In the weeks leading up to the big date, I had probed the intertubes with various queries about how others had marked the day, or period, but nothing really leaped out at me. The usual array of cruises and parties. I myself was given a great party last week, and a stupendous weekend trip to Big Sur at my birthday that was very memorable. But I wanted to do something over the course of the entire year, and chronicle it here. So, I thought I would take 50 walks or hikes over the course of the year, an average of about one per week. These might range from short to epic, from down the street to on another continent, from urban to very rural., and these will slot in well to urban ambles. The first two have already occurred, and the entries on these will come soon.

Hopefully, these reports will carry something more than just another  chronicle of just another hike. And I expect as well, as there is much transition in my life now, will serve as mileposts for what promises to be, at the least, an interesting journey in 2012. Welcome to my 50 at 50, and hope you enjoy.

Our landlord, having removed a viable means of removing trash through his hair-brained remodel of the building, had run out of options. And under the cover of a workday, installed this trash-chute, destroying an otherwise stupendous deck. After two years of endless house  shaking demolition and construction, this was it. This was the moment. It was time to go.

At the time, the expectation would be that we would stay in the area , which we liked, but open house after open house found us jostling with gaggles of 20-somethings who had all but written out the rent check for whatever sun-starved shanty that had been gussied up with a new refrigerator and a coat of paint. And on the sideline, the greedy bean counters at United Property Service(our landlord) could barely contain there glee at the prospect of hacking up our lovely 2 bedroom in to some twisted, mutated 4 bedroom hovel.

And so we looked north , and then we looked east, and with the clock ticking, at the 11th hour we found our new home- a flat in Northwest Berkeley, minutes from BART, and a couple of blocks from the very cool and funky San Pablo corridor. We would live in a community of cottages, amidst a garden of fountains,objets d’art, displaying, among other things, that true California tradition of industrial object sprouting flowers at every turn. A  view from the deck, oranges and passionfruit and color in abundance:

The neighborhood itself is just beginning to reveal its secrets, and there will be much to see. It is  largely a neighborhood of single family and duplexes, the occasional apartment building thrown in for good measure. The neighborhood is where Berkeley started, parts of it are  olllllllllld, as this lovely Carpenter Gothic church attests:

Craftsman bungalows are in abundance, as are they occasional flights of fancy, such as this soaring shingle style belle.

Author’s Note: As some have followed these tours previously, I should caution that the first part of the trip, at least from Market to O’Farrell, should not be taken at night. Also, this walk, about 2.5 miles all told, traverses several hills, including a couple of pretty steep blocks. I’m just sayin’ .

Part 1- Stepping Tenderly

We begin our trip at the confluence of Taylor Street, Market, and 6th Streets, one of the more colorful intersections in our fair city, to say the least. There is much to take in here, a goodly portion of it legally questionable, at a minimum. One of the best places to take this all in is the newly opened ShowDogs on the corner; you can sit in the prow of the building with a fine Porter or Stout and contemplate the madness in front of you. 5 star street theater. Think of it as a bracer for the hike ahead. Taylor Street begins at Market, and in these parts is standard issue Tenderloin, chock-a-block with low-rent fleabag hotels  next to some terrific new affordable housing; and community serving non-profits next to dive bars (also community serving). The sidewalks are usually full with locals walking, talking, and yes, sometime staggering and sleeping.

Bar Names are dispensed with down here, just an address. No chaser.

The neighborhood is a combination of old and new. In the second block alone, the legendary and still boarded up original Original Joe’s sits on one side of the street while across the street sits an apartment building that was the site of the first LGBT riot in San Francisco, at the old Compton’s Cafeteria, in its time a center for the transgendered community. And amidst these old buildings sits Curran House, a very fine affordable housing building by one of San Francisco’s best housing architects, David Baker.

