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The Ghosts of San Francisco
Dec. 13th, 2009 08:01 pmIf you go to a city you know well after not being there for a while, it inevitably feels haunted. That is particularly true of San Francisco for me.
Boston changes more slowly than most cities and the most important places there (e.g. Fenway Park) are always there. New York is always changing and, while there are places I revisit all the time (e.g. the library and the Chrysler Building), I never really expect things to stay the same. Los Angeles retains more people and fewer things. But San Francisco changes at a pace that is just disorienting enough that I always find myself thinking a lot about what used to be in particular places.
There was a bookstore there, which Saori and I stopped at so she could get some new science fiction novel before we went to lunch at Henry's Hunan. The shoe department at Nordstrom's is still where it was, but the cafe where Marcia and I usually met before an afternoon of power shopping is gone. Speaking of shopping, I. Magnin has been gone for years and years and, with it, Narsai's, where we often had lunch. And Emporium Capwell is now an entire mall. That Hilton used to be a Holiday Inn and it was the one where they turned off the water for repairs while I was staying there for a conference. That Italian restaurant I ate at with my uncle has vanished. That shabby corner where I boarded a hippie bus to actually see something of what was in between the coasts is respectably gentrified now. The Crocker Galleria is there, but the card shop where I bought the "Sex, Drugs and Opera" t-shirt is gone.
There are historic plaques for famous buildings. But nobody puts up plaques for the personal memories, my ghosts of San Francisco.
Boston changes more slowly than most cities and the most important places there (e.g. Fenway Park) are always there. New York is always changing and, while there are places I revisit all the time (e.g. the library and the Chrysler Building), I never really expect things to stay the same. Los Angeles retains more people and fewer things. But San Francisco changes at a pace that is just disorienting enough that I always find myself thinking a lot about what used to be in particular places.
There was a bookstore there, which Saori and I stopped at so she could get some new science fiction novel before we went to lunch at Henry's Hunan. The shoe department at Nordstrom's is still where it was, but the cafe where Marcia and I usually met before an afternoon of power shopping is gone. Speaking of shopping, I. Magnin has been gone for years and years and, with it, Narsai's, where we often had lunch. And Emporium Capwell is now an entire mall. That Hilton used to be a Holiday Inn and it was the one where they turned off the water for repairs while I was staying there for a conference. That Italian restaurant I ate at with my uncle has vanished. That shabby corner where I boarded a hippie bus to actually see something of what was in between the coasts is respectably gentrified now. The Crocker Galleria is there, but the card shop where I bought the "Sex, Drugs and Opera" t-shirt is gone.
There are historic plaques for famous buildings. But nobody puts up plaques for the personal memories, my ghosts of San Francisco.
