Pocket Park, Steiner and EddyDate: October 24, 2009
Neighborhoods Covered: Hayes Valley, Lower Haight, Western Addition, Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights, Laurel Heights
Streets Completed: Perine Place, Cherry, Jordan, Commonwealth
To a degree that I don't think is true in other cities, the neighborhoods in San Francisco weave into and out of each other with amazing (and sometimes alarming) ease, their boundaries so elastic as to all but disappear entirely in many cases.
For example, from the park pictured above, you can walk north on Steiner into the heart of several public housing developments, south on the same street toward Alamo Square (with its iconic Painted Ladies and hilltop park), east on Eddy into more public housing and, ultimately, the all-too-human heart of the Tenderloin, or west on same past beautifully maintained, no doubt pricey Victorian homes.
And so it is that on my walk last Saturday, I saw three totally different worlds in the course of a few hours and a few miles. From the hipster, urban, well-off-but-not-insane world of Hayes Valley, I passed through the Lower Haight (more of same, roughly speaking), the eastern side of Alamo Square (wealthier, but still not exorbitant in San Francisco terms), the slightly worse-for-the-wear stretches of public housing in the Western Addition, the getting-richer southern end of Pacific Heights, the no-holds-barred, you-can't-be-serious real estate explosion in Presidio and Laurel Heights, and then that sequence in reverse.
It was, in a word, surreal.
Granted, the Western Addition's cramped projects aren't exactly cheek-by-jowl with, say, the house at Jackson and Cherry that--no joke--takes up the majority of the block. There's a geographic divide between the wealthiest and the least well off, but it's not a huge one. I can't and won't say whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.
At any rate, while I'm so used to living amidst the two lower thirds of the city's wealth spectrum that neither the public housing nor the "middle class" homes (I use that term very, very loosely: we're talking about SF, after all, where it's entirely possible for a 1-bedroom condo to run you $799,000), I was stunned by the houses in the collective Heights, and by the neighborhoods themselves.
If, like me, you're accustomed to the look and feel of things in the parts of San Francisco that don't have "Heights" in their names (Bernal being the one exception), it can be jarring to spend time in those lofty neighborhoods. Not only are the houses large (sometimes ostentatiously so: see above) and fancy, but they actually have things like yards, and walls that are not in contact with--or even in proximity to--those of their neighbors' homes. Furthermore, here in the heights there's an almost suburban vibe, with far fewer people on the sidewalks, much less noise, and far less visible activity.
Neighborhoods Covered: Hayes Valley, Lower Haight, Western Addition, Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights, Laurel Heights
Streets Completed: Perine Place, Cherry, Jordan, Commonwealth
To a degree that I don't think is true in other cities, the neighborhoods in San Francisco weave into and out of each other with amazing (and sometimes alarming) ease, their boundaries so elastic as to all but disappear entirely in many cases.
For example, from the park pictured above, you can walk north on Steiner into the heart of several public housing developments, south on the same street toward Alamo Square (with its iconic Painted Ladies and hilltop park), east on Eddy into more public housing and, ultimately, the all-too-human heart of the Tenderloin, or west on same past beautifully maintained, no doubt pricey Victorian homes.
And so it is that on my walk last Saturday, I saw three totally different worlds in the course of a few hours and a few miles. From the hipster, urban, well-off-but-not-insane world of Hayes Valley, I passed through the Lower Haight (more of same, roughly speaking), the eastern side of Alamo Square (wealthier, but still not exorbitant in San Francisco terms), the slightly worse-for-the-wear stretches of public housing in the Western Addition, the getting-richer southern end of Pacific Heights, the no-holds-barred, you-can't-be-serious real estate explosion in Presidio and Laurel Heights, and then that sequence in reverse.
It was, in a word, surreal.
Granted, the Western Addition's cramped projects aren't exactly cheek-by-jowl with, say, the house at Jackson and Cherry that--no joke--takes up the majority of the block. There's a geographic divide between the wealthiest and the least well off, but it's not a huge one. I can't and won't say whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.
At any rate, while I'm so used to living amidst the two lower thirds of the city's wealth spectrum that neither the public housing nor the "middle class" homes (I use that term very, very loosely: we're talking about SF, after all, where it's entirely possible for a 1-bedroom condo to run you $799,000), I was stunned by the houses in the collective Heights, and by the neighborhoods themselves.
If, like me, you're accustomed to the look and feel of things in the parts of San Francisco that don't have "Heights" in their names (Bernal being the one exception), it can be jarring to spend time in those lofty neighborhoods. Not only are the houses large (sometimes ostentatiously so: see above) and fancy, but they actually have things like yards, and walls that are not in contact with--or even in proximity to--those of their neighbors' homes. Furthermore, here in the heights there's an almost suburban vibe, with far fewer people on the sidewalks, much less noise, and far less visible activity.
Of course, as soon as I headed east on California Street, the decorations (and the giant homes, and the yards to decorate) all but completely fell away. Walking south on Pierce, I glimpsed a few construction paper pumpkins and the like taped to windows, but nothing more elaborate. Though I looked out for festive bits and pieces in Hayes Valley, I saw precisely none.
By the time I was in my own neighborhood once again, I felt like I'd just been jumping around wildly in space and time--from the heart of a city in 2009 to suburbs somewhere else entirely 20 years ago and then back to here and now.
I came home oddly tired.