Curran House

Further up Taylor, anchoring an edge of the Tenderloin at Ellis Street, sits  Glide Church. This marvelous institution is literally a beacon, serving up meals and hope daily to the neighborhood residents. Feeling bugged that your 401-K took a hit, or you have to work on Saturday? Go serve some meals there some Sunday morning and get back to me about those problems you’re having. The church also marks a transition in our walk , from the Tenderloin to the Theater District and beyond. At Geary, we take a right for a quick detour down one block to Mason. Here we sample a bit of the Theater District, a tiny slice of Manhattan. Worth a stop, the counter at David’s Delicatessen (more for the ambiance), and ponder the fruit and vegetables adorning the Geary Theater, home of ACT, across the street.

Glide

A bit of New York

A left at Mason, and we go up one great urban block, one that includes the nostagically  named “Native Sons” and “Spring Valley Water Company” buildings,  and at the corner,The First Congregationalist Church.  There is great power that comes from the white temple that sits amidst the surrounding gray highrises,  another very Manhattanish motif. One could usually count on these temples to offer a moment of quiet repose from the workaday world, but it is now part of the Academy of Art Empire, a real estate conglomerate masquerading as an art school. It is no doubt now some sort of classroom. While I love the student presence in the neighborhood, I am stunned in this city where a deck addition can spawn a neighborhood revolt, they have gotten away with what amounts to  a bit of unplanned urban campus building that routinely displaces the locals. (I mean how many art schools have a luxury car collection).

“Top Of The Mark , Jimmy !”

West on Post Street and we rejoin Taylor to head up Nob Hill. This is the heart of Clubland, covered in a previous post. As we head up Taylor , be on the look out for some of those clubbers, or Bohemians , the men are marked by dark blue feathers with a red breasted necktie. As we ascend, one is reminded that although the  hills are often more places of transition, they still have their own identity , and this area, known as the “Tendernob”, borrows some form each of its namesakes. This is one of my favorite neighborhoods in San Francisco, in part for its highly  consistent  5-6 story apartment buildings, and its stock of  really unique micro retail. To see this, amble down Sutter or Bush.

Tendernob

The ascent steepens dramatically at Pine, as if to heighten the reward of arriving at the almost top of Nob Hill and lovely Huntington Park. If one is truly depleted after that last block, may I suggest a trip into the old world wood-paneled wonderness of the Big Four Bar and Restaurant on the corner. Here, one can sit by the fire and sip a manhattan, listening to the dulcet stylings of the pianist. I will admit though that this detour could very well mark the end of your trip. But lets assume you don’t stay and we move on.

Of course, the park is dominated by Grace Cathedral, always worth a visit. After ascending from the Tenderloin, a visit to the labyrinth inside could be in order. However, we’ll focus on Huntington Park across the street.  The park , as most are, is home to a variety of indigenous wildlife, including the speckled dowager, the blue-blazered dandy, the red-sweatered seven sister (seen here) ,and also, in summer only, the camera-toting shivered German Warbler.  As a neighbor, I periodically bring the legendary Whiskey (the dog, not the drink) here to mix it up with some of the precious specimens from the park. As one sits here around the fountain, contemplate where you were not 20 minutes ago. Like these three:

In addition to the hotels, people live here, and there are some exquisite buildings, none better than this toothpick at Taylor and Sacramento. It contains  one small apartment per floor, you get out of the elevator and voila, there you are. Nob Hill livin’.

On To Bohemia

Departing Huntington Park, the street morphs again, as the scale drops quickly to 2-4 story apartments with a quaint bit of retail. Its really a lovely stretch of Taylor, with some really handsome apartment buildings. My favorite buildings are the shingled apartment building with red doors at Pleasant (left side) ,the courtyarded Westgate Apartments at Washington(right side), the little French Bistro at Jackson, and across the street  an apartment block that can be only described as Industrial-Spanish Revival. Oh how I have fantasized of living there.

Rue St. Jacques

Dream Building

As we continue north, the landscape becomes a bit woodsy, as we’re approaching Russian Hill. This was once a bohemian neighborhood, a place of  writers and artists. As we ascend yet another hill to Vallejo, check out tiny Ina Coolbrith Park for a brief respite. From this point, one can admire the view to the bay, as well as the myriad of castles in the sky, both the highrise version soaring above, and the low-rise home that seems to have broken loose from somewhere in Los Angeles. We are headed up further unfortunately, to Jones Street, and up the steps of Vallejo across the street.

