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The Castro

Haight-Ashbury

West Portal

Randall Kids Museum

May's Coffee Shop

I've lived in San Francisco since 1986, in the Haight-Ashbury apartment from 1987 or 1988 until 1996, and since then in the Castro. I spent the first one and a half-years of my time on the west coast in three short-lived rentals: the first in San Raphael, the second in Redwood City, and the last in another forgettable neighborhood near the corner of Bush and Gough Streets in SF.

(San Francisco is abbreviated by residents as "ess eff", never as "Frisco". One local paper has been trying to foster a rather transparent upper-crust image by referring to SF as "The City", which sounds as pompus as it reads.)

SF is a fun place to live. It doesn't have the educated, young flavor that Boston enjoys (what with its tidal wave of college students attending the many institutes of learning that fill and surround it), or the vibrant crush of being the center of the universe that New York City has, but what SF lacks in rich flavor it makes up for with frenetic carryings-on (not to mention better parking than those other two fun places to be). From the Bay to Breakers footrace, where over 100,000 people dress in costume and jog across the city, to the colossal Gay Pride Parade, SF revels in a diversity that's stunning. If memory serves, I believe at last count 118 languages and dialects are used in SF, with the voting materials printed in thirty of them. Each neighborhood is a microcosm of the city at large, with its strange mixings of cultures and cuisines and conversations.

True, some of those cuisines are woefully under-represented, but a lot of them just can't be easily found elsewhere. And there's something about the culture, something that makes people leave their hearts (and tourist money) in San Francisco. From the flower children of Haight Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, SF is a place of legend and song. But it's not a myth. It's a bit of the real San Francisco that I'll try and capture on these pages.

Here are some panoramae of our fair city (the thumbnails are distorted to show you the entire image):

Here the best thing ever written about what it's like living here.

and here's what this weblet has to offer:

Castro

The Castro, located in the center of San Francisco, is where we've lived since 1996.

events

1998 Gay Pride Parade

Every summer San Francisco celebrates the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transexual communities. You know how everyone is a little bit Irish on St. Patricks day...?

1998 Gay Pride Parade: Gallery 1

1998 Gay Pride Parade: Gallery 2

1998 Gay Pride Parade: Gallery 3

1998 Gay Pride Parade: Gallery 4

1998 Gay Pride Parade: Gallery 5

1998 Gay Pride Parade: Gallery 6

1998 Gay Pride Parade: Gallery 7

1998 Gay Pride Parade: Gallery 8

1998 Gay Pride Parade: Pink Saturday

food

Ma Tante Sumi

Ma Tante Sumi - my Aunt Sumi - is a neighborhood secret with a loyal clientèle and food deserving of passion.

events

1996 Olympic Torch Relay

The Olympic flame passed through San Francisco in 1996. I was there with digital camera in hand.

Golden Gate Bridge

The Gateway to the Pacific Ocean.

Golden Gate Park

The favorite patch of green of residents of Baghdad-by-the-Bay.

Haight-Ashbury

The Haight-Ashbury neighborhood is the home of the flower children, and where I lived for a decade.

food

The People's Café

After For Heaven's Cake gave way to Balazo Tacqueria, this is where I spent a good part of a half-decade; writing, drinking, computing.

kids

May's Coffee Shop

Randall Museum

MetroBlogging San Francisco

MetroBlogging San Francisco

other

The Great San Francisco Bubble: Life in America's last great progressive cocoon, as conservatives snicker and pule

West Portal

The West Portal neighborhood is at the, uh, west end of the, uh, portal that was built from the center of town outwards for the underground trolleys.

food

Old Krakow

For my father, a native son of Poland, coming here is the best of both everything: old-world charm and language and new-world careful restauranteering. An authentic adventure.