the sign’s headline reads “Just like Mom used to make.” Hanging under it is a cocktail icon reading “Drinks like Mom used to mix”.

For a while, every Friday after work a former co-worker and I went to a place near Lone Mountain for Hawaiian food and drinks, after which she’d give me a ride back home along Valencia. One day we  finally asked ourselves why we were driving halfway across town to the same joint (though it was good)  for a meal when all these places were available. So we started on 18th Street, hitting a different place every week. The first place was an Irish bar with stewed rabbit on the menu. We didn’t finish two blocks before she was laid off, ending the expedition.

City College of San Francisco has several campuses.

At two different times, I lived two blocks away from Valencia. That factoid has little to do with anything and even less to do with this campus of the City College system. Have I mentioned San Francisco City College is the largest community college in the nation?

At this point we are close to 24th Street, a busy commercial strip extending from upper Noe Valley (expensive to live in and home to the stroller brigade) to the heart of the Mission District (expensive to live in and home to the muralists). You will find chain restaurants along here – there’s a Starbucks at 24th and Noe Street and a McDonald’s at 24th and Mission Street. It was only as I wrote this that I saw the eponymous geocultural irony in that.

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My typical afternoon on Valencia finds me on my bicycle. The end of the fun part of the street is where it intersects Cesar Chavez Street. More often then not, the bikes queue up here waiting for a light. In the picture below, they’re off!

Bike commuters crossing Cesar Chavez

What you see behind them is the open space part of Bernal Heights. I used to give walking tours near here, and at the time I called it Microwave Hill because of the AT&T towers planted on its crown.

Microwave Hill

Named for a family that owned a rancho here ages ago, the neighborhood is as eclectic as it gets in San Francisco. The hill is the birthplace of street luge and urban fixed-kite sailing.

 

A victim of the real estate implosion

Now Valencia is way behind me. There isn’t much to photograph between Cesar Chavez and Mission Street. St Luke’s Hospital dominates the block, and Mission is very busy. I do not expect to see it converted to two lanes in my lifetime. My walking route departs the street and follows a secluded path just across from Holly Street. The path rises along the hill that once existed on what is now San Jose Avenue. The hill was cut through for a railroad, which became a roadway , and is today both. The path descends to a stairway which drops below San Jose Avenue to Bosworth Street. It is here you’ll find the Bosworth Homes project.

Construction on these condos began just as the housing boom crested. Financing almost certainly started just before the mortgage meltdown. These were intended to be custom-styled large (3-5 BR) homes that would appeal to families. They lie just outside the freeway boundary of Glen Park; the back overlooks noisy San Jose Avenue. Construction came to a halt about two years ago, but new signs of activity recently appeared.
Pricing back in 2009:

A Upper (1/1.5) 1 parking – $650,000
A Lower (3/2.5) 1 parking – $855,000
B Upper (3/2.5) 1 parking – $960,000
B Lower (3/2.5) 2 parking – $1,099,000
C Upper (3/2.5) 2 parking – $1,099,000
C Lower (3/3.5) 2 parking – $1,149,000
D Upper (5/4.5) 2 parking – $1,275,000
D Lower (5/4.5) 2 parking – $1,299,000

 

Watching.

Almost home. This bit of street art is painted on the 280 underpass abutment on Diamond Street.

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I haven’t measured the distance from my job to here. I know it’s at least five miles based on my running route, which I have measured and which is shorter than this. But to paraphrase Indiana Jones, it’s not the mileage, it’s the scenery.

Keep on walking

I have one of the best longer-than-tw0-miles-commutes in the City. I haven’t any scientific proof, but I offer this evidence.
- Two BART stops to downtown San Francisco are within walking distance (five blocks)
- Within two blocks are three streetcar lines, two of which go downtown and all of which stop at one of the close-by BART stations.
- If all the rail were out, two trolley bus lines to downtown are two blocks away.

Except for the bus, all these options start have stops on the block where I work. The bus stops across the street.

Added to that, my building offers secure bicycle parking, several nearby garages offer  early bird rates (at $18 a day) and on-street motorcycle parking is about eight dollars a day.

Despite all that, I walked home today. The trip took just under two hours. I’ve done this before from my old location on Fifth Street, but this was my first from the Financial District. Years ago when I lived in Baja Noe, on a day off I extended my morning run from my flat at Dolores and 22nd all the way down to the Embarcadero Freeway and back. Yes, back then the ugly double-decker was still there, and the Embarcadero was nothing like the palm-spangled banner of pedestrian conviviality that it is today.