Ascending the hill one cuts through the heart of old Russian Hill, with several fine buildings designed by some of the leading architectural lights. These buildings illustrate the Bay Area Shingle style, its first great distinctively local style. The highlight for me is Willis Polk’s Polk-Williams House, a lovingly eccentric pile of shapes and details. This area is worth more exploration in of itself, many fine buildings, and a splendid overlook at the end of Vallejo, where  you can be comforted that this is the end of the hills (almost). Carry on brave soldier.

Willis Polk's Shingle Style Masterpiece

Meditteranean Revival Townhomes on Jones

Descending Jones

From here its all downhill, in more ways than one. Jones Street descends past many more fine buildings, streets and lanes. But, we are tired, and carry on, through lower Russian Hill to Chestnut Street, where we ascend slightly for one last stop (sorry), to the San Francisco Art Institute, it as well, an institution that I think befits the bohemian traditions of the neighborhood. Unlike the Academy of Art, this school seems to be just about the Art, and it is an absolute glorious marriage of an old Meditteranean Revival campus complete with courtyard, tower, and Rivera murals, and a jarring 70′s brutalist addition. It all works, and is a fabulous setting for an art school. The view out the back is one of the best kept secrets in San Francisco.

Back To The Mayhem

Well dear ambler, we are nearly done. Having taken in the bay, some art, having meditated on our evolutionary journey sitting by the courtyard fountain, we know all good things must come to an end. As we descend first Chestnut, then north on Jones (and on the corner, Scottie’s 40ish home from Vertigo!!) we contemplate the cross-section we have cut. The franticness of Market, the hustle of the theater district, the repose of Nob and lushness of Russian Hills, and now as we waft the first bits of the bay, we

“What……..No, I don’t need a carriage ride.”

What? …….do I want my  photo taken with a wax figure, No,no.”

“What? ….. how do you get to Berkeley……from here……..really?

Yes, we are here:

We make our way to Taylor Street, past the calamari, and end at Pier 45, where we are left staring at the entry to  the Musee Mechanique.

This museum houses some great old arcade games. You can arm-wrestle a pirate, get laughed at by a toothless wench (wait, that happened at the beginning of this walk- and it was free!!), and get your fortune told by a grandmother. I popped in a nickel and was told that I was due to make a fine living working for the Hoover Administration. Well then. I walked down to the end of the pier, realizing I had never walked down here.

You know, one of the reasons I love to walk in the city is I always, no matter how often I traverse a given route, find something new. And today was no exception. Walking along the backside  of the pier as the sun set,  revealed the working side of the wharf up close, actual fishing vessels, a working dock, and much to my surprise, a chapel for the fisherman. I had no idea. I walked inside… and there was the pastor…. he had just been fishing. We chatted for a bit, he spoke of life on the wharf, I for some reason, couldn’t stop talking about dowagers from the Hoover administration.

Start in one place, and in every way hope to end in another. That’s a good walk, and good model.

The Chapel

As you might imagine, in these parts, walking through this suburban neighborhood to get there can generally range from bland to grim to inhospitable, and that was the case most of the way, though there were sidewalks at least:

I was really not sure what was waiting for me. I knew the Googleplex was some kind of campus. The notion of the suburban corporate campus is a relatively recent one in the grand arc of building design, really taking off in the 1950′s. One of the prime examples was Eero Saarinen’s General Motors Technical Center outside Detroit. Of course, in the hands of the 1950′s modernist, the campus was meant to embody the promise of the corporation, expressed in a pristine modern language, with every detail reinforcing the whole.

