Art Nouveau Stern Grove

Half Moon Bay

We went here over the holiday seasons, and it was appropriately cold, windy and foggy. The Northern California coast tends to be rocky, windy, and treacherous. Because it's in California, San Francisco is often associated with sunshine, surfing and palm trees, when in fact the weather is characterized by dense, low-lying fog and gusts of wind, and if it's sunny it is a brisk sunshine, not a pleasant, warm, lazy one.

But all this, combined with all its hills, contributes to San Francisco's airiness, which I guess isn't so refreshing when you want to go out at night during the summer and have to wear several jackets, but contributes to a light, crisp sort of feel, which east coast cities are definitely lacking. They always feel as if they are broiling under the pavement during the summer, but San Francisco seems to be perched atop a cool breezy hill. It never feels stuffy. Sometimes when I go back I think stuff like, "This is the air I was meant to breathe!" Plus we have no bugs.

Being in this environment, among native Northern California plants and trees (and non-native ones which we have adopted as our own, like eucalyptus) really takes me back to my childhood- I have many photos of me in preschool on nature walks on the coast, all of us huddled together in sweatshirts.

People in Motion/People in Mooottttiiioooonnnn!!!!*

Oh, Dolores Park. Am I wrong or are there far fewer Speedo-clad gays than there once was? Still, it's fun to get a treat from Tartine/a High Life with a paper bag around it and people-watch on a warm day. Note the view of beautiful Mission High and downtown.

These photos are worth clicking on.

*This is the crescendo part of If You're Going to San Francisco (Make Sure You Wear some Flowers in Your Hair)

Stow Lake = Darling!!!

When I was a kid, I lived in the Duboce Triangle and the Richmond, so I spent a lot of time in Golden Gate Park- which truly has everything. And one of my fondest memories is going to the picturesque Stow Lake with my parents, eating a bar of pink popcorn and/or It's It, drinking an Icee (blue or red flavor!), and renting a boat, which I thought was like totally a real adventure on the High Seas.

Recently, I returned to Stow Lake to rent a row boat on one of the few warm days we have, and my god it was charming! So 1950's and cute! Anyway, it was one of those old-fashioned, leisurely type of Day-In-The-Park activities I feel human beings could use more of. Like I should have been wearing a boater hat and reading Wind In the Willows alo. You know, something queer like that. Anyway, Simone, if you are reading this: we should totally do a photo shoot here!

Some Pretty Pictures

Apparently we are the worst at updating this blog. It would probably be easier if either of us actually LIVED in SF right now, but oh well. Here be some lovely photos of random stuff in San Francisco to enjoy:


The Dance Party Laundromat on the corner of Mission and Ocean. (Not really a dance party).


Ye Olde California Savings Bank sign on Mission & 16th.


Cute Art Deco Building somewhere downtown - Sutter Street maybe?


Postwar stucco houses on the North Side of Bernal Hill.


View of the Backs of some houses from a pedestrian overpass near the Glen Park Bart Station.


Twin Peaks & Sutro Tower from... Noe Valley, I think.


The Strand, and old theater on Market Street that has been empty forever.


Old Tile Storefronts on Market Street.



A really cute building and storefront in Chinatown.

More to come, I swear. Like, actual entries that I sorta did research on and stuff. For serious!

Grant Street, Chinatown

I'm not often in San Francisco's official Chinatown, which swarms with packs of gawking tourists from the midwest on the best of days. I prefer Clement Street or Irving near 19th for my chinatown fix. (which, oddly enough, usually involves Vietnamese food, not Chinese...) Anyway, as a young child, I remember my mom loved to take us to Chinatown, where I would be shoved aside by mean old Chinese ladies trying to buy the freshest vegetables at various green-grocers on Stockton, and inevitably rewarded with some cheesy tchotke (a "jade" horse figurine is strongly embedded in my memory) purchased at some sort of "showroom of the oriental arts" or something on Grant Street.

As one would assume, Chinatown has a lot of interesting history. In 1906, after the earthquake/fire, the SF goverment, in a valorous showing of both racism AND greed (oh, they go hand in hand!) tried to keep the Chinese from coming back to Chinatown, because the rich white people wanted the real estate for themselves. So the Chinese community had to make some concessions, one of them being that they would make Chinatown more tourist-friendly, and more "Chinese" looking. So that's why a lot of the buildings in Chinatown have a little oriental flare to them - it was to placate the white populous and make Chinatown more "cute", and, I assume, less of an opium den.

Anyway, here are some photos I took the other day of old signs and stuff on Grant Ave.



The Buddha Bar on Grant &... something. Obviously, I wasn't paying close attention to street signs. I wonder how old the street lights are here?



"The Art Co" sign. I wonder what it was like down here before everything was a goddamned souvenir store.





Old Signs for souvenir shops.





Some really cute deco tilework on storefronts... It's kinda amazing to me how much tilework like this there is in SF.



Eastern Bakery sign.



The amazing thing is, this place is STILL a drug store.



Looking down Grant towards Bush St.



Looking down Grant towards Columbus St.

You know the Chinatown Gate on Grant and Bush? It's ugly, you know, and has, like, dragons on it? Anyway, apparently when they put that up, the committe in charge of it had a choice between building a new library or putting up that gate. Just so you know where everyones priorities lie. sigh. Oh, and apparently the gate is wrong, the animals on it are in the wrong place or something. heh.

RE: Light Shining on Bernal Hill

Mary's post of the evening light shining on Bernal Hill reminded me of a bunch of photos I took in January 2006 from the top of Bernal Hill. The way the light falls on the victorians in San Francisco is really one of the most beautiful things about the city. Her description of the houses jumbled together looking like a patchwork quilt couldn't be more apt. Anyway, here be the photos:







Oooh, pretty!