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bay city blues
Published in the January-March 2010 issue.
Carol West sings the praises of San Francisco, from its harbourside to its downtown bustle and relaxing parks and gardens.
Nudging its black-and-yellow hull alongside the rusted metal jetty, the Bay Monarch ferry delivers passengers from the city across the bay. Yachts slice across my line of vision, tacking and skating past the infamous Alcatraz, its brooding presence partially obscured by cascading banks of fog.
San Francisco Bay is in a constant state of motion. A gull bobs on the heaving tide and two grey figures, silhouetted on a silvery splash of water, kayak past. The ferry churns frothily as it disappears into glowering mounds of sea mist that shroud the iconic Golden Gate Bridge in mystery.
This is Sausalito, San Francisco’s popular seaside escape across the Bridge, with all the postcard charm of a Mediterranean village. Streets rise steeply upwards from Bridgeway, the boutique-and-café-lined waterfront where floating assets tug listlessly at their moorings. Stone walkways lead to secret gardens and turreted, wood-shingled mansions, picturesque churches and clapboard cottages.
Isolated, yet in close proximity to San Francisco’s tantalising skyline, Sausalito has a nautical air that beguiles visitors and makes it a haven for weekend sailors. The value of its isolation wasn’t lost on mobsters ‘Baby Face’ Nelson and ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd, who readily exploited it during the Prohibition era. Black sedans packed with bootleg Canadian whiskey were transported by Sausalito’s ferries into San Francisco, until the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge on 28 May 1937 streamlined operations and trucks began carrying the contraband into the city’s notorious speakeasies.
There’s no problem finding somewhere for a drink these days and, thanks to the area’s Italian heritage, the food is authentically flavoursome. Angelino restaurant at 621 Bridgeway dishes up pastas made to long-cherished family recipes, while Cacciucco Cucina Toscana at 300 Valley Street and Poggio Trattoria at 777 Bridgeway serve hearty Tuscan fare. The local literati frequent No Name bar at 757 Bridgeway – but Sausalito’s real charm lies in discarding guidebooks and wandering its side-streets.
We found an enchanting neighbourhood along tree-lined Caledonia Street. A mere eight blocks long, it has a selection of shops that encircles the world. There are ethnic kitchens, outdoor cafés and a smartly renovated 1930s gas station that’s now a luxury general store – the Five Star Station – crammed with contemporary clothing, jewellery and vintage treasures.
Rolling across distant hills of larkspur, a milky mist accompanies us on the 2.7-kilometre drive across the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco. Observing clamped cars being towed away is all the incentive we need to find a central carpark on the corner of Stockton and Sutter Streets. The sun creates a shadow-play with the fire escapes that concertina the sides of heritage buildings, many now occupied by globally successful fashion designers.
The notion that San Francisco’s streets are paved with gold may be legend, but the signs of immigrants drawn to the myth are still apparent. Standing on the corner of Bush Street and Grant Avenue, the ornately painted Dragon’s Gate behind me signals the beginning of Chinatown while, in front of me, Café de la Presse sprawls with the bohemian insouciance of a French artiste beneath the Hotel Triton.
Nothing’s on the level here, so good walking shoes are essential for tackling the city’s famous undulations – particularly Filbert Street, the city’s steepest, with an almost one-in-three gradient.
We skirt Union Square, bristling with buskers, and head down Stockton Street, navigating our way through Chinatown’s 24 bustling city blocks with little evidence of English to reach Washington Square and the beautiful Saints Peter and Paul Church. There’s an art show in the small park where people catch some rays and music drifts on the air along with cigarette smoke. To our right, Coit Tower, atop Telegraph Hill, offers a splendid vantage point from which to snap panoramas of San Francisco’s bridges and bay, while the streets peeling off Stockton like ocean waves feature rows of ‘painted ladies’, the city’s charming, pastel-tinted Victorian homes.
