O Saisons, O Chateaux

Montecito and Northwood, looking southwest

Day 44
Neighborhoods Covered: Glen Park, Sunnyside, Westwood, Ingleside, and a slice of the 'Loin
Streets Completed: Montecito, Eastwood, Westwood, Northwood, Southwood, Greenwood, Wildwood, (wait for it...) Homewood, Pizarro, San Ramon

South of the Mission/Glen Park/Bernal Heights and east of the Sunset, San Francisco becomes an utter mystery to me. The city goes on quite a bit farther south from this unofficial line of demarcation, but I couldn't really begin to tell you what's there, other than a few landmarks like City College and Monster Park (formerly 3-Com Park, formerly Candlestick Park, now perhaps the only NFL stadium that sounds like it's actually some sort of highly specific Disneyland).

There are no doubt hundreds of San Franciscans who live in the southernmost part of the city rolling their eyes at that last paragraph and wishing to remind people like me that SF doesn't end where 280 begins. All very valid: our lovely city is more than the Financial District and places tourists would actually go. So on Saturday afternoon I took BART to Glen Park and pointed myself south.

My plan was to take Monterey down to the foot of Mount Davidson, head briefly west, and then pop north again on Joost. The first part of that plan came to pass, somewhat unexcitingly, but then I was drawn astray.

But first, a few notes on Monterey Boulevard.

Monterey cuts through several mini neighborhoods, starting in Glen Park, winding through the totally inaptly named Sunnyside (sorry, but naming a region of SF Sunnyside pretty much guarantees that it'll be socked in by fog for most of the year) and down to what may or may not officially be considered Westwood (slash St. Francis Wood Jr.). It is not, I'm sorry to say, an especially lovely street, though it's a bit more interesting than you might think. And when I say "interesting," I mean it in both the sincere sense and in the "I really want to call [whatever] hideous/offensive/painfully ugly/beyond description, but I shall exercise restraint and instead call it interesting" sense. As in, you know, "My, what an...INTERESTING sweater." That kind of interesting.

Anyway, Monterey has your run-of-the-mill interesting, largely in the form of the Sunnyside Conservatory, which looks like it was once really lovely and is now vaguely spooky and fascinating for being a bit ramshackle, utterly devoid of windows, and run riot with plants and trees. It's up a few steps from the road, and is the sort of thing you would never see were you driving past (unless you happened to be intently looking at the side of the street the whole time, in which case you should not be driving, or at least not driving in front of me). According to the placard near the front gate, the Conservatory is the beneficiary of some Parks Department bond funds and is scheduled for a fix-up this year. I hope--likely in vain--that they leave the tree bursting through the back windows.

The arch "interesting" aspect of Monterey Boulevard is its residential architecture, which is, um, something else. There are, to be fair, many buildings that are fairly pleasant, if unremarkable, and there are plenty of boring apartments that were clearly products of the 70s. And then there are the hybrids: older buildings that are quite nice if you don't look at all of the stories at the same time, because taking in the whole enchilada means you'll see what looks like a normal home on the top two floors being attacked by some sort of circa-1983 "embellishment" (I use the term loosely) on the ground floor, or vice versa. You'd almost think it had been an accident if it didn't keep happening. Note to building owners here: Edwardian and Miami Vice do not play well together.

It was while contemplating this collective architectural mess that I came to the intersection of Monterey and Montecito. Due quite possibly to laziness--Montecito went downhill, where anything toward Mt. Davidson would go, yes, uphill--but also to the siren song of the cottage-like house on the corner, I decided to alter my course.

And, well, holy hell if I didn't walk straight into some other time and place altogether. It was almost as if someone had pulled down a new scenery scrim the moment I crossed Monterey, and all of the sudden here I was in Middle America, or some British suburb somewhere, or a California town from many miles and many years ago. I was delighted.

Where Montecito hit Northwood, I sat on a bench in a mini park and took the photo above (which actually shows Ingleside, not Westwood, and therefore doesn't do the latter neighborhood justice). I could hear geese honking somewhere, the whir of BART in the distance, what sounded like skeet shooting (or, who knows, plain old shooting) somewhere far off. As I walked the looping streets of the neighborhood, I passed dog walkers, people unloading kids and gardening supplies from their cars, three young girls in bikinis having a water balloon fight, a guy pulling weeds from his front yard. The houses were adorable, the gardens in front of them crazy riots of spring growth and color. There were porches! There were driveways! There were front yards! I fell crazily in love.