But the champion of  every detail re-enforcing the whole was Frank Lloyd Wright. Mr. Wright often insisted, and was often given the chance, to design everything down to  the napkin holders. His most noteworthy shot at the corporate campus was the Johnson Wax Building, with its infamous wax-like interior columns:

But of course, that was the 50′s. Its a different world, not to mention this is laid back Silicon Valley, and Google. I wondered, was there security? Was it gated?  Was it more of a collegiate campus, a “traditionally bland office park”, or a new model, an emerald city on the hill, pointing us all in a new direction, whilst embodying the company’s internet ingenuity.

I was not sure where the ‘campus’ began, or when I had entered its hallowed grounds, but suddenly two people whooshed past me- and not in a car, but on bikes, painted suspiciously with Google’s telltale rainbow. Then I saw a sign, then another, and that was it, I apparently, had arrived. I was underwhelmed- it did as it turns out have the styling of a very bland 80′s office park. In fact, here is it what it looks like from the air , and of course, courtesy of GoogleMaps  ™:-/ :

The only real hint that this might be a bit different than your run of the mill office park were the bikes. But I intended to venture in , look inside if I could. Again, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but when I thought about what I might find, I couldn’t shake this image:

Uh , Mr. Oz, why does my Google Ap keep crashing?

As I inched closer to the heart of the campus, I saw more bikes. Moving through the parking lots, and there were plenty of them, I noticed some were shaded with photovoltaics. Yes, Google was doing their part. A nice touch, but I still imagined many solo auto commuters heading out here; as my walk out had shown this place to be largely in the middle of nowhere.

GOOGLEBIKES™ !!

GOOGLEPARK™ !!

And then , as I stepped up into the center part of the campus, I was joined by several other visitors. We came upon security- finally. Here is the artist rendition of that encounter:

Well, something like that. At any rate, we arrived in the heart of the campus. Was I being watched? Did they know I really didn’t really belong here? Was I being tailed by GOOGLECOP™.  Well, clearly we had arrived at a little slice of paradise, or was it “GOOGLADISE ™” . Again, my expectations were off on this day, why had this image been stuck in my head ? :

No, wasn’t quite like that. No, it was actually a pretty serene, well done series of courtyards, which provided, I guess, everything a Google employee would want:

Here on the sumptiously landscaped grounds, engineers frolicked with IT managers, and everything was just right. There were organic gardens,and  beach volleyball courts.

The organic garden

GOOGLEBALL ™ Anyone ?

There were posters for fabulous happy hours, such as this one. From the looks of these two play-ahs, this one’s gonna be da’ bomb (that was painful):

And , well, I am not sure what these two were up to, just up to there eyeballs in all things Google, or GOOGLEBALLS ™

In fact, one need hardly leave, except to sleep I suppose, and even then……. In addition to all manner of food and entertainment, there was even on-site haircuts this day.

Yeah, they seemed to have thought of everything here at the Google campus. And, it occured to me that’s a perfect representation for Google- everything. They are everywhere, providing all you could ever need- maps , images, advertisements, videos, and yes, googleballs. So, less the architecture than the services and amenities that embody the Google on the Ground.

Perhaps for some though, its a bit much, as the fellow shown above opined in an article. It was for me too,  just, I don’t know, too preciously predictable? Maybe I have a chip on my shoulder. A number of years ago, during the dot-com boom, I worked in a  warehouse south of market, in an area that for years had been occupied by artists and architects. As the dot-com boomed, wave upon wave of almost too weird to believe start-ups snapped up space (“the stoner orders the movie, the wine, AND the pizza on our site, and we deliver it, on a unicycle!!”). Rents soared, and this forced out a lot of architects/artists. And while those of us that remained  continued to  draw away in our rather unremarkable settings,  20-somethings skateboarded to work at 11:00 with dog in tow to work at stoner.com, pulled down eye-popping salaries, and I suppose heralded a new age. Never quite did understand what any of them actually did, or made. But  they had good parties, and we would often crash them, mumbling something about being new in accounting, as one ordered a Mojito.

But back to our amble, and the sudden need to get outta here. It was starting to creep me out. So I headed across the street, beyond the outskirts of the emerald city, and found some beautiful trails near the Bay.

