Berwick PlaceDay 10
Neighborhoods Covered: Civic Center, SoMa
Streets Completed: Birch, Ash, Redwood, Grace, Washburn, Dore, Sheridan, Ringold, Heron, Berwick, Gordon, Bernice, Isis, Kissling, Lafayette
Things cleared up a bit. It was an odd and difficult day through the mid-afternoon, and for much of it I didn't think the rain would actually let up. But it did, and by the time I got back from Trader Joe's it was hysterically windy but dry, so I put the car in the garage and headed out on foot.
I started by knocking off a few runty streets around Civic Center. Redwood was the tough one. It starts (or ends) at Franklin, dead ends into the back of a building, and continues on the other side of Van Ness. Per the rules of this insane venture, I had to walk this jag, and so I did...only to encounter a guy coming out of the apartment building that backs up to the alley. He had a bike and appeared to be off on a ride. I was on foot and appeared to be walking purposefully toward a concrete wall, only to discover--will you look at that!--that the street down which I was striding ends abruptly! I reached the wall, walked along it, and then headed up the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Bike guy watched me the whole time, no doubt (and understandably) assuming I was up to no good. Luckily, the whole jaunt took about 35 seconds and I was once again on my way.
I crossed Van Ness to finish Redwood (open-ended in this stretch, I'm glad to say) and then went south.
By this point, you may be weary (as I'm growing) of SoMa adventures. It is, to date, the most wildly over-represented neighborhood in this project, and I've barely scratched the surface. But unlike, say, the Richmond, where alleys don't spring from every single street, below Market those suckers are everywhere. I finished 12 of them yesterday, and hells if I haven't only just begun. The Mission has its share, too, but nowhere near the staggering preponderance of SoMa's.
And so it's sort of lather, rinse, repeat: oh, is this a vaguely sketchy one-block alley that clearly runs directly into an insurmountable obstacle (building, chain-link fence, combination thereof)? Don't mind me. And this one--it appears to be one street broken into chunks that require me to dash through traffic to complete en masse. Please, allow me. Over and over and over again.
All of this kvetching isn't to say, though, that there aren't delightful things to see and smell (not kidding!) down here. Berwick Place--which, believe me, you would never casually happen upon--is essentially one big, colorful, varied mural. In the middle stretch of Dore Alley, home to an annual Folsom-esque street fair (albeit on a much smaller and more focused scale, inasmuch as Folsom can be said to be unfocused, which it really can't, but I digress), the smell of baking cookies hit me so strongly I had to look around and wonder whether I hadn't wandered in the wrong direction and hit the back of the cookie factory on Folsom. (I hadn't. And yes, there's a cookie factory on Folsom.) On Division, in the shadow of the freeway ramps, where it's seriously imperative to watch your step should you not wish to make shoe contact with unpleasant substances of various stripes, the wind made the eucalyptus trees rustle and filled the air with their scent. I never even knew there were eucalyptus trees on Division.
William Styron once wrote an essay called "Time out of Mind" about his struggle with depression. For him, time out of mind was something not to be hoped for, something uncontrollable. But when I thought of that title yesterday as I walked, it had a different meaning. My time out of mind (and, equally importantly, out of heart) was "This American Life" on my iPod, the wind so strong it felt almost physically cleansing, and, for a little while, the need to do little more than put one foot down, and then the other, and try to take in what was around me.
Neighborhoods Covered: Civic Center, SoMa
Streets Completed: Birch, Ash, Redwood, Grace, Washburn, Dore, Sheridan, Ringold, Heron, Berwick, Gordon, Bernice, Isis, Kissling, Lafayette
Things cleared up a bit. It was an odd and difficult day through the mid-afternoon, and for much of it I didn't think the rain would actually let up. But it did, and by the time I got back from Trader Joe's it was hysterically windy but dry, so I put the car in the garage and headed out on foot.
I started by knocking off a few runty streets around Civic Center. Redwood was the tough one. It starts (or ends) at Franklin, dead ends into the back of a building, and continues on the other side of Van Ness. Per the rules of this insane venture, I had to walk this jag, and so I did...only to encounter a guy coming out of the apartment building that backs up to the alley. He had a bike and appeared to be off on a ride. I was on foot and appeared to be walking purposefully toward a concrete wall, only to discover--will you look at that!--that the street down which I was striding ends abruptly! I reached the wall, walked along it, and then headed up the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Bike guy watched me the whole time, no doubt (and understandably) assuming I was up to no good. Luckily, the whole jaunt took about 35 seconds and I was once again on my way.
I crossed Van Ness to finish Redwood (open-ended in this stretch, I'm glad to say) and then went south.
By this point, you may be weary (as I'm growing) of SoMa adventures. It is, to date, the most wildly over-represented neighborhood in this project, and I've barely scratched the surface. But unlike, say, the Richmond, where alleys don't spring from every single street, below Market those suckers are everywhere. I finished 12 of them yesterday, and hells if I haven't only just begun. The Mission has its share, too, but nowhere near the staggering preponderance of SoMa's.
And so it's sort of lather, rinse, repeat: oh, is this a vaguely sketchy one-block alley that clearly runs directly into an insurmountable obstacle (building, chain-link fence, combination thereof)? Don't mind me. And this one--it appears to be one street broken into chunks that require me to dash through traffic to complete en masse. Please, allow me. Over and over and over again.
All of this kvetching isn't to say, though, that there aren't delightful things to see and smell (not kidding!) down here. Berwick Place--which, believe me, you would never casually happen upon--is essentially one big, colorful, varied mural. In the middle stretch of Dore Alley, home to an annual Folsom-esque street fair (albeit on a much smaller and more focused scale, inasmuch as Folsom can be said to be unfocused, which it really can't, but I digress), the smell of baking cookies hit me so strongly I had to look around and wonder whether I hadn't wandered in the wrong direction and hit the back of the cookie factory on Folsom. (I hadn't. And yes, there's a cookie factory on Folsom.) On Division, in the shadow of the freeway ramps, where it's seriously imperative to watch your step should you not wish to make shoe contact with unpleasant substances of various stripes, the wind made the eucalyptus trees rustle and filled the air with their scent. I never even knew there were eucalyptus trees on Division.
William Styron once wrote an essay called "Time out of Mind" about his struggle with depression. For him, time out of mind was something not to be hoped for, something uncontrollable. But when I thought of that title yesterday as I walked, it had a different meaning. My time out of mind (and, equally importantly, out of heart) was "This American Life" on my iPod, the wind so strong it felt almost physically cleansing, and, for a little while, the need to do little more than put one foot down, and then the other, and try to take in what was around me.
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