It helped that, over the course of the hour or so I spent gamboling about in Westwood, what had been a cloudy and cool day turned bright blue and warm. By the time I finally finished as much as my legs would allow in this little enclave and headed out to Ocean Avenue, I was on a serious (and somewhat insane) natural high. Only as I started to fatigue while walking toward the Balboa Park station did I come down a bit.

But not for long: as I trudged over the 280 overpass, I thought I heard my name, and--deus ex machina!--I turned to see Dana and Brad waiting at the light. They'd been at a barbecue in Ingleside, had just been talking about how my project would require me to walk ignoble stretches like this particular bit of Ocean, and voila, there I appeared.

And voila! There I got into Brad's car just in time for the light to change and gratefully accepted a ride home, bubbling the whole way.

Unexpected

17th Street at South Van Ness

Day 43
Neighborhoods Covered: Pacific Heights, Civic Center, Mission
Streets Completed: South Van Ness

There are some markedly unlovely stretches of South Van Ness. In fact, it's probably not wildly unfair to say that much of the street is not actively, charmingly beautiful. But get beyond the freeway on-ramp and feeder lanes and beyond whatever we might call 14th to 19th, and lo, it's actually not bad. There are even some strikingly pretty and very stately homes, which the rest of the street certainly doesn't lead you to expect.

Friday evening's rain, which started as a drizzle and picked up heft as I walked, deterred me from pausing too long to check out these houses in detail, so I did the next best thing: finished off South Van Ness at a brisk clip, walked back up Valencia to Papalote to fetch a burrito, and went to Dana and Brad's to discuss the progressive sketchiness (or de-sketchiness, depending on which direction you're headed) of the north-south streets in the Mission.

First, though, an aside. You didn't really think I'd make it through an entire post without one of these, did you? At any rate, please, someone explain to me the preponderance of young, loud, obnoxious college kids at Papalote on Friday night. Where did they come from? There's no campus--excepting a non-residential City College branch--anywhere remotely near Valencia and 24th. Were they bused in from somewhere? How did they decide on Papalote? And does this mean I'll never be able to go there again on a weekend night without finding myself in the middle of a conversation being held, loudly, from one side of the room to the other, a conversation accentuated with the international "raise the roof" arm movements and other interpretative gestures?

But I digress.

Anyway, after waiting for approximately seven years for my burrito, I made my way to Virgil for wine and chatter. When I mentioned to Dana and Brad the few really lovely houses I'd seen on South Van Ness, Brad told me the street used to be a fairly posh one, until the 1906 quake happened and what had been a fairly undeveloped area became a magnet for rebuilding, broad and flat as the land down there was. So the richies hauled tail to Nob Hill, leaving their mansions behind. Some of those houses still stand, and several of what are now homes on the streets between the main thoroughfares were once carriage houses or other outbuildings.

What all of this doesn't quite explain is why streets like South Van Ness, Folsom, and Harrison are so bland and semi-industrial where the teen streets (13th, 14th, and so on) cross them but get (relatively speaking) much nicer toward the 20s. Was the destruction of the quake worse along the lower streets, and the redevelopment more dramatic? Were those areas always more industrial, with the residential sections huddled farther south? Or has there just been an invisible fire line of sorts somewhere around 19th, above and below slightly different worlds sprang up?

Heart-rending

Bonita Street

Day 37
Neighborhoods Covered: Russian Hill
Streets Completed: Bonita, White, Rockland, Russell, Eastman, Allen, Warner, Sharp

After a relatively walk-less week, I drove to Russian Hill on Saturday afternoon and spent some time strolling before I was scheduled to meet with a client. It was a day so beautifully, stupidly perfect that I had one of those experiences where I feel so much love for San Francisco that it almost physically hurts, though in the best possible way. You know the feeling: you feel so much adoration for someone or someplace (or, I suppose, something) that your heart feels like it's been punched, though gently.