Ah, this was more like it. I was now beyond the reach of Google, breathing clean pure air. Oh the vistas, the cool soothing breeze, the warm sun. Soon, having hiked a bit, it was time to turn back, and…..where was I? I needed my I-phone…..I needed  Googlemaps.

“Oh Wizard,, please show me the way home.” And it did.

There’s no place like home,

there’s no place like home.

image courtesy of Google ™ :-/

Now, I really like the Tenderloin, but I guess there hasn’t been much call for me to be on the 600 block of Ellis Street. But I was headed to the Civic Center, and there you go. And there, on that block, I could not believe my eyes. There, in one of the densest neighborhoods in the United States,and  THE densest west of the Missisisppi, sits this:

A single family home. Well, I guess if you count the teepee( WTF?) in the front yard, its a duplex. I did some research. the house is 1,600 sf, and sold a couple of years ago for $530,000. As you can see, this price gets you the house, a driveway, a concrete “yard”. Not sure if the port-a -pottie was included. The mind imagines the conversation with the realtor  (So, ummm, tell us about the neighborhood”).

When you pull away a bit, you can get a better sense of just how odd this is:

So, surrounded by 4-7 stories of apartments, resident hotels, liquor stores, and no doubt the ever-present crack dealer, a single family home perserveres in the Tenderloin, a bizarre testimony to the American Dream

Its surprising how unfamiliar many Californians are with the largest body of water within the state; the Salton Sea. Last month, while down in Palm Springs, I spent the day out near the Salton Sea, a truly bizarre and beautiful place. The Sea is an accident- it was formed in 1905 when the Colorado River, swollen from rain and snowmelt, overflowed the headgates of a canal, and flowed unimpeded into the Imperial Valley and the Salton Sink. The water flowed into the sink for the next two years , thus creating this massive new lake. Here’s the map, and you can just see the Colorado at the far right:

Paradise Lost

This vast new lake soon became a target for development, and a vast recreation mecca was dreamed of, and began to be realized. Huge developments along the north and east shores of the sea were planned and developed in the late 50′s and early 60′s. One can only imagine the optimism as developers envisioned the booming metropolis to the east sending a steady stream of recreation enthusiasts east to these new resorts.

These developments came to partial fruition just as it became apparent there was something terribly wrong with the Sea. The only source for additional water to sustain the sea were highly saline creeks and washes, themselves largely agricultural runoff. As a result, the salinity and toxicity  increased astronomically, resulting in large-scale fish die-offs. Thus, the resorts very short moment in the sun was over, and they began a steady decline. Today, a tour of these locations is reminiscent of other desert outposts that we have visited the last couple of years, where owners and developers simply walk away, leaving whole buildings to be preserved in this briny wasteland. The result was, and is, a bizarre , salt encrusted and oft-malodorous stew of scrappy communities living on the edge of the sea, amidst dead fish and these abandoned resorts. Here are a few photos that tell the generally sad tale near the Sea:

Salton City, CA

Abandoned resort- Desert Shores, CA

Sadly, the beach is filled with this.

Home For Sale- Desert Shores- they'll throw in the anchor

The Survivors

The rusted resorts along the north and east are perhaps half inhabited, weathered bungalows alternate with trailers and vacant plots. Over on the east side,  old agricultural towns such as Niland, slightly off  shore and on the main road and rail lines headed to the Mexican border, present a slightly less desperate feel. Yet a walk  through Niland quickly reveals a more robust past, as several very fine deserted commercial buildings in the center of the town attest:

It is beyond Niland however, heading east into desert nothingness, that things really get interesting. A few years ago, I happened upon the movie “Salton Sea”. It revolves around a shady world of meth dealers and manufacturers living on the edge of society, out here.  I wanted to see the place for myself, because I heard there was a place called Slab City, where drifters camped out on abandoned concrete slabs.  I imagined a  lawless place of drifters, at once frightening and exciting, a place where Truth goes to die apparently:

