The most walkable street in San Francisco is Union Street…seven blocks of
interesting stores, varied Victorian style architecture, no blank walls with
dead spots, good restaurants and plenty of sidewalk life. There are several
coffee shops with good seating. Young good-looking heteros and yuppies.
Castro Street is the most sociologically interesting area with the most vital
street life … plenty of beautiful men holding hands, kissing and handing out
fliers for the election of the emperors and queens of local bars. The stores
are for the most part boring, few restaurants, no coffee shops to sit down in
and too many smelly bars. There are four long blocks with dreary windows and a
surplus of beggars. The photo on the right shows the daily overflow of
the only Starbucks; its tiny because the neighborhood politicos hate Starbucks
and conviviality.
Twenty-fourth Street is five blocks of the most boring stores in San Francisco
(the one exception is
Rabat, a remnant of the Briarpatch.) There are many dead
spaces, not a single interesting window and a good supply of beggars.
Twenty-fourth Street has the most women of any neighborhood street with more
babies and strollers than anywhere else. Purportedly, many of the women
are lesbian.
Clement Street is the most chaotic, bizarre and interesting shopping street
from an ethnic perspective. It is eleven blocks of Asian: Chinese, Thai,
Filipino, Korean and Japanese. Plus Russians.
Why the differences?
Union Street merchants hired an architect planner in the early 1960s and have
stuck with the quaint Victorian plan and the strong neighborhood support for
retail. (The architect was a friend of mine, Beverly Willis)
Castro Street has two merchant groups with a stranglehold on the neighborhood
prohibiting any change. They hate sober conviviality and ban coffee shops
with seating. Only bars thrive. Restaurants with liquor licenses
are fought against ferociously. Castro Street is proof that bourgeois
small business people can be tragically small-minded.
Twenty-fourth Street is pure Lefty Fundamentalism. They destroy good
businesses (they have put five out of business,) ban interesting businesses,
hate cell phones and view hatred of Bush as the only viable reason for retail
stores to exist. I'm not kidding. If you don't hate Bush…don't open a
store on 24th St.
Clement Street is pure love of commerce, no rules or regulations.