Hickory Street
Day 3
Co-Walker: Erik (partway, at least)
Neighborhoods Covered: Bits and pieces of SoMa and Hayes Valley
Streets Completed: Mary, Mint (yes, all 3 blocks, collectively)
Yesterday we went down to Mint Plaza to have coffee (while sitting down! inside!) at Blue Bottle. While in the area, we popped in to take a look at an apartment for rent in the Mint Plaza Lofts building (because, hey, why not?), which was quite lovely but also quite exorbitantly priced, then battled the crowds at the Puma and Apple Stores briefly before fleeing.
After Erik got on Muni to head home, I went back down to Mission to fork off onto a few of the little side streets there. Here's the thing about this part of the city: there's a lot of cool stuff, including a dizzying number of awesome old buildings, but it's also pretty grimy, fairly sketchy, and not entirely welcoming once the sun goes down. I happened to be there during daylight hours, but still. Here as elsewhere, is it worth the risks of living in a marginal neighborhood to score an unusual, really interesting house/apartment/condo? This skirts the whole topic of gentrification, but I'll save my full spiel on that for the Mission.
On my way home, I walked most of Hickory Street (save for the little tail that juts off of the west side of Octavia, which I'll hit this afternoon). Five years in Hayes Valley and I've only ever been on one block of this street before. Like Linden, though, it's one of the alleys that make this neighborhood what it is.
Co-Walker: Erik (partway, at least)
Neighborhoods Covered: Bits and pieces of SoMa and Hayes Valley
Streets Completed: Mary, Mint (yes, all 3 blocks, collectively)
Yesterday we went down to Mint Plaza to have coffee (while sitting down! inside!) at Blue Bottle. While in the area, we popped in to take a look at an apartment for rent in the Mint Plaza Lofts building (because, hey, why not?), which was quite lovely but also quite exorbitantly priced, then battled the crowds at the Puma and Apple Stores briefly before fleeing.
After Erik got on Muni to head home, I went back down to Mission to fork off onto a few of the little side streets there. Here's the thing about this part of the city: there's a lot of cool stuff, including a dizzying number of awesome old buildings, but it's also pretty grimy, fairly sketchy, and not entirely welcoming once the sun goes down. I happened to be there during daylight hours, but still. Here as elsewhere, is it worth the risks of living in a marginal neighborhood to score an unusual, really interesting house/apartment/condo? This skirts the whole topic of gentrification, but I'll save my full spiel on that for the Mission.
On my way home, I walked most of Hickory Street (save for the little tail that juts off of the west side of Octavia, which I'll hit this afternoon). Five years in Hayes Valley and I've only ever been on one block of this street before. Like Linden, though, it's one of the alleys that make this neighborhood what it is.
1 comment:
ah, mint plaza - my work 'hood. there's plenty of crazy roaming those SOMA streets. the crazy is of a slightly different quality than at 18th and mission (previous work 'hood), yet no less jarring. maybe more so, even -- more overtly of the mental illness kind, less of the sad drunk kind.
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