Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
September 11, 2001, can grasp the sur-
prisingly good behavior that people are
capable of when circumstances get truly
dire. When these now-homeless wan-
derers reached this place, they were told
that they could only bring what they
could carry in their arms. Countless
people lost everything.
The nastiness didn't end with that
chapter. When the era of waterfront
trade died, so did the wharves. San
Francisco's elders failed to prepare for
container shipping, and Oakland
poached much of its business while this
city's docks became largely derelict. So
as happened to so many waterfronts,
locals simply wrote it off. In 1957,
when Americans still believed the car
was the talisman for a bright future, a
two-level highway was plowed along
the Embarcadero, darkening everything
and cutting off the Ferry Building from
the rest of the city. It took the so-called
Lomo Prieta quake of 1989 to slap
some sense into the town. The shaking
damaged the highway so badly that it
was dismantled, and the city's recon-
nection with its precious waterfront
fostered a renaissance. (The lemons
of major disasters have not always
been turned so wisely into lemonade;
check out the box on the 1906 quake,
p. 160.) Pier 1, to the left of the Ferry
Building as you face it (the even-num-
bered piers are right of it), is slated for
a facelift of its own, with planned cafes
and water-taxi facilities.
You may also cross paths with some
antique-looking streetcars rolling
through this intersection. Their history,
and the story of their operation, is told
at a free museum south across this plaza
on Steuart Street; I talk about it on
p. 110. It's a worthy detour, because
inside you can see movies of Market
Street, which you're about to walk
down, that were taken just days before
the great quake of 1906.
In the park around you, take a
moment to notice the angular concrete
tubes of the so-called Vaillancourt
Fountain (1971), which was despised as
hideous upon its opening and isn't
much more popular today. Local sup-
port eroded when people learned the
message of the piece was to support a
free Quebec—hardly a Bay Area issue
worthy of such a prominent location.
The 710-ton tangle still routinely
dodges efforts to demolish it, and the
city pays $70,000 a year to pump water
through it partly because, as one politi-
cian said in 2004, when it's dry, home-
less people shelter there. Makes you
wonder what kind of shelter $70,000
would buy.
Continue down Market Street.
4 California Street
At California Street, you'll see the east-
ern terminus of the cable car's only true
east-west line (1878), which trundles
past the mansions of Nob Hill and
winds up among the humbler resi-
dences around Van Ness Street. I love
this line because there's rarely a big
tourist queue and it's much more popu-
lar with commuters. That's probably
because the route doesn't hit the major
tourist sights: It goes past Grace
Cathedral (p. 109) and then ends its
journey at Van Ness Avenue. The line
used to be about twice as long, but it
got chopped in half in the 1950s—
blame the American love affair with the
car for that, too.
The concrete building towering
above the terminus is the Hyatt (p. 39),
which was also derided in its day but is
now accepted as a landmark in brutalist
architecture. Duck inside to the third-
floor atrium lobby, which is 17 dizzying
stories tall; it's one of the city's most
dramatic indoor spaces next to Grace
Cathedral.
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