San Francisco Round-Up

People who live in San Francisco are fond of saying itÕs just a big small town. ItÕs more like a collection of small towns. SF is divided into several fairly distinct neighborhoods, each with its own name, commercial district and distinct flavor. 
LetÕs start with downtown. It has a lot of tall buildings, and it spreads like a cancer. ItÕs centered on Market Street, which divides two of the cityÕs largest neighborhoods.
South of Market (ÒSoMaÓ) is a combination warehouse district/hip urban clubland. Artists and musicians used to live there, and a few still do. Nightlife in SoMa used to mean gay leather bars, now there are a variety of trendy clubs and restaurants to choose from instead, centered on Folsom Street.
North of Market, downtown spreads its tentacles wide. However, it hasnÕt yet completely penetrated the cityÕs most urban neighborhood, the Tenderloin. The central feature of the ÕLoin is the SRO (Single Room Occupancy) hotel and other forms of ÒcheapÓ housing. How cheap? You can get an SRO room for $400/month these days. This area is populated mainly by those on fixed incomes, low-income working or non-working people, punk rock wastrels and, in increasing numbers, Southeast Asian families. The police presence is heavy, and so is street crime. The ÕLoin abuts a growing district of expensive but half-empty speculative hotels.
Going back toward the Bay a bit but further North is Chinatown, one of the cityÕs growing neighborhoods. The main tourist drag is Grant Avenue, the main street for local Chinese residents is Stockton. Housing here means tiny, tiny rooms shared by whole families at incredibly high prices. Restaurants from super-cheap to outrageously expensive, Chinese grocery stores and shops with bargains from the Far East are everywhere. Chinatown is a fun urban experience for the visitor.
When Chinatown runs into Broadway, San Franciscans start calling it North Beach. North Beach includes a strip of, well, strip joints on Broadway, which also once included the two main punk clubs in the city, the Mabuhay Gardens and the On Broadway. Both have been rehabilitated as ÒlegitimateÓ businesses. North Beach was the center of the beatnik community in the Õ50s Ñ remaining artifacts from that era include City Lights Books, owned by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, VesuvioÕs bar next door and lots of coffeehouses, from the trendy to the still-sorta-boho. North Beach is thought of as the cityÕs Italian district, although few Italians still live there, and itÕs centered on Columbus Avenue. YouÕll find many Italian restaurants, and a certain atmosphere remains.
As you move into the residential area in the hills above North Beach and Chinatown, youÕll find some of the cityÕs most exclusive areas. ThereÕs a lot of old money on Nob Hill, Russian Hill and the area known as Pacific Heights. There are also buildings full of Chinese immigrants in Nob Hill, which is rapidly becoming a mostly-Chinese area. 
Running along the base of Nob Hill is Polk Street, which has many (mostly gay) bars as well as neighborhood shops, increasingly catering to the Chinese community.
Parallel to Polk is Van Ness Avenue, a major thoroughfare that bisects Market Street. Several of the cityÕs large movie theaters are near Nob Hill on Van Ness. As it nears Market, Van Ness brings you to the Civic Center area. Here is City Hall, juxtaposed with a tent city for the homeless (which may be gone by the time you read this.) Here is UN Plaza, site of a FarmerÕs Market and of the ARC/AIDS Vigil, another encampment where people with ARC and AIDS are living to put on the pressure for medical research and other assistance. This area is a center for homeless people because there are several places nearby where some services Ñ food, shelter, medical care Ñ are available. 
West of Van Ness is an area known as the Fillmore Ñ unless youÕre a real estate agent trying to sell one of the hundreds of new condos recently built there, in which case itÕs ÒLower Pacific Heights.Ó The Fillmore was a Jewish neighborhood in the early part of the century, but took center stage as the main base of San FranciscoÕs large black community during the wartime boom of the Õ40s. After the war, black munitions workers and their families found themselves unwanted and unemployed, and the area soon became a notorious ghetto. In the Õ60s, huge areas were demolished in the name of urban renewal (or Ònegro removal,Ó as the ÒjokeÓ went then) and thousands of people were displaced. Some of the empty areas were replaced with housing projects, others remained vacant until the last two or three years. The city sold them to developers, who are now producing condo buildings with a few allegedly affordable units ($800 for a one-bedroom apartment is the guideline.) Tension simmers under the surface here. The projects are not a safe place to be Ñ definitely not for those who live there, and hopefully not for the yuppie scum who are moving in.
A small area between the Western Addition and Pacific Heights is known as Japantown. Except for a few buildings full of pensioners, few Japanese now live here. There is a mall-style shopping center with Japanese shops and restaurants.