I'd missed that sensation, and it was really sweet to have it back for a while.

I zigzagged down from Hyde to Polk, where Russian Hillers were out en masse. As always, having used the temperature inside my house to gauge what I should put on before going out into the world (when will I learn?), I was significantly overdressed. Where others were walking around in shorts and t-shirts, or in sundresses, I had on jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, a sweater, and a light jacket. Even for ever-cold me, it was too much, and I actually found myself starting to sweat, at which point I gave in and took off the jacket.

By and large, Russian Hill is not my scene. It's too far from Hayes Valley to be a place I regularly go out (she says, as if she regularly goes out anywhere) and is, on the main, too expensive and boutique-y to be an appealing shopping destination. I've got expensive boutiques all around me in my own neighborhood, thanks.

But it seems to be an interesting mix of chains (Starbucks, Walgreens, Peet's, Crunch), hip restaurants and bars, the aforementioned upscale shop, and regular, unassuming places that have been there for years. And it's a really nice place to walk, what with the cable cars on Hyde and the bustle of the few main drags, provided you can handle a few hills.

On Polk Street, a saxophonist had set up in front of one of the coffee shops. The sun was everywhere, and the sidewalks were thronging with people. I walked a few blocks, ducked down tiny Bonita Street en route, and headed back uphill at Broadway, where I could still hear jazz floating through the air. I ping-ponged between Hyde and Larkin, focusing on side streets (and finishing seven of them) before going back to the car to drop off my jacket and pick up my tool kit.

And then, reluctantly, indoors

Running San Francisco

Day 33
Neighborhoods Covered: Hayes Valley, South of Market
Streets Completed: 10th Street, 11th Street

I may have neglected to mention in my original post covering the Walking San Francisco rules and regs that running the streets of the city serves the same purpose as walking them, if at a brisker pace and without the real possibility of stopping to snap photos. (Please. It's all I can do not to drop my iPod when I run; I would demolish my camera.) Crawling would probably count as well, though you would catch me dead (or severely inebriated) before you'd see me allowing my mitts to touch the DISGUSTING sidewalks of this city. (En route to a client's house last summer, I passed a mother and her young son on 22nd Street near Guerrero and was alarmed to see that the boy was barefoot. I mean, we all know I'm the farthest possible thing from parent material, but I would so unbelievably never allow a child to tramp barefoot through the hideous garden of glass, grime, and general grossness that is our sidewalks. What was she thinking?!)

Ahem.

Anyway, I decided to take advantage of this on Tuesday by knocking off two of the shorter numbered streets on a jog. It seemed a nice counterpoint to walking the interminable 3rd Street on Sunday. So I ran: down 11th, along what may be the most vile and poop-smeared stretch of Division (I know, I know: most of Division is vile and poop-smeared, and who am I to issue superlatives?), and back up 10th. It was, I'm sorry to report, a pretty boring run, but it did get the job done. Plus, my side butt has most definitely been in need of a workout more strenuous and side butt-engaging than walking, and this was just such a workout.

But I can't help thinking that I missed something interesting somewhere along my route. I mean, I wasn't exactly speeding along with such velocity that my surroundings blurred, but my attention and effort were much more focused on speed than keen, detailed observation. So I go back and forth here. Upside: two streets down in about half an hour. Downside: not much to report from the journey. Upside: less than a minute on Division. Downside: no chance to search for unusual visuals along the way.

Perhaps I'll save my runs henceforth for the streets I'm not so keen on walking--the remainder of Evans (yes, it goes on, and on) comes to mind. But even those, if I were to look closely enough, might toss out something I wasn't expecting to see.

Rapid Development and Urban Wastelands

Terry A. Francois Boulevard

Day 31
Co-Walker: Scott
Neighborhoods Covered: Mission Bay, Dogpatch, Central Waterfront, Bayview, India Basin, Western Addition, Japantown, Civic Center
Streets Completed: Hollis, Western Shore, Lottie Bennett Lane, Inca Lane, Bertie Minor Lane, Zampa, Cleary, Peter Yorke, Daniel Burnham Court, Cedar, Starr King

Today's award for Most Accommodating Friend goes to Scott, hands down. Not only did he agree to walk with me despite having a slight hangover, not only did he drive us down to Mission Bay (thus sparing the wait for the T), and not only did he cheerfully stroll random stretches of the San Francisco waterfront and step through the chaotic construction happening there, he also was the best possible sport when I led us directly into the middle of the city's industrial wasteland.

