111 Things to See in San Francisco - Part 2

Good day to you gentle reader, and I hope this finds you in sound body, mind and spirit. It's been an unprecedented week, but last weekend we used the final throes of free movement to take in some interesting sites up in the city.

San Francisco is an unique and idiosyncratic place. Firstly, there's the hills: it's all too easy to imagine Bullitt hammering his Ford Mustang up and down the sudden changes in gradients of this oddly hilly place.

On the level - or not

Secondly, there's the cultural influences. Of course, Chinatown is famous here, and that is reflected in some of the architecture:

Believe it or not, this is a telephone exchange

And then there's the architecture. Of course, nothing in the US is genuinely old, so there is little here that's unique or historically outstanding, but there's still a type of grandeur laced with pastiche and almost self-parody which is quite different to Europe. For example, in the picture below we have the apartment block in the middle of the Tenderloin (now one of the shadiest areas of the city), where classic American detective novelist Dashiell Hammett lived:

One thing we hear a lot about in the UK is the class system, and how such a thing doesn't exist in the US. Well, this isn't true at all: it's just different. The UK class system is based on aristocracy and old money; the US class system is based on new money and achievement. So you'll find many things here named after mayors, or wealthy industrialists, as in the case of the wide Van Ness Avenue which separates downtown from the rest of the city, and was an important firebreak during the conflagration which followed the 1906 earthquake. Van Ness became a home to opulent car dealerships in the post-war era, and some, like this former Cadillac showroom, are still standing:

Of course, we won't be doing that much exploring for the foreseeable future. 6 counties in the Bay Area imposed "shelter in place" on Tuesday, and the whole of California followed on Thursday. We're allowed out of the house to buy groceries, to get medical treatment, and for exercise, and fortunately many of the restaurants here are staying open for takeouts. So to do our bit to support the local economy, we've initiated 'Takeout Thursday' - it's tough, but I'm sure we'll get through it!