A bit of background is in order  about Slab City. The “city” is a series of concrete slabs left over from an old marine base that was abandoned after World War II. Several veterans stayed, and the settlement gradually grew. There are both full-time residents as well as  a number of “snow-birds, which make their way here every winter. Yes, out here, on the slabs, scattered out as far as the eye can see, you find many living on the edge. In some cases, the lodgings seemed very temporary as if the inhabitants were passing through. But more often, I found residents who had  adapted to their environment, recycling found objects in ingenious ways. I thought of the animals that survive out here in the blast furnace heat, tough outer shells, and amazingly resourceful with their few resources. And while it was likely there were a few unsavory residents, it occurred to me that this was no different from any community. And this was a community. There is a ‘town center’ with bulletin board, a music venue, recreation, and rules and regulations. Here’s a few photos.

A neighborhood of found objects

A retrofitted bus

Community Bulletin Board

A slab and cultural venue just beyond!

The Visionary

There is small mountain that sits hard next to the entry to Slab City. But this is no ordinary mountain, because you see, it was built by hand. Its called Salvation Mountain, and for the past 25 years, Leonard Knight has been building this monument.  He originally tried to build a giant balloon that would have been regaled with religious themed messages for all below. After years of trying , he finally was forced to give up on his dream. That failure occurred here, near Niland. And so he decided he would build a small religious monument and move on, and continue searching for his calling. And that was 25 years ago.

He, like his Slab City cohorts, finds his raw material in the desert. He builds frames with branches, and gradually builds the walls up with a mixture of clay and straw. And oh yeah he paints the mountain, thousands and thousands of gallons of paint have been applied, adorning it with quotes and exaltation.

Once inside the mountain, you are overwhelmed with color. It made me think a bit of Gaudi, (the Spanish Architect) both in form and color. Here you get a sense of the work in progress.

Leonard is a visionary, and a fine example of the American folk artist, the type you run across repeatedly in remote parts of the west. While he happened to these parts by accident, he stayed, recognizing the inherent opportunity. This place has space, and in that space, it allows for people like Leonard to follow their muse. Nope,  zoning regulations I could find. Sadly, the day I was visited, the creator was sleeping. This is where he sleeps, and lives.

I spoke with one of his assistants. We talked about the structure, the challenges of buildings roofs out of mud, of finding materials, of living out here in the summer. Not for everyone, but clearly this group of devotees were where they needed to be. They gave me a cd about Leonard and the Mountain, they accepted donations. Here is a link with more information on the place.

http://www.salvationmountain.us/

As I got in my car and headed north, I thought about my preconceived notions about the place. It is easy to dismiss this place as a wasteland, but  I met people here who genuinely liked living here. It was nothing like I had imagined after watching the movie. The residents here have clawed out community in their own way. And they anxiously await the future. Plans are inching along to try to restore the Sea, but it is controversial, and the competing interests; government, resident, agricultural, are battling it out.

As I headed back to Palm Springs, I couldn’t help but think  of the stark contrasts to those more well-known spots, all manicured and perfect.

No, it seemed to me this place, contrary to our movie poster above, was more truthful than the above photo. At least true to the hard nature of this place as a place to inhabit. It  crushed the unrealistic dreamers who tried to tame this unnatural place into a recreation paradise, but embraces the visionary who travels out into the desert in a beat up jeep, searching for branches, sticks and straw, in order to build his mountain higher.

It wasn’t too long ago, in this neighborhood, that I was hanging out in a shack by the water , remodeled by an architect friend into a folk art wonder.  His neighbors seemed to be a mixture of pirates and outlaws in this backwater. But, time marched on, and this neighborhood, so close to downtown San Francisco, has been swept by a wave of development, now, for the time being, keeping me employed. So it is here that we begin our walk. We exit the T-train at the UCSF campus exit at 3rd Street, and we are surrounded by a campus less than 5 years old. What strikes me about this campus is that I seem to like the non- academic buildings the best; parking garages, water pump stations, and the student housing. The academic buildings are all very well done mind you, they just don’t seem in any way to aggregate  to something greater, the way buildings at Stanford of Berkeley do. I know, an incredibly unfair comparison, because I think in each of those cases, mature landscape plays a dominant role. Nonetheless, a scattered collection here.