So, see, we walked along the water for a while (and not, I might add, quite the most scenic stretch), then headed south along 3rd Street until we hit Cesar Chavez, at which point I claimed we should head west in order to reach Jerrold, where we'd find a Ritual Coffee outpost in the Flora Grubb Garden Center. As it happens, of course, Jerrold in fact east of 3rd, and the more we walked, the farther away we got. We turned off of CC and onto Evans, but really, that was of no help whatsoever, and by the time we reached the corner of Evans and Rankin--where the street signs actually creaked as they swung in the wind and, as Scott said, "I expected to see a tumbleweed roll by and to run into some old guy saying, 'You all aren't from around these parts, are you?'--we knew Ritual would no longer be in our plans.

We made our way back to 3rd and retraced our steps until we got to 22nd, where we swung west again, but accurately this time, and stopped for lunch at Piccino. It was a stellar, mild day, so we sat outside lingering over lunch, dessert, wine (for me), coffee (for Scott), and a long conversation about relationships. As we finally wended our way back down Tennessee to the car, I realized that for the first time in several weeks (almost precisely four, in fact), I was actually effortlessly happy. That's not to say I haven't had good moments in the past month, but rather that they've all come with an asterisk of sorts. For a few hours this afternoon, that asterisk disappeared.

After Scott dropped me home, I took a short break and then decided to head out again to take more advantage of the day. This time I went north, taking Webster to Geary and tackling the tangle of streets in and around the St. Francis Co-op. (Much of this was, strictly technically, trespassing, but I managed to make my way back to public streets without incident.) I spent some time walking around the Washing Machine Church at Geary and Gough, which I've driven by a billion times (approximately) but have never before seen up close. It's fascinating, and must be stunning from the inside on a day like today. I was content to shoot a few photos and move on.

Something heavy is starting to lift. Though I still often feel like I'm wearing one of those back bracing belts that's been fitted with weights so that there's a downward pull on everything unless I redouble my efforts, on days like today I get to take the belt off. And looking out over the Bay through a chain-link fence, or walking (very rapidly) down a street that's totally new and strange to me, or stopping in the square of an apartment complex to watch the moon come out on one side of me and the sun slowly start to lower on the other, I feel a flutter of calmness.

I've missed that.

Out of the Swing

Days 25-29
Neighborhoods Covered: North Beach, though I can barely claim even that
Streets Completed: Scotland, Via Bufano (Grover)

It's been a slow walking week, and I mean that both literally and figuratively. My parents were here through yesterday morning, and in order not to run them into the ground, I cut my standard walking pace in half; and although we did a fair bit of perambulating (and they did even more on their own), we didn't cover much new ground. I have precious little to report, then, for this stretch of the project.

I'd hoped to change that today, when I had a bit of time between clients this afternoon. I even toyed with the idea of taking the N out to my second client--in the Inner Sunset, on a block of lower Irving Street that's (almost literally) painfully familiar to me, lying as it does between E's house and the commercial innards of the area--and swooping through a few streets there or in Cole Valley.

But then I realized that I don't yet trust myself to maintain my composure in this neighborhood, and it would be poor form indeed to scrape my emotions raw as I walked and then try to be fully present and with it for my client. (As an aside, it's an odd thing indeed when the person you want most to see in the world and the person you're most frightened of seeing are one and the same. I'm still so used to just knowing the former.)

So I drove instead. Even driving, though, made my heart feel a little like this. Dear InSu, it may be a while before I can handle you in anything more than the most delicate and fleeting of doses.