North of the Fillmore is another predominantly black area, the Western Addition, which is centered on Divisidero Street. This district has many fine Victorian and Edwardian homes, as does the Fillmore. The plague of gentrification has crept in over the past ten years, but there are still many low-income and working people in this area.
Divisidero crosses Haight Street, forming a dividing line between ÒLower HaightÓ (really part of the Fillmore district) and the Haight district proper. Lower Haight Street used to be a business district serving the Fillmore neighborhood; now itÕs playland for the black leather/art scene/English motorcycle crowd. ItÕs not necessarily an expensive area to live, and some of the areaÕs ÒattractionsÓ (NickieÕs Bar and Grill comes to mind) are hip but fun.
Following Divisidero south, its name changes to Castro Street. The center of the Castro, probably the best-known gay neighborhood in the world, is at Market and Castro. ItÕs a rather upscale area, with many gay bars, boutiques, bookstores and cafes. The surrounding area includes many beautifully restored homes.
Back to the North, the neighborhood known as the Haight starts where Haight Street crosses Divisidero. Bound Together Books, San FranciscoÕs anarchist bookstore, is rapidly becoming an old-timer as the street becomes a haven for chain stores like The Gap, fashion boutiques and galleries. They come and go quickly, thanks to spiralling rents. Weekends bring big crowds to the Haight. 
At the end of Haight Street is the start of Golden Gate Park, a long, wide park that runs all the way to the ocean. That end of the park is a gathering place for the areaÕs street people, many of whom sleep in the park surreptitiously. Within the park are playing fields, biking, running, walking and horseback riding trails, picnic areas, gardens, forested areas, several museums and childrenÕs playgrounds.
The area west of the park is known as the Richmond District. Largely a residential area, its main streets are Geary (chain stores, gas stations and a long strip of Irish bars, some of which cater to the cityÕs undocumented Irish immigrant community) and Clement Street (small restaurants and shops.) The RichmondÕs population is growing rapidly with the recent influx of Hong Kong Chinese.
To the east of the park is the Sunset District, also largely residential. It has several neighborhood shopping streets, the largest of which are Irving and Judah. This area is still predominantly white, including a large Irish and Russian emigre communities. It also has a large and growing Chinese population, including many immigrants from Hong Kong.
Southeast of the Sunset is Lake Merced, a natural lake with fishing, boating and trails for exercising. San Francisco State University and several suburban-style developments are located in this area. San Francisco has no real student quarter; one once existed near the university, but it was torn down by the schoolÕs administration when it became a center for student activists in the Õ60s.
The hills to the east of this area Ñ including Mt. Sutro, with the large orange electric tower Ñ are less densely developed than other parts of the city. Condominiums and single family homes are arranged in winding rows up the flanks of the hills. 
If you go south youÕll run into Oceanside, a working-class/middle-class black neighborhood. Beyond this San Francisco ends and the peninsula begins with Daly City, a town with a large Filipino community. 
San Jose Blvd. (Highway 280) is a dividing line. Below it lie the neighborhoods of HunterÕs Point and Bayshore. There are projects in this area, including some with a well-earned reputation for violence. There are also more owner-occupied homes in HunterÕs Point than in any other city neighborhood. It boasts a large black middle class and a large black underclass. Both neighborhoods grew up as a result of Navy shipbuilding activity during WWII and have suffered since as both skilled and unskilled labor jobs left the city.
The conference sites are all located in SFÕs warmest neighborhood, the Mission district. Site of one of the earliest Spanish settlements, the Mission was long an Irish stronghold. A few Irish bars remain, but it has long since become the center of the cityÕs Hispanic community. Mexican-Americans share the area with newcomers from Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and parts further south. Bodegas and restaurants with specialties from all over Central and South America can be found in this area, which runs on both sides of mission Street, along with cultural centers and galleries serving the Hispanic communities. Also in the Mission are a number of lesbian/womenÕs bars and bookstores, especially on Valencia Street.
The Inner Mission is currently the hottest real estate buy in the city, according to the local papers. That means displacement and gentrification are going on, with low-income artsy types in the vanguard as usual. This makes for a certain amount of tension, but not so much as in the cityÕs black neighborhoods. Political realities here are such that large-scale demolition projects are unlikely in the Mission, and a considerable amount of low-income housing development there in the past ten years has been spearheaded by community-based non-profits. There has been a reported increase in street crime in this recently, possibly as a result of crack. But it is basically a safe and friendly neighborhood for respectful visitors who pay attention.
IÕve missed a few smaller areas Ñ Potrero Hill, Noe Valley, Duboce Park and Glen Park spring to mind Ñ but space constraints are a reality. This is a city for walking and a city for enjoying. If you have spare time during the conference, donÕt let the opportunity to see the real San Francisco (not the tourist traps) pass you by. Ñ Mitzi