A friend loaned me her downtown top floor apartment with a view of the entire Bay from the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate. I was in the apartment for a week…went out at night and watched the view by day.
Conclusions: San Francisco is too much like Colma; the Bay is like the middle of the Pacific.
Colma is a small town adjacent to San Francisco that is entirely populated with cemeteries.
When I went out at night, downtown, the City....
When I went out at night, downtown, the City was dead. Dead! The
stores close at 6pm and the coffee shops close at 7pm. Nobody is on
the streets. There are a few crowded restaurants but people go to and
from the restaurants by taxi or car. There is no street life.
I was so shocked I drove around the city. There are active people on the streets at night at isolated intersections. There were people at Columbus and Broadway, 11th and Folsom, 16th and Valencia, 20th and Mission and a big crowd in the Castro. The rest of the City is black and moribund covered with funeral bunting.
What do tourists do at night? What do the tens of thousands of
downtown condo owners do at night? San Francisco is a cemetery. At
least we should have cemetery bowling for entertainment.
The Bay is a comparable tragedy. If you have ever seen the harbors at
Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo or Los Angeles-Long Beach with hundreds of
cargo ships and tankers you couldn’t believe the one or two lonesome
ships that come into San Francisco Bay.
Looking at shipping on the Bay is like looking at shipping in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Virtually none. How did such a functional Bay, such a vigorous world of commerce get destroyed?
Don’t answer…I know that cosmopolitan hatred of commerce is the poison of our lives and has turned the San Francisco Bay into a pristine cargo free shipping zone.