The Bridge

Enduring Monument

Day 24
Co-Walkers: Mom and Dad
Neighborhoods Covered: um, Lower Marin? Outer Marina? Pacific View?
Streets Completed: Golden Gate Bridge

Is the Golden Gate Bridge technically a street in San Francisco? Sort of, yes, in that it's designed to convey people and vehicles and, depending on your perspective, it starts or ends in SF. But sort of no, too, as it probably officially becomes Marin County at a certain point, and also serves no stated purpose beyond the aforementioned conveyance. The tollbooths and Gifto Shoppu (for real) on the southern end of the bridge may pass for commerce, but there are, of course, no stores, houses, or points of industry on the bridge itself--none of the stuff encountered on your run-of-the-mill street, that is.

But no matter. My parents were in town and it was a beautiful day, so we joined the hordes and hoofed it across the bridge on Sunday.

Here's the thing: the Golden Gate is, of course, San Francisco's most recognized and ENDURING (please see above) monument, recognized around the world as a symbol of the city. And it's probably an engineering marvel or something, too. But since watching The Bridge, I can't see it or drive across it--much less walk the whole span and back--without half expecting someone to pitch himself off it.

I know that's a terrible and maudlin thing to say, but the fact is that for all of its splendor, the Golden Gate Bridge is the world's #1 suicide landmark. In 2004, the year in which The Bridge was shot, 24 people--or approximately one every 15 days--jumped from the bridge. (That's the official, known figure; there may have been more.) Assuming that figure hasn't changed significantly in the past few years, it's fair to guess that suicides on the bridge could happen at any time, regardless of how crowded or deserted the walkways might be. So now I keep half an eye on people standing along the rail whenever I'm on the bridge. And that's fairly creepy.

But I'm happy to report that although I had my eyes out, Sunday's walk brought nothing more than the standard flow of tourists, runners, cyclists, and Code Pink protesters. (OK, perhaps those last aren't quite so standard, but they were a sight to see, accompanied as they were by a literal small army of CHP and bridge officers. See photos of them here.)

It was a long and generally pleasant walk (although the traffic noise gets a bit deafening after, say, 50 feet), and by the end of it I got to revel in a decent sense of accomplishment, even if I didn't actually get to check anything off my Official List of Streets.

Churchy

Church and 29th (now a pediatrics clinic)

Day 22
Neighborhoods Covered: Lower Haight, Castro/Mission, Noe Valley, very edge of Glen Park
Streets Completed: Rose (for real this time), Hermann, Church, Alert

In my fantasy world, I was going to walk all of Market--soup to nuts, nose to tail--on Friday, and thus would be able to highlight a huge pink line through the center of my Walking SF Progress Map. But by the time I got back from a breakfast meeting around 10, I remembered that I don't in fact live in my fantasy world; I live in a world in which I must do things like finish reviewing the edits of my manuscript and knock off some bookkeeping and generally attempt to maintain my status as a functioning, responsible, business-owning adult who doesn't go gallivanting off at any half opportunity.

Plus, I was really quite tired, and still not feeling like whatever had filled up my sinus passages for the two days prior had fully taken its leave.

So I did my book work and a whole mess of other Responsible Adult stuff and then scaled back my goal a bit, figuring I'd aim instead to finish Church Street.

I walked from home to Church (weaving through various Lower Haight streets to finish off bits and pieces that remained undone from previous walks), then tackled the hill by Dolores Park before deeming any more of that type of walking folly and waiting for the J to take me out to 30th. From there, I threaded back and forth on various streets (up 30th a jag to finish the final stretch of Church at that end, back down one block of Chenery, up the same stretch of 30th again, but farther this time, down Day, back down Church to get back to 30th, and on and on), thinking that this whole thing is a bit like a Car Talk puzzler.

I'm sure if someone with keener mathematic analytical skills than I could take a map of the city and plan out walking routes that would require no doubling back, no missing parts of any street, and no cheating. And perhaps I'll send this quandary in to Click and Clack and let them Puzzler-ify it. But in the meantime, I haven't found a way to avoid retracing my steps on many of these jags. Strategy? What strategy?

Anyway, I eventually wound up on Church headed north, and I stayed thus until I reached Elizabeth, thinking it would be a good little side street to check off my list. I got as far as Noe before realizing that the damn thing goes on forever (approximately), so I headed down to 24th and looped back to Church. Why do I refuse to look at a map in these cases? How stubborn can I possibly be? (NB: rhetorical question. No replies, please.)

