On the Fort

Fort Mason Chapel

Date: July 11, 2009
Neighborhoods Covered: North Point, Marina
Streets Completed: Shafter, Pope, Franklin, Franklin East, Franklin West, Quadrangle, Bay, Moulton

Faithful Walking San Francisco readers know that I regularly risk looking like I'm lost, vaguely crazy, or up to no good in order to walk streets that aren't necessarily easy to walk. I've stopped counting how many clearly dead-end, one-block streets I've walked, for example, though I have to say that, by this point, I feel like I've mastered a certain air of nonchalance when strolling such streets, as if such a thing might make the folks who see me pass think nothing of my presence. And, of course, I spend a good chunk of each walk on streets that don't even begin to offer me an excuse for being there: no houses, no open businesses, no clear route to somewhere logical.

So it was that I found myself on Saturday fairly literally walking circles through Fort Mason. My intention, which I thought would be easy, was to finish the last little bit of Franklin Street that juts into the fort. Truth be told, had I left it at that, the quest would in fact have been a pretty simple one: walk in, turn around near the flagpole, walk back out. But no.

While I'm here, I thought, I might as well explore a bit and check these other little streets off my list. Based on looking at my map, this seemed like a reasonable thing to do. (This seems to be developing into a theme these days, no?) What the map doesn't entirely get across is how weirdly intertwined these streets are, how they splinter off into echoes of themselves and then into other streets entirely. It's not quite Bernal Heights, but it's also not exactly a model of military precision.

Here I am, for example, having walked to the end of MacArthur (which, of course, is not actually the end, because it picks up again IN THE PRESIDIO, which is all the way across the Marina--seriously, U.S. Army, could you not come up with another war hero to honor with a street?), which leads me to Franklin West, versions 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. I was stubborn enough to walk all of them, which meant passing twice the fellow picking bottles and cans out of the recycling bin behind the Conservation Corps building and passing three times the guy playing football with his kids on the green in the middle of the officers' housing circle. Three. Times. Don't mind me, sir. Nothing to see here.

My seemingly lunatic walking habits aside, though, Fort Mason was a sweet delight. It's one of those parts of San Francisco that feels like it could still be in the 1940s, save for the few signs of modernity (cars, ugly 60s-era block housing for enlisted men, a flag with 50 stars). It was also something of a mini-UN, at least when I was there. In McDowell hall, I saw folks congregating for what looked (based on their dress) like an Indian wedding. On the lawn outside the hostel, a gaggle of 18-to-20-somethings chattered away in French. In the community garden, old Chinese ladies smiled at me as I wandered through the rows shooting photos.

By the time I finally finished the last of my numerous laps to finish every last stretch of street on the fort, I was ready not to be walking anymore, but I had promised myself to finish Bay Street, with the bribe of a cupcake from That Takes the Cake on Union if I did. So I soldiered on through the Marina, around the Palace of Fine Arts, and eventually back, sloggily, across Lombard Street.

The cupcake was worth it, but by the time I finished it I was clearly done for the day, and it was with a weird flash of glee and a big sigh of relief that I boarded the 22 at Union and Steiner and let something other than my own two feet take me home.

Backwards

Franklin Street

Day 101
Neighborhoods Covered: Hayes Valley, Western Addition, Pacific Heights, Marina
Streets Completed: Gough, Franklin

I see more of Gough and Franklin streets--significant one-way south- and northbound thoroughfares, respectively--than I necessarily care to, leading as they do to places I want or need to be in the northern parts of the city and then back to my trusty if crumbling garage. They're often clogged with traffic, and Franklin is notorious for being a Street on Which There Always Seems to Be Some Damn Thing or Other in One or Both of the Curb Lanes. When I'm in my car, they hold very little mystery or allure.

I've also walked bits and pieces of both of them before, but when I set out heading toward the Bay--i.e., north--on Gough last Sunday, it occurred to me that I couldn't recall walking either street against traffic. For some reason, I'd always gone with the flow, at least for stretches of more than a few blocks. So when I turned myself around, everything changed.

I know it'll sound pat and overly simplistic to say that seeing Gough from the opposite direction, and then repeating that experiment on Franklin, was eye-opening and fascinating, but that's the truth. There was the usual pleasantly jarring effect of seeing on foot what I'm only ever used to seeing from a speeding car (in which I'm at the wheel and should really not be gazing at the scenery)--all much slower, all much more detailed--added to which was the tweak of seeing things normally unviewed by all but the back of my head.

So I saw the clutch of houses on Gough near Vallejo that still appeared to be fully decorated for Christmas: garland, wreaths on the doors, lights hung. (Hello, luvs, it's MAY.) I saw street art on Franklin that would be utterly invisible were I not on the sidewalk and not heading south. I saw minute details of buildings that I never knew existed, even though I pass them on a thrice-weekly basis.

And perhaps because it was Memorial Day weekend, with light- to nonexistent city traffic, or because I was sort of lost in my own world for a while, or because I was oddly focused on how the late afternoon light kept shifting between flat and grey and huge and golden--perhaps because of any of those things, or maybe because I was taking things backwards, it seemed for the tenure of my walk that there were almost no cars out. So for a while, with those distractions gone, two streets I know perhaps too well showed me things I never would've guessed.

Fits and Starts

Day 80
Neighborhoods Covered: Marina
Streets Completed: Prado, Casa, Rico, Retiro, Avila, Toledo, Mallorca, Cervantes, Alhambra, Capra

When it comes to San Francisco neighborhoods on opposite ends of the spectrum, I believe Bernal Heights and the Marina would make a lovely Exhibit A. While Bernal is one giant uphill (scroll down a bit to read my previous post if you don't believe me; those words are the rock-solid truth, I tell you!), the Marina could not be flatter. There's just no noticeable incline or decline anywhere north of Lombard. The neighborhood defines flat. And on Sunday afternoon, that was totally fine by me, as my willingness to tackle hills did not exist.

In Bernal, you're unlikely to find much by way of high fashion; when I showed up to a client's there dressed in black pants (not slacks, pants), she jokingly told me I was way overdressed for the neighborhood. In the Marina, au contraire: while I wasn't slitheringly hideous, I felt like I stood out for being so lackadaisical when it came to my habille.

And while it's possibly a gross oversimplification to say so, I'll do it anyway: whereas Bernal is probably among the leftiest of the lefty, the Marina is one of the neighborhoods that could likely be dubbed Home to Republicans.

But if there were Republicans out and about on Sunday afternoon (and I'll bet there were), they left me free to wander the labyrinth--it is a labyrinth, and a particularly insane one at that--of Spanish-themed (see above), sherbet-colored, sun-splashed streets that make up this neighborhood that could not be closer to the Bay if it tried (except in the event of an earthquake, in which case the landfill on which it was built could give way, or so we're told). Midway through my stroll, I stopped by Kara's Cupcakes for a Sweet Vanilla to speed my steps, and ate it slowly as I retraced my route a bit to hit a few of the streets that begin and end at random points along the neighboring calles. (Hey, when in pseudo-Spain....)

After finishing Capra, I'd had my fill of the Marina for the day, and my feet were starting to hurt, so I headed back to my car. And although, as I sat there and consulted NFT, I considered driving west a few blocks and doing some of the small streets that border the Palace of Fine Arts, ultimately I decided against it. So it was up the crazy steep hill that is Gough Street, then down the other side, back to my Valley, where almost no one appeared to have just come from the gym and the Bay was nowhere to be seen.