The heart of the UCSF campus is the student center, which we come to quickly. It functions very well as a distinct building and embraces an active gathering space.

Designed by the Mexican architect Ricardo Legoretta , its his classic vibrantly colored reductive modernism, that does create a center here.. But while the surrounding buildings, despite there overly varied nature,  exhibit  a highly refined level of detailing,  that is lacking here. It’s a one-liner, and it seemed, for me, dated from the day it opened.

On the other hand, as a housing architect, I very much admired the student housing at UCSF. The development I am working on now was designed by another architect,and  it is impossibly and needlessly complicated. Perhaps as a result, I found myself admiring the building below; simply designed, fulfilling its urban role, with a few simple gestures; strong base, repetitive middle, playful top, with the periodic unique site gesture. It does just enough, without doing too much.

We leave UCSF and head north, a relative no-man’s land that will quickly be filled in with a combination of affordable and market rate housing, including the project I am working on. This area will form a bridge to the now established community to the north, along Mission Creek. For many of us oldsters, we remember this as a windswept land of warehouses, parking lots, and an improbable double-deck golf driving range (loved it!). But a constant through it all was the houseboats along Mission Creek, which have been preserved, along with the attendant shacks and recreation: 

The creek forms the heart of this new  neighborhood, and it also provides the most compelling part of the entire  development north of the creek. The new buildings’ u-shaped courtyards , seen below, warmly embrace the south-facing space, and do it with it a variety of massing and color. The promenade is  very popular, and embraces the best of the balance of old and new.

As one moves through this block to the inner streets , the feel , both aesthetically and climatically, changes dramatically. One leaves the warm south face for the wind-swept north face, and here we see the plan of the neighborhood break down. Berry Street is an utter failure as  a new urban street. The buildings lack variety, the master plan too rigid, the rich and varied play of landscape along the creek mysteriously gives way to a streetscape virtually barren of landscape, and the intended street livening gesture of the individual unit entries/porches  at street level has resulted instead with birdacge like enclosures rarely big enough for a folding chair. The result is a profound lack of life and activity on the street.

As we head east, this entire neighborhood ends at Third Street, as the whole world shifts to accommodate  the World Champion Giants wonderous AT & T Park. Enough of this bullshit about porches , there’s baseball to watch and beer to drink.

For all that is lacking in the new residential neighborhood, all  is right with the ballpark. But our walk does not take in the innards of the park , it skirts along the outfield, along the beautiful bay side promenade. As such, it does allow a peak into the park, behind the right field fence. Urban Ambles was here on a Saturday, and actually got into the cubby, where diehards kvetched over strike calls from 400 feet away, or ooh-aahed over Andre Torres’ butt.

The walk from here winds past South Beach Harbor, and then begins a stretch of passing unremarkable piers that annoyingly interrupt incredible views to the bay. There ain’t much along this walk, except for……. oh this:

Red’s.

Ambles has spent a few hours in here , enjoying the beer and hot dog deal- $5 and you can live like a king on the back patio with a beer and dog. It is harder and harder in SF to get glimpses of the old waterfront, that is a working waterfront of fishing and shipping. That has largely departed, as has the attendant services it required, but somehow, places like Red’s hang on, and capture a bit of that legacy. God love Red’s , and their Budweisers and crappy hot dogs.

From here it’s coasting to the Ferry Building, first slipping under the great Bay Bridge, a staggeringly dominant visual presence, but perhaps more intriguing, is the sound of the bridge from 400 feet up, traffic, horns, buzz, floating in the air, the stress of a harried commute displaced in the clouds above us bay side walkers. It’s an odd sensation.

And we wrap up past the bridge, at the Ferry Building. The Ferry Building IS the entry and exit to the to the City, no matter how few actually enter and exit that way. And its a perfect place to end this amble- itself, like Mission Bay ,a recently reclaimed relic from an inattentive past. The buzz of commuter traffic at rush hour here is the City by the Bay’s answer to Grand Central in New York.