I took Church back to 20th, scooted over to Dolores for a few blocks (which I'd already covered on the Church side of things), and then went back to Church to finish my final block: between Market and Duboce. Done! All 19 blocks of that sucker down.

Now only 90 million blocks of everything else to go. Speeding right along here.

Bits and Pieces

Day 20
Neighborhoods Covered: Telegraph Hill
Streets Completed: Bellair, Midway

Day 21
Neighborhoods Covered: Financial District
Streets Completed: Trinity

It's been a slow and relatively walk-less few days. Yesterday I had a sliver of time to kill before seeing a client in Telegraph Hill, so I parked the car and did a quick scoot around the surrounding streets. The day was brilliant, clear, sunny, and from the upper reaches of Chestnut Street (which clearly dead-ends into a wall at this point, though that didn't deter me), I could see far into the East Bay.

What surprised me was how quickly Telegraph Hill comes down to earth--and I mean that literally. Walk down a few blocks from Chestnut (perhaps on, say, Bellair and Midway) and you're roughly at sea level. It didn't seem like such a rapid decline on the way down, and for part of the walk back up things seemed nice and easy. But then I hit the 1900 block of Grant, which is at, like, a 90-degree angle, and changed my tune slightly. By the time I got back to my car, I had to shed my coat and pause for a moment to catch my breath before reporting to work.

Today found me down on Montgomery with a client all day, so the most I could squeeze in during business hours was one mini street (Trinity) and the random assortment of blocks that got me to and from Madeline's at lunchtime.

When I left around 4, I was struck by the desire to knock off a good stretch of Sutter (the first block of which I'd trod earlier in the day) until I actually started walking. I got as far as Grant (much flatter at this point) before my sinuses made my head feel close to explosion, so I gave up the ghost.

On the bus home, though, I started plotting for tomorrow. Should enough sinus drainage (yes!) occur by then, I've got one long-ass street I intend to knock off once and for all. Stay tuned.

Half-Hearted

Liguria Bakery

Days 18 and 19
Neighborhoods Covered: Financial District, North Beach, Telegraph Hill
Streets Completed: Halleck, Child, Edgardo, Edith, Pardee (Jack Micheline Place), Kramer, Gerke, Harwood (Bob Kaufman Place), Medau, Krausegrill, Telegraph Place

I disagree with the Bond film. The world is not enough? Really? Maybe for James Bond, but for most of us I think it's just plenty, thanks, and some days perhaps a touch excessive. The past two days have sort of felt like that for me.

Yesterday I just felt sort of tired and heavy, and although I managed to function well enough, my walking was limited to the well-worn path between home and garage, and then back from Josh's after we did some work. By the time I left his house it was dark and I wanted nothing more than to be off my feet, so I didn't even attempt a new sliver of Minna or an additional block of 8th Street.

Today my head started to explode with what's either a proto-cold or serious allergies, leaving me feeling leaden and weary and, as a bonus, beholden to the kind of body-racking sneezes that it's hard to handle gracefully. (Luckily, most of them happened when I was on my own.) Nonetheless, after a few hours with a client in Telegraph Hill, I figured I'd take advantage of being in the neighborhood and do a quick stroll.

On the upside, I finished enough streets to bring my completed count to 104 (please, no calculations as to the minute percentage this represents in terms of actual streets in SF), it was a stunning, sunny day, and being outside actually cleared my head (and nostrils) for a while.

But still, my heart was only halfway in it. Although I've walked alone for every day of this project but one and really haven't minded, today that aloneness started to pull at me, perhaps because it's also starting to truly sink in in general. I had a few interactions with people as I walked--including the guy in tiny Gerke Alley who, as he left his house, noticed me meandering purposefully into his dead-end street and said, "Hey, how's it going?", perhaps in an attempt to determine whether I was a woefully lost tourist or just nuts--but they had to contend with a lot of silence. (In fact, the silence on Edith Street was so complete and so profound that, for a moment, it seemed impossible that I could actually still be in the city; it felt much more like the Italian town, high on a hill, where J and I stayed in a converted castle back in 2002. That place was quiet.)