As we breast yet another vertiginous hill, the jangle of a cable-car’s bells is just discernable over our gasping breath. Tourists gleefully hang onto the sides as a jive-talkin’ gripman brings the city’s must-ride attraction to a screeching halt along Powell Street. The street tumbles down to Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39, San Francisco’s festive waterfront that’s crammed with tourist attractions, from shops and restaurants to kid-oriented arcades.
We’re immediately seduced by the aroma of freshly baked sourdough wafting from overhead vents at Boudin Bakery, San Francisco’s oldest. The Boudin family has been baking here since 1849. Picking up a travel-pack of breads and deli items for lunch, we head for the Blue & Gold Fleet cruisers moored at Pier 39.
Squawking seagulls spear the air but the pungent, sprawling colony of sea lions, resident here for 20 years, has mysteriously disappeared. Sailing flotillas skim busily across San Francisco Bay as we embark on a one-hour cruise with ‘Captain Nemo’ providing historic narration.
Alcatraz is the bay’s inescapable attraction and as we circle its foreboding cliffs, we’re regaled with tales of incarcerated crims: Al Capone, ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly and Robert Stroud, the notorious ‘Birdman of Alcatraz’. With the Rock disappearing in perennially swirling mists, I’m reminded of something American novelist John Steinbeck once said: “San Francisco is a golden handcuff with the key thrown away.”
On deck, the boat heaves determinedly as we view the underside of the Golden Gate Bridge, its rich orange span framed by a vivid blue sky. The bridge was built to a depth of 106 metres; over the past 70-odd years, more than two billion cars have travelled across it.
Back at the waterfront, the bridge becomes an apparition, appearing and disappearing by turn as it floats on a blanket of cloud, becoming our touchstone as we take the San Francisco Bay Trail to Fort Mason Historic District, site of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915 (more commonly known as the World’s Fair).
A foghorn sounds at sea and people jog, cycle and stroll along the tree-lined pathway that leads to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. A reclaimed wildlife protection area, Crissy Field incorporates a wetlands walk across a tidal marsh that’s now rich in birdlife; at San Francisco East Beach, a few souls brave the Bay’s chilly waters for a bracing dip.
Stretching from Stanyan Street to the Pacific Ocean, Golden Gate Park is an enchanting green wedge of cultural and sporting playgrounds. A bronze-and-marble monument to Francis Scott Key, author of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, America’s national song, is set in immaculate gardens.
The strikingly sculptural de Young Museum runs counterpoint to the über-organic California Academy of Sciences and houses indigenous collections from the Americas, Pacific Islands and Africa; Friday nights at the de Young, with live music, poetry, films, dancing and cocktails, attracts the city’s hip set.
By contrast, Renzo Piano designed the Academy of Sciences as seven hills covered by an almost one-hectare living roof. Looking as though a piece of the park has been lifted and the Academy of Sciences slipped beneath it, this energy-efficient, water conserving building houses the world’s only museum with an aquarium, a planetarium, a natural history museum and a four-storey rainforest all under one (living) roof. The stunning, light-filled building has recycled 90 per cent of the demolition waste from the old Academy and is insulated with blue-jean scraps.
Ready to sink my teeth into the city’s food, I can imagine Meryl Streep, joyously impersonating Julia Child, who once said of San Francisco: “Who couldn’t become ravenous in such a place?”
Cuisine here is defined to a large extent by neighbourhood characteristics: the Mission district has Mexican, and you’ll find Italian – but no beach – at North Beach’s sidewalk cafés, seafood along the Embarcadero, soul food on Fillmore and everything Asian in Chinatown. We settle for sophisticated yet sustainably grown fare at Roots, where even the vodka cocktails are organic.
Long before Tony Bennett left his heart here, Rudyard Kipling commented that “San Francisco has only one drawback – ’tis hard to leave.” I know exactly how he feels. •
Photography by Robert Muir / imageink.
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