San Francisco, Again Again

One Saturday in July 2024, a week after the last downtown walk, we were back: errands in the city, finished early, a new camera that had never been outside, and roughly the same route, wandered more than planned.

City Lights#

City Lights has kept the same argument going since 1953. Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin opened it as the first all-paperback bookstore in the country; three years later Ferlinghetti published Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, stood trial for obscenity over it, and won.

But the noisy world stays outside the glass, and inside it is quiet; in a seventy-year-old bookstore, the woman on the stool was reading her phone.

A woman on a stool in the window of City Lights, the street running on behind the glass

The City Lights corner with a hand-painted Books Not Bombs banner

Columbus Avenue#

Columbus Tower from a block away, towers rising behind

A three-story orange building with an Indian restaurant, wedged between taller neighbors

Jackson Square#

Outside the architecture bookstore from last week, an Akita occupied a rear car window. Also here for the books? The Japanese shelf, presumably.

The William Stout Architectural Books sign on the granite pier

An Akita leaning out of the rear window of a BMW

The prettiest corner#

The white bank at 701 Montgomery, the first home of Transamerica, is still the prettiest thing on its block. The banks on this street each found a caretaker, a bookstore, a golf center; this one drew the Church of Scientology. A shame is about the size of it.

The white 1909 bank building at 701 Montgomery

The upper floors and cornice of the old bank at 701 Montgomery

Two blocks on, the pyramid takes care of itself: the concrete trusses at its feet are the earthquake plan. We walked under them again.

The concrete trusses at the base of the Transamerica Pyramid

What happens to banks#

The marble front kept at the foot of the tower that replaced it. Standing perfectly straight, and a pity: only the face is left.

The preserved bank front of 456 Montgomery Plaza at the foot of a tower

The colonnade at 400 California stands on the site of William Ralston’s Bank of California. When the bank broke in August 1875, Ralston went for his usual swim in the bay and did not come back. At 465, behind the door with a gilded X, is the Merchants Exchange.

The granite colonnade of the old Bank of California on California Street

A door of the Merchants Exchange at 465 California, flowers outside

Downtown San Francisco is past its best these days, and one of these halls stood open to show it: chandeliers lit, the counter curving around air. Banks built themselves like temples so you would believe they could never close. The building, it turns out, is still keeping that promise; the bank isn’t.

An empty banking hall, chandeliers lit, sunlight on the marble floor

Market Street#

Market Street keeps walking its old-timers: the F line runs mid-century PCC streetcars, collected from other cities, restored, on the regular schedule at full fare, not in a display case.

A green F-line streetcar on Market Street, a woman crossing ahead of it

One Montgomery, round two#

One Montgomery is waiting for its next caretaker. Willis Polk’s banking hall, landmarked, vacant since Wells Fargo left; last week it was simply empty, this week it had grown easels. Somebody is auditioning tenants, and the pitch is the building’s own past.

The vacant banking hall at One Montgomery

Easels with photographs of the building's past inside One Montgomery

The marble stair to the vaults at One Montgomery

Post Street#

The Hobart Building's name over Market Street, towers layered behind

The most dutiful caretaker on the route is at 57 Post. The Mechanics’ Institute has been lending books since 1854. The country’s oldest chess club is here too.

The spiral staircase of the Mechanics' Institute seen from below

The library door of the Mechanics' Institute

The Palace#

The Palace was Ralston’s other monument; it opened five weeks after the bay took him. Over the bar hangs Maxfield Parrish’s Pied Piper, and once, the caretaking fell to the whole city: in 2013 the owners tried to send the painting to auction in New York, and the objection was loud enough that they changed their minds, cleaned it, and hung it back. The children of Hamelin are still following.

Silhouettes at the bar's windows against the afternoon light

Third and Market#

The Hearst Building holds the corner of Third and Market, where the Examiner used to run. The entrance, tile and copper and coats of arms, is Julia Morgan’s. Inside it is empty too.