It's tempting, then, to take a break for a few days, let these sneezing fits pass, and try to line up a few walking partners before I head out again. This project has been great thus far as a diversion and a source of alternate purpose, but for today, at least, that was not quite enough.

Romeo and Juliet

Sonoma Alley

Day 17
Neighborhoods Covered: Financial District, Jackson Square, North Beach, Chinatown
Streets Completed: Mark Twain, Balance, Gold, Hotaling, Merchant, Osgood, Hodges, Bartol, Prescott, San Antonio, Pollard, Fresno, Dunnes, Romolo, Margrave, Varennes, Genoa, Sonoma, Bannam, Jasper, Jack Kerouac Alley (Adler), Saroyan Alley (Adler)

I take it back: SoMa isn't the neighborhood to beat in terms of tiny side streets and alleys. North Beach is.

I've been to North Beach and environs (Jackson Square, Telegraph Hill, Chinatown) over and over in my years here, but somehow never registered much beyond a few favorite haunts and the main drags. But not until I started to take the area block by block did I realize just how many small streets there are. Over the course of a few hours yesterday, I finished 22 of them. (Fear not, Monique: there are many, many, many more to go.) They were, needless to say, utterly empty of tourists, and, in most cases, utterly empty even of residents.

There's a lot to love about North Beach in general, even the stuff purists might sniff at. For every "authentic" "Italian" restaurant along Columbus, there's another that really is, even if it's actually a few blocks off on Grant. There's Vesuvio, Specs Adler's, Stella, Liguria Bakery, Mama's, and, of course, Mario's. There's Washington Square Park's blend of Chinese ladies doing tai chi, tourists trying to figure out how to get to Coit Tower, and various scruffy denizens. And City Lights always reminds me that good things are possible.

But when you step away from the center of things, the place opens itself up even more. For example, North Beach is full of what are called Romeo and Juliet houses: buildings with a main entry in the middle and two perfectly symmetrical apartments on either side. Why Romeo and Juliet? I wish I knew. (If you know, please e-mail or post a comment.) You'd think that if Romeo and Juliet had actually survived, they'd want to live together. At any rate, they're pretty charming, and you don't see them in quite the same abundance elsewhere in the city. You also don't see them on Columbus or Broadway or Grant.

The neighborhood's side streets and alleys offer up other things you wouldn't see elsewhere. Through an opening in a garage on San Antonio, I got a perfect view of Sts. Peter and Paul church with the hills of Marin a perfect green behind it. On Pollard, I saw buildings constructed right in (on?) huge solid chunks of the rock that underlies the area (and sometimes pops to the surface, apparently). On Sonoma, I saw the pastel-perfect houses pictured above, as well as the only decorated fire escape I've yet to encounter anywhere, ever.

By the time I headed back towards Market, I was slightly loopy with heat and the beginnings of serious foot fatigue, but still I had to stop myself from ducking down any more alleys. (Not an easy thing to do.) There's something so fascinating to me about all of these small, out-of-the-way streets that I almost fear it's like I'm eating dessert first, and that all of the big streets that await me will be something of a letdown.

Clarion

Clarion Alley

Day 16
Neighborhoods Covered: Castro, Inner Mission
Streets Completed: Reservoir, San Carlos, Sycamore, Lexington, Clarion, Wiese, Caledonia, Julian, Woodward

It's true that the Mission can be scruffy, scuzzy, sketchy, creepy, dirty, call-it-what-you-will. Caledonia, for example, is currently tops on my list for Alley Most Teeming with Human Misery, and it forks right off of the lights and crowds and action of 16th Street. And let us not even discuss the stretch of Mission from Division to 18th.

But for all of its roughness at times, the neighborhood does have an insane number of amazing murals, many of which you'd be unlikely to see were you not to duck down a few of those less-than-inviting streets. (Even Caledonia has murals, though I didn't study them in too much detail.) I was especially blown away by what I found on Clarion Alley.

Clarion runs between Valencia and Mission and 17th and 18th. I literally can't count the number of times I've walked past it--that stretch of Valencia is one I walk all the time, and have for years--but yesterday was the first time I actually walked down it.

