On 16th Street near South Van Ness in San Francisco. Just a delivery truck. The products and the color of the graphics got my attention.
U.S. Trading Company
Preview of Coming Attractions
The Bicycle Film Festival, Friday, July 17, and Saturday, July 18, at the Victoria Theater, 2961 16th Street, at Capp (one short block east of Mission). On Saturday, the festival sponsors a street party at 16th and Capp, next to the theater, replete with track bikes, BMX bikes, fun times, and no brakes.
See the Bicycle Film Festival website for details on programs, to buy tickets, and such like.
Cars, Birds
16th Street at Bryant, San Francisco. This sign (or signs) has been here for years, just behind The Double Play bar. I’ll dig up the story behind them — there’s at least one similar art piece on 6th Street, south of Market — at some later date.
[That later date is now: KQED friend and colleague Molly Samuel advises they’re by a San Francisco artist who goes by the handle Rigo 23 (if Wikipedia is to be believed, his full name is Ricardo Gouveia.) Thanks, Molly!]
Friday Night Ferry
My significant spouse couldn’t make it to the ferry last night for our usual Friday night ride, so I went it alone. Left the office exactly an hour before the 8:25 p.m. sailing time of the day’s last boat, usually plenty of time to make the three-mile hike from the western slope of Potrero Hill to the Ferry Building. But in the interest of trying new routes, I wandered through the UC-San Francisco Mission Bay campus and then along the outside of the right-field stands at Phone Company Park and added about two-thirds of a mile extra to the trip, stopped to take a picture or two, and wound up having to run (or power-shuffle, as a casual observer might have called it) up the Embarcadero to the ferry slip. I made the boat with five minutes to spare.
The usual routine is to buy a glass (plastic, actually) of white wine for my shipmate and a beer for myself and sit under the heaters on the second deck. But the boat bar is cash only, so I climbed to the top deck, stood in the lee of the pilothouse, and watched the trip go by sans beverage. The light was striking, as always, with the low evening cloud cover moving in off the ocean and a much higher layer of clouds catching the last of the sun; the tide was ebbing in the Oakland estuary, moving so fast that it looked like a river current, though not as extreme as the flow you see in New York’s East River.
Boat Ride
Walked from KQED over to the Ferry Building and met Kate, who had ridden the 7:55 ferry from Oakland. We got right back on and rode back as the dusk deepened. This was the view from the Alameda ferry terminal, before we made the short hop back to Jack London Square. Calm, nearly warm night. Beautiful on the water.
Top of Mariposa
At Mariposa and Utah streets, west flank of Potrero Hill. On clear nights, I always want to try and capture the glow that lingers over the peaks to the west after sunset. It’s not to be captured, or not by me, at any rate. The profusion of wires at the corner was a consolation prize and the best I can do by way of marking the day.
1951 Buick
It’s a Buick Roadmaster Deluxe. For sale for $4,000 if you’re looking for a project. It’s been parked at various spots around Mariposa and Alabama streets, a couple blocks from where I ply the radio news editor trade, for at least a month. (Those stacks in the background of the top photo–I’ve been looking at them for the last year and I haven’t yet investigated what defunct local manufacturing operation they might have been part of.)
Whiz
At 18th and South Van Ness. I walked by a couple months ago at midday while exploring a different route to work. I haven’t investigated, but maybe the location is part of a bygone chain (on the other hand, the sign says “since 1955”). In any case, it’s the one and only Whiz burger stand I know. I haven’t yet sampled the fare.
Mission Palms
Last night, at the northeast entrance to the 16th Street BART station. Beautiful, warm afternoon and evening. Lots of people on the street, and the scene at the plaza around the station had a little bit of crazy energy to it at the moment I showed up: some of the homeless and local SRO (single-room occupancy) hotel residents arguing, parents reprimanding kids, a mom yanking her kid by the arm as she took him into Burger King for dinner, people spilling out of a Muni bus that had just pulled up at the corner.
For several blocks, I had watched the light above change and looked for an opportunity to try and catch it. Not that it’s so important; but in a way these pictures are a little like postcards to myself, reminding me of a place, a moment. This was my last look at the street scene before heading down the escalator to the train.
Neighborhood Art Tour: Fence
A fence I pass every day. On 16th Street in San Francisco, between South Van Ness and Capp, and right next to Theatre Rhinoceros. The fence surrounds a parking lot, site of a defunct AM/PM minimart and a dead car-tuneup place. Nearby is an empty Jeep/Chrysler dealership. The fence, though–it’s doing fine.
