Depression
1933-4 were recurring themes in my walk around San Francisco on Thursday. It was this depression era that brought about San Francisco’s famous suspended bridges (the Golden Gate and San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge). It was a major time in the history of Levi Strauss Company as it occupied all its many workers in producing their classic riveted jeans. It was the year when the Coit Tower was built and its walls decorated. Although the city was founded on a North Californian goldrush in the 19th century, it this year commemorates the centenary of its collapse under earthquake and fire in 1906. The city has grown to its beautiful and lively self, since, coated with trams and tourists (at least this time of year).
Over 7 hours I wandered 14 miles around the San Francisco bay from south to north. By the end all I wanted was a felafel and a beer. But I still uploaded photos for my dedicated fans.
Although I had already decided my first stop to be Izzy’s Brooklyn Bagels (to acquire a kosher lunch for the next few days), it was a nice surprise that the breakfast provided at the hostel consisted primarily of cinnamon-raisin bagels stamped by the OU, and margarine, jam, etc. I had been hoping for kosher cereals, but this was even better. With that in my stomach, I started wandering southwest from Downtown.
Soon enough I had picked up some bagels, as well as a pizza-like lunch, from Izzy, and was ambling up along the bay and its wharfs. Information poles along the way guided me to the history of the place, but it was mostly just nice scenery until I got to the Ferry Building, which boasts organic fruit and spices and seafood, and the whole place smelled very nice. Although it was market day, I didn’t make it back for 4-8pm when the market would be open.
Instead I continued north, and it was quite some distance to one of the main tourist areas, Pier 39 (the odd piers count northward from the Ferry Building, and the even ones south), but along the way I found a nice park where I could lie down and rest for half an hour in the shade of the afternoon. It turned out this park was part of Levi’s Plaza, which wasn’t as arbitrarily named as I thought and was home to the offices of Levi Strauss, which began in this city. Their building includes a few museum panels describing their virtuous history in the clothing business, as well as a number of entertaining letters about the durability of the company’s riveted denims.
I thought I was going to go next up towards Coit Tower, but being a tower it was on a hill and it seems you can’t approach it from the east, so I continued on to Pier 39. Packed with tourists, some futilely trying to get tickets to Alcatraz that had been booked out all week. 
The pier included lots of restaurants and toursity shops, as well as a merry-go-round, a nice view of the Prison island and some sea lions basking in the sun. 
The adjacent Fisherman’s Wharf seemed quite similar to LA’s Hollywood Boulevard, only with more crabs, but with a wax museum, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, and its fair share of shops selling cheesy t-shirts.
Of the end of the 45th Pier stands an interesting gallery: Musee Mecanique, a large private collection of machines that once entertained Americans on their streets. While admission was free, you could throw away a quarter to watch a big maddened woman laugh and laugh, or to wind handles to win a drag race, or with a second quarter see an intricate and entertaining model of a farm come to life. Although maybe not a major feature of the city, this certainly was novel. Outside they also had a submarine on display, but I’d seen this in Sydney, and it was no major thrill then.
So it was up to North Beach, the northern extent of the bay, that I went. While it was quite a pretty area, as a beach or bay it was nothing quite so notable, so I trekked up some very steep hills on my way to the famous crooked Lombard St. This street zigs and zags its way down the hill, and while it is a major attraction of SF, I’m not sure that you could spend more than a few short minutes in awe.
Then there was a site that I had been seeing all day as I made my way around the bay. Coit Tower sits atop a mountain and looks out over San Francisco. Again it was a bit of a climb to get there. 
Its ground floor walls are decorated with beautiful murals from the depression years when it was built, depicting the city at work, each man and woman producing and consuming. I didn’t in the end make it up the tower- it cost a few dollars, the line was long, the top was small and so would be crowded, and I could see from the outside that those who made it to the top couldn’t even get to the window, but were bordered by walls and glass windows.
By this stage I realised it was time to start heading home. I decided again that the place for dinner would be Sabra’s, so I wandered back through Chinatown heading south. This time I sat in Sabra’s and had a nice conversation with the mashgiach there. He gave me my first impression that the Orthodox community here was non-existant—he was a ring-in from New York.
My evening was again a simple one- uploaded some photos, went out for a beer, read a little bit of “The God of Small Things” before falling asleep in the hostel’s lounge room. I woke up some time later and crawled up to bed.
The next morning (Friday) I decided I would trek out west, towards the origin of a Hippy generation, known by its streets Haight and Ashbury. But there were a few things to see along the way. Among them was the town hall and Civic centre of the city. I also visited Buena Vista Park, where I didn’t find any social clubs, but I did find some very pretty nasturtians (the park was relatively wild)
, some of which I picked as a present for the dinner table that night (but by the time they got there after a few hours in my bag, they were not so pretty).
Haight and Ashbury itself was not particularly exciting. In the sense that it is an historic area, but is now just a hub of tourist commercialism, it resembles Hollywood, and this hippy strip includes nice fashionable brands like Stussy. Otherwise, it was the same as Chinatown: cheap neighbourhood-themed made-in-China clothing and other products. Not really so hippy, although plenty of tattoo parlours. 
Some of the architecture of the area is interesting, though.
It was after I had partaken of my avocado-bagel lunch in Golden Gate Park that I discovered it was time to start heading back to the hostel and to my place for shabbat. It was at this point, after miles of walking, that I discovered that Thursday and Friday (when I chose to walk) were Save the Air days with free public transport throughout San Francisco area! Oh well…