As with Berwick South of Market, pretty much every inch of every wall on Clarion is covered with art. Each panel is by a different artist, so no matter what your preferred style (or even, to a certain extent, medium), you're bound to find something interesting. (And if you don't, well, perhaps you have better things to do with your time than meander down random alleys and check out street art.)

Somewhat surprisingly, the murals are relatively tag-free, whether because taggers are satisfied with mailboxes, blank walls, and street signs, or because they actually have some respect for the amount of love and effort put into these works, I wouldn't know. But it's refreshing nonetheless, as it's not unusual to see even the most beautiful and elaborate murals elsewhere in the neighborhood and throughout the city defaced with unrelated graffiti.

Awesomely, it appears that Sycamore Street--one alley over--is headed for the same mural-rich fate, although there are a few houses that front it, so perhaps there will be a few gaps in the action. In my book, that's such a great thing to see, and if you go during daylight hours, take your time, and watch where you step, alleys like these make for some pleasant strolling.

Stomping Grounds

What was once home

Day 15
Neighborhoods Covered: Castro, Mission
Streets Completed: Ford, Hartford, Hancock, Dorland, Oakwood, Linda, Lapidge, Bird, Dearborn, Camp, Albion, Rosa Parks

For my first six years in San Francisco, I lived in the Castro, in a flat on Sanchez shared with three other housemates. (I actually passed my first few months here in a house on Cesar Chavez with my friend Kristen from Vassar and her two housemates, until one of said housemates--the polyamorous hydrocolon therapist--decided she "didn't like [my] energy" and essentially requested that I make myself scarce. By that point, I was happy to comply.) For a long time, things were good.

The Castro was, for me, perhaps the best possible neighborhood in which to come into my own in my adopted city. As a woman, I found it utterly non-threatening; having been catcalled repeatedly in the Mission (which I neither expected nor knew quite what to do with), it was a relief to be in a place where I was almost certainly of zero sexual interest to a huge percentage of the population. I also loved the sense of community, the fact that the heart of the neighborhood was clustered around a few streets, and, pat as it may sound, how everything always seemed to be sprouting with color and vibrancy. I even grudgingly loved the chaos of Halloween there (before things went seriously downhill).

Yesterday I walked through a bit of the Castro, and for all that's much the same (the Sausage Factory--a pizzeria [surely no double entendre intended]--still seems to be going strong, as do many of the bars that have been there for years) there's just as much that's changing. Castro Video had signs posted in its windows noting that, although it had been around since the dawn of Betamax, it was closing its doors. Other storefronts on Castro and along 18th had been ripped out and were in the process of being renovated. And, of course, there's the Diesel store on the corner of Castro and Market. It used to be a bank.

All of this made me wonder what it would be like to be a gay man who'd lived in the Castro since it was a relative enclave of safety back in the 60s and 70s. Would I welcome the changes, or would it seem like too many unrecoverable things were being lost? (It's entirely possible, of course, that much of what made the Castro what it once was has long since been lost, and that the appearance of another new Rolo doesn't cause much of a ripple anymore.) There's no question that the Castro is still, in many ways, the heart of many subsections of gay culture in the city, but I'd be curious to know whether, to those who've lived there for years, the neighborhood feels like it's drifted from what it once was--and, if so, whether that's good or bad.

I left 460 Sanchez for the sanctuary of my own place in Hayes Valley in 2003, having grown impossibly fed up with the frustrations of communal living and with the landlord's blatant desire for us all to move out and free up the rent controlled lease. (Subtle hint that he wasn't exactly concerned with what happened to us: when a chunk of my housemate Abby's ceiling fell down onto her bed, his first response was a half-joking, half-serious, "Well, tell her she probably shouldn't sleep in that spot.")

I don't know how much longer the others held on, but I do recall hearing a few years back that the landlord had finally got his wish and promptly set about making a bevy of improvements. When I looked up at the flat yesterday, I could see some of them: a new window in the bathroom, a skylight (!) and a new light fixture in the kitchen, repaired front steps. (They were so bad at one point that the Post Office stopped delivering our mail, saying that our mail carrier, who was pregnant at the time, couldn't risk injury by trying to navigate them.)

So much has changed.