If You're Roaming to San Francisco
You know those pretentious people who call themselves “bicoastal?” Lately, I’ve been living like one of them, splitting time between New York and the Bay Area. I have a client in Oakland, a new favorite hotel in Berkeley, and a long list of literary landmarks on my hit list in San Francisco.
I first came to the bay in 2010 with my friend Amy. We drove north from LA to get here, staying with friends in Mountainview, touring Stanford, eating at Chez Panisse, drinking wine in Napa, and buying bags bursting with books from the now-shuttered Phoenix Books. Eight years later, I’m still getting a feel for Oakland and Berkeley – using trial and error to find my favorite coffee shop, visiting different dinner spots, and trying to discern the line where one city blurs into the next – but San Fran I know. I’ve been here a half-dozen times: to visit my brother when he and his girlfriend interned at the Exploratorium, to get away for romantic long weekends, and for respites after work trips to the soul-sucking suburban sprawl of Silicon Valley (ask me how I really feel, eh?)
This time around, I checked out of my corporate-card Claremont suite and into a personal-card room at the Herbert Hotel before taking off on a day of solo city exploring. I spent the morning at the Mechanics’ Institute Library, which was founded in 1854 as a cultural center and reading room for – you guessed it – mechanics and their families. Today, the private library requires a guest pass to get into, is home to the country’s longest-running chess club, and offers an oasis of quiet just steps from Market Street. The space itself is fascinating – one huge room rimmed by three head-scrapingly-short stories of books. The aisles are mazelike – stretching straight back from the main room before twisting and turning, morphing into reading rooms, or stopping dead in their tracks. The people at the library were incredibly kind. The doorman gave me a few tips for checking out the space, a member recounted the rare times he’d met visitors, and a librarian offered to show me around.
I spent the afternoon following the Women’s March route and then darting down to the Mission for pozole at Gracias Madre, a morning bun from Tartine, and a stop at 826 Valencia, the writing lab/retail store founded by Dave Eggers. Then, with my sunglasses on, scarf tied tight, and audiobook blaring, I began to wander without a particular destination in mind. I wound my way from Valencia to Guerrero to Dolores and back again, until the sun began to set. The Mission at dusk is a magical place, its golden light cutting through plate glass windows, street art shrouded in shadows, and packs of people laughing and loud-talking on the way from one bar to the next. Eventually, I walked north again and ended the day at the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library, curled up in a window seat reading Pachinko with City Hall lit up in hot pink beside me. It felt great.
San Francisco is a pleasure to visit, and yet strikes me as a strange city. It wears its charm on the surface – streetcars struggling up steep hills, pastel-painted homes, and restaurants lit by Edison bulbs. It’s easy to like, different than New York that way. New York starts off overwhelming and exhausting but reveals itself over time. You begin by ticking off tourist traps, then learn the fun of lingering in little neighborhoods, and finally fall in love with the city’s small details. San Fran’s charms seem comparatively shallow. Or maybe it’s just because I expect so much – I’m always on the lookout for San Francisco circa Slouching Towards Bethlehem, but all I find is brunch spots and tech bros. It’s a beautiful city. A hip city, even. But not a place that stirs my imagination. Perhaps I’ll feel differently about the East Bay when I get to know it.
That said, I’ll be back on the west coast in two days, so look out for more Bay Area books and bookstores coming up soon.