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December 05, 2008
The View from Telegraph Hill
When I left the hotel the second time this morning, paramedics were doing CPR on someone right in the middle of the sidewalk.
This was not an auspicious beginning to the day.
Luckily, it was about a half-hour walk to the place Jeffrey told me to go eat breakfast, Dottie’s True Blue Café, and I didn’t feel so sick by the time I got there. When I walked in, I’m afraid I forgot about the man on the sidewalk altogether because that is how good it smells in Dottie’s. I immediately wanted to eat everything. What I did eat was an order of blueberry cornmeal pancakes with a side of crispy bacon and some nice, strong coffee.
This made my day so much better.
So did this sight when I got to Telegraph Hill:
And flowers:
I don’t know if Coit Tower gets crowded sometimes, but today there were very few people there, and I found a quiet spot where I could look out at Alcatraz and watch the parrots preening and squawking and flying around, and I just sat there for a while. It was peaceful.
The rest of the day wasn’t so much. I walked and walked and walked and walked. I visited the sea lions at Pier 39, I stopped at Ghirardelli for a chocolate shake, I rode a cable car, I walked down and up the crookedest street in the world (which Jason told me to do and was a good example of why I should regard his recommendations with skepticism), and I visited the Cartoon Art Museum. I was really all over the place. I wore such bad holes in my socks that I had to throw them out, and my legs are kind of killing me, but it was so worth it.
Posted by adrienne at December 5, 2008 09:47 PM
Comments
The only place I've ever seen people openly smoking crack (maybe it was I meth) or shooting heroin in open view, in public, is in the Russian Hill/Nob Hill/Mission/Market St district of SF. And I friggin live in NYC! The theatre I was working at the time often was used as a bathroom by the locals, and I don't mean the bathrooms indoors. There was at least one incidence of a guy passed out in front of the stage door which required most of the cast and crew to step over him in order to get inside to go to work. There was also one block that we had to walk on coming back from the theatre late at night where there were large crowds of people who looked like zombies, and not the play-acting kind. The next morning would often find more than a few of those folks searching the cracks in the sidewalk for any bits of meth or crack that had escaped the pipe.
At least that neighborhood also has Dottie's.
Posted by: Jeffrey Lee at December 6, 2008 11:38 AM
Yeah, I'm definitely telling myself to pretend I don't notice things and keep walking here more than I have in any other city. I also don't see police here hardly ever, which is also not true of other big cities I've been in. Honestly, I think I see more officers patrolling when I'm out and about in Rochester. I'm not sure what to make of that. I also have to say that I see way more homeless people in the west coast cities I've been in (San Diego, Seattle, Portland, and now San Fran) than the east coast ones, but I don't really know what to make of that, either. I mean, just because you don't see things doesn't mean they aren't happening. The cities as a whole have a much different feel to them than the east coast ones, though, that's for sure.
Posted by: adrienne at December 6, 2008 12:00 PM
Oh, and speaking of police, the same day I saw people shooting heroin on the street, I saw a mother with her kid in a stroller either dealing pot or smoking pot or both across the street from the police station.
There's way more unhidden homelessness on the streets of west coast cities, and I can only attribute that to the weather, although it doesn't really explain it in Seattle. SF has the most aggressive homeless population I've ever encountered, too.
Posted by: Jeffrey Lee at December 6, 2008 02:25 PM
Oh it sounds like fun!
I just linked to the Cartoon Art Museum in a post for tomorrow (kicks post). Weird.
Posted by: Jules at December 6, 2008 10:53 PM
Jeffrey, The experience made me want to read up on SF a little more.
Jules, Cool! I haven't checked out the kicks yet, but it's on my list of things to do when I wake up today. (I flew home yesterday. I am awake in the sense that I am moving around, but not much past that. After I drop Lucas off at school in a half hour, I'm totally going back to bed.)
Posted by: adrienne at December 8, 2008 08:14 AM
What? You didn't like the Crookedest Street?
Posted by: jp at December 10, 2008 10:31 AM
It was okay, I guess. Kind of silly, and I'm not sure I was in the right mood for it. I'm glad I went, though, otherwise I would have wondered what you'd been going on about.
Posted by: adrienne at December 10, 2008 09:27 PM
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/170905-US-More-people-on-San-Francisco-streets-newly-homeless
Posted by: Jeffrey Lee at December 17, 2008 11:08 AM