One thing about moving is that we are starting to pay attention to things we will miss. And San Francisco has so much to miss. I’ve been in my car more than usual lately trying to accomplish all those tasks on my list and I’ve been trying to pay attention. stop. notice. this. life. For example, the other day I was getting off 280 at King driving down toward the Giants ballpark and there was a guy in a huge pick up truck with a grizzled grey- snouted dog riding shotgun. Here was this working class-looking guy in his pick up truck and he was singing at the top of his lungs, head thrown back, singing with utter abandon driving along on this gorgeous blue-skied fall day. A couple days later I was driving down California cutting over from Divis. to my office downtown. I went up and over Nob Hill, shifting into low gear to follow the cable car lines down California. And there was that one tower of the Bay Bridge framed between office buildings. Another blue sky day and I thought, it’s no wonder that view is a postcard fave. Finally, to be missed for good is the South of Market view from my Main Street office windows. The office is on Main between Folsom and Howard and my view looks to the South and West over the temporary Transbay terminal’s white tentlike shelter rooftops, past the boxy Schwab building, little precious brick Town Hall preserved between shiny behemoths, and past the uneven Orrick roofline to see bits of Twin Peaks and Bernal hill. It is an unusually open view because the old Embarcadero double decker freeway used to connect up to 101 and turn into Fremont St. there. That was torn down, taking years and years of demo, after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake rendered it unstable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Loma_Prieta_earthquake
It left behind several empty lots a couple of which have not yet been filled in. My view is right over those lots. In just a few weeks it’ll be “my view WAS….”
