In Search of Old San Francisco
It’s been a long time since I visited San Francisco. Back in my younger days it seemed like I went up there every couple of years. The Left Coast Crime Conference was held in San Francisco this year and it gave my wife and I an opportunity to make a return visit. After the conference was over, we spent a couple of days revisiting the city.
One of the things we like to do when we travel is to seek out the old stuff—restaurants, bookstores, parks and buildings that act as cultural repositories for the city’s soul, its living history.
With that in mind, one of the first places we visited was the City Lights Bookstore, leftover from a time when bookstores played a major role in the cultural life of our cities, a place where readers, writers, artists, intellectuals, and other movers and shakers would meet. City Lights is best known for its role in San Francisco’s social and political movements in the second half of the twentieth century. First opened by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti in 1953 the store, and its publishing arm, became ground zero for the Beat movement after publishing Allan Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems, the first volume in its ongoing Pocket Poets Series.
Best of all, City Lights is still in the same location and still going strong. And it’s still a place where you can “participate in that ‘great conversation’ between authors of all ages, ancient and modern.” (Ferlinghetti)
The weather was nice so we spent a few hours at the San Francisco Botanical Garden and the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park.
For dinner we went to Tadich Grill, the oldest continuously run restaurant in California (third oldest in the United States). Established in 1849 by Croation immigrants, it’s a European-style bistro featuring a long wooden bar, white-linen service and an old-fashioned, but still delicious, grill menu. It manages to be both classy and a lot of fun. You rarely find places like this anymore (especially in California).
Not all of our adventures were historical. We got a glimpse of the future when we rode in a Waymo self-driving taxi.
Here’s sixteen seconds of our journey from inside the taxi. The future is here. We’ll have to get used to it.
And last, but not least, we made a visit to the Musée Mécanique, with its wondrous machines from the past, including this Mighty Wurlitzer player piano.
Nice tour. Thanks! It’s been a few years since I’ve been there.
We used to stay near Union Square, but in the past decade we’ve enjoyed staying between Crissy Field and the Presidio. We take our bikes and love to explore by foot, too. Love what you shared, Corey!
Thanks, Gail. All the best cities provide some great “on foot” adventures
When I lived in California when I was much younger I would frequently visit San Francisco for the day. I usually took friends to China Town. We could drive there in a couple of hours and come home after dark. I could never understand why I had such a desire for good Chinese food until I got my ancestry results back and found out I have some very old Oriental blood. Good reason to crave the food. But seriously it is my favorite city. Not one I could live in but such fun to visit even for a day.
Not sure if I could live there or not but it is a great city
My heart is still there!!! Ferlinghetti lived upstairs. Dave remembers with pleasure his visit at Country Day. During WWIi the powers that be renamed the Garden: “the Oriental Tea Garden”! I hope you or Maria had Tadich’s filet of sole? Whatever you both did all the right things, Corey.
We tried the Petrale Sole and the Halibut. Both excellent!
We used to go to San Franciso every year for six or so consecutive years in the late 1980s to an Art Deco Show at the end of November. We always stayed at the Hotel Beresford Arms near Union Square. We rented a car but rode the cable cars also. We loved that place. The Chinese food in Chinatown, along with the seafood were all fabulous. We loved eating at Chines places where the locals are. But did eat at Brandy Ho’s. We first learned what Dim Sum was there. Scoma’ s was a favorite as was Fior d’Italia among so many others. We walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, took a boat under it and went to Alcatraz and took a float plane over it. We wanted to bicycle across it but ever did and no are too old. I visited the Castro Theatre, and we saw the Presidio while it was still the Presidio. We traveled all the way down to Carmel and all the way up to the end of the Russian River. We drove Lombard Street. But there was so much more to do that we did not.
Lots of great adventures, for sure. We did manage to eat at Scoma’s!