Almost nothing along my route today was like it was back then, except for my neighborhood. I took alleys at the start, even walking through one building to get to the other side of the block.

In the day, Stevenson Alley was dark, dirty and was home to the homeless. Now it boasts at least three restaurants with outside or patio seating and one high-end converted loft (http://1ecker.com/). Several new buildings have been constructed in the alley to complete its transformation over the three blocks between First and Third.

A cartload of bicycles carted by a bicycle

Turning onto Market Street at New Montgomery I was reminded of the wide sidewalks of Omotesando Street in Tokyo, where the sidewalks were marked by the throngs of people on them. The moving crowd stretched as far as I could see, before the gentle undulations in the topography obscured the walkers. I was surprised at how clean the sidewalk was on Market between Fifth and Seventh – this is San Francisco’s Skid Row.

A unusually litter-free environment.

I continued up Market past the wind tunnel created by Fox Plaza nee Archstone, and past the Art Deco SF Mart, future home of Twitter. I noted a cutout in the brick sidewalk that led to a gated parking entrance in the building.  The entrance is off the northbound lane, but the intersection just to the west is where care are required to turn off Market Street to detour down Eighth. I wonder how Twitter will spin that?

Unused for years, this may be the future portal for Twitter's Beemers and Mercs. The green in the foreground is the Market Street bike lane.

Crossing Market, I pass San Francisco Honda. To me it is still Boas Honda, owned by a man who was once the city administrative officer. He was convicted back in the day of having sex with a teenage girl from Mission High School. I’ve boycotted the place ever since, except for one regrettably unavoidable brake repair job.

That’s all for now. I’ll finish the description tomorrow, starting with Valencia Street.

Eat your Greens

Those who live in and love San Francisco will often cite the individual character of the neighborhoods as one of the reasons they like living here. And there can be no doubt the geography of the City is a prime contributor to that character. For all the media reports of Pelosi liberals and the heavy exposure given to the Haight and the Castro, hardly anyone outside city limits knows the West of Twin Peaks neighborhood is one of the most conservative in California (and if you think California doesn’t have conservatives you’ve never visited Taft).

But I digress. Here’s five things unique things about the Mission Terrace  neighborhood.

1. We stage the only Fourth of July parade in San Francisco.

2. The Balboa Park BART station in our neighborhood is the busiest in the system outside of the four downtown stations.

http://www.sf-planning.org/index.aspx?page=1748

3. A river runs through the neighborhood in an underground culvert.

4. My neighborhood has a working commercial farm:

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/04/20/san-franciscan-gardeners-permitted-to-sell-their-crops/

5. You’ll have to visit yourself to discover number 5.

Nobody is safe

A person I work with announced today that his position has been eliminated. A longtime member of the team that engineered our core product, this was stunning news. If someone like him could go, anyone could go. It happens every day in companies large and small across the country, but it is still a shock.

I anticipate the arrival of summer, even San Francisco summer. The cold winds and frigid temperatures that have marked these past few months are sticking around far too long. I was at the ballpark on consecutive nights; one for a game that actually started at one in the afternoon but ran into extra innings.and finished an hour before sundown. I hung out near the park though, until after dark. The start of the baseball season always signals spring, no matter how crazy the weather is.

Snap Crackle Pop

Perhaps it’s happened to you. You’re in your car seeking an on-street parking space. You spy one at the curb, the sidewalk filled with a small clutch of people waiting to buy cupcakes, or get into the theatre, or perhaps just nursing their caffeine fix. You sidle up and execute your best parallel parking maneuver. And suddenly – pow! It’s crunch time.

It may have been an empty Odwalla bottle. It might be a drift of dried twigs. On really unlucky occasions it could be an empty beer bottle. Whichever, it’s found its way into the gutter, and your tires have squeezed it into a small space, with explosive results.

And now you’re the object of everyone’s attention on the walk, all wearing irritated expressions at best summed up as “Did you do that just to draw attention to yourself?” To which you can only glare back as if to say, “Which one of you left the IED in the gutter?” But in San Francisco, no one would ever admit to tossing refuse in the street, so you will never have the satisfaction of an answer to that question.  It’s one of the unwritten rules of driving and parking, right between avoiding curbside puddles on rainy days and remembering that when parking your SUV with the rear tire rack, that it marks the end of your car and not your bumper.