If you have lived anywhere for a significant length of time, walks such as these bring up both feelings of admiration at the new, and mourning the loss of old. The mystery and joy of living in any city is the ongoing play of old and new, and I suppose, we are the jury to the resulting merit. I found both emotions on this walk, the admiration of the Ferry Building, the ballpark, the wonderful creek side walk and housing; but at the same time remembering the wide open tableau of underused industrial lands, and my memories in those places, so rare in San Francisco, and hoping, truly hoping, that I’ll always be able to find a bud and a dog for 5 bucks on the bay.

I like this building’s reinterpretation of a two apartment wide block of flats with bays. I think its interest lies in its tweaking of the massing, angled center section with bays rising to the top, rather than contained within, the main box of  the building, as well as the use of materials- steel and concrete in particular. It’s received a fair amount of adulation in the press, which surprised me a bit, since despite my comments above, the building really doesn’t break any significant new ground. What it does do impeccably, is reflect the current fashion of the day, namely checkerboard window and textural patterns , oriented vertically if at all possible, something poor XIP Cleaners next door doesn’t have going for it.

This building is a crisply detailed modern building, and as such, one of its key features is the floor to ceiling glass. This glass does 2 things, it lets a large amount of light (and heat) into these south-facing rooms, but it also lets the passerby glimpse in, perhaps, at the hoped for exquisitely furnished modern digs. And herein lies the classic problem for the modernist, controlling the interior. For in the condo, building, once its  sold and you turn over the keys to a buyer, they likely have their own ideas. So architects hurry to get the interior photos shot before someone moves in. So how has this turned out here:

Looking at the lower right unit, the owner has resorted to one of those awful shoji screens , to shield the sun, and perhaps prying eyes, as  the seafoam translucent glass doesn’t do much for sun or privacy. Exterior awnings would have at least helped to shield the bay, but they aren’t present here. Meanwhile, above and to the left, the bay has been identified as a place to park the mountain bike. These small bays can be hard to use,  uncomfortable to sit in at times, certainly can’t put a desk in the space, it would be blinding. So, in what are no doubt compact units, they become a place for the odd item , i.e, the bike.  To the right, a single lonely chair sits, soaking up the sun, hoping someone will sit on its roasting hot metal non-padded surface. Me thinks not. And finally, my favorite, upstairs and to the right, one of those shag carpeted cat towers (not there’s anything wrong with that).

I’ve been there. A number of years ago, I designed a loft building in an old warehouse that included new decks with open rails hung off the exterior of the building. And of course, they instantly were filled with bikes, grills, and plastic chairs. The lesson here is certainly that opaque surfaces the first couple of feet up go a long way towards mitigating this issue on the exterior. But even after all of this, we designers can’t help ourselves. I just designed a prototype apartment block and couldn’t resist glazing the corner from top to bottom. And why not I thought, because as a prototype, I’ll never have to deal with that pesky real world!

But god bless the internet, it  never sleeps, and even though I have been inactive in this space lately, my site is still out there, my little booth on the information superhighway. People still read it, and spammers still adhere to it like flies to flypaper. The spammers leave their tracks in the form of comments, and in my time away from it, there is an impressive list. Each in a way  its own bit of exquisitely baffling poetry that we have all seen. A sentence begins rather benignly with compliments, and ends ruminating on aliens. One of my first comments was just such a mashup- I eagerly read an account of how someone’s life had apprarently been changed by reading my blog!!- but then the reader was  struck by lightning and now lived underground with a secret community of mastedons. But still has an internet connection! Hmmm- well- thanks for reading!!!!!!

My favorite two in this latest batch:

“Good post. But are you sure?”

And this:

“I have been really working extremely vigorously during the past two months to try and pay down several of my personal credit card debt so that I should be able to quit my job and be a blogger full-time.”

Here’s a few screen shots from some recent comments. Look for more soon, and for god’s sake, watch out for lightning.