San Francisco, CA
SAN FRANCISCO: 239 square miles packed with life
Make no doubt about it.
My soul is in the Sierra but my heart is in San Francisco.
One of the great things about living in the Northern San Joaquin Valley aside from the fact it is a great place to live and you have the world’s largest and most varied “farmer’s market” in your backyard, is the fact we are nestled between San Francisco and Yosemite National Park.
You can go cosmopolitan one weekend and wild as nature intended the next.
And you don’t have to do it while living in an aging, cramped flat that rents for $3,500 a month or having to dig yourself out from under five feet of snow just to trek 25 miles to the store to get milk.
It’s almost a tragedy that people who end up living here don’t venture west to the ocean’s edge or east to the mountain’s crest with any regularity to sample the endless smorgasbord of manmade and natural delights.
People from all over the world travel here just so they can take in San Francisco and Yosemite.
My love affair with The City started as a kid.
We’d go to San Francisco several times a summer to stay with my late Aunt Grace Towle who was an emergency room nurse at St. Mary’s Medical Center.
She lived out in The Avenues off Clement Street that parallels Geary Boulevard in western San Francisco. Clement Street — as well as Geary — offers every imaginable dining option possible at significantly less than the restaurants in and around San Francisco tourist traps.
The most unusual restaurant I’ve ever been in was a Mexican restaurant on Clement Street owned by a Chinese immigrant who had a waitress who was Filipino and a cook who was a Greek national that immigrated to the United States after ending his career as a cook on a freighter ship.
The enchilada and chili relleno were the most unusual I ever had but what I remember was how all three of them, owner, waitress and cook, were open and engaging.
And if you want real great Mexican food, head to the Mission District. There are great mom and pop places left that will have your tastebuds thinking they’ve died and gone to Puerto Villa that the gentrification of the high-tech crowd hasn’t pushed out yet.
If you get away from Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39, the Embarcadero, Market Street, Union Square, and other high-profile locations there are countless nuggets awaiting.
Although, I confess if I’m anywhere near Pier 39 I’ll head to Chocolate Heaven and fork over $10 for two truffles.
There’s plenty of interesting places to go in a city with 49 hills, 239.84 square miles, and 865,000 residents without feeling you’re running into every tourist on the planet.
Everyone flocks to the block of Lombard Street on Russian Hill between Hyde and Leavenworth streets to go down the so-called “Most Crooked Street in the World” that switches back and forth going downhill to tame a 27 percent grade much like a slalom skier would.
Vermont Street, though, in Potrero Hill between 20th and 22nd streets, is just as crooked if not more yet has less traffic than a rural road in northern Alaska.
Given it is in more of a working-class neighborhood (if such a thing exists anymore in San Francisco), doesn’t have red paver bricks or ornate gardens, and is away from the beaten tourist paths it might be why most people haven’t heard of it.
There’s endless shopping. If you’re feeling rich you can head to Union Square and duck into Neiman Marcus and rifle through the few discount racks there and discover you’re too poor to be even a thrift shopper along the 1 percent.
Then there are endless boutiques in places like Haight Ashbury, the epicenter of the Summer of Love, where you won’t only find one-of-a-kind offerings but you won’t need to pay with an arm and a leg.
The dining and cultural offerings would fill a book. They range from the California Academy of Sciences and Steinhart Museum in the heart of the 1,017 acres composing Golden Gate Park as well as the Palace of Fine Arts to the Walt Disney Family Museum.
Live music from opera to underground music is available every night of the week. There’s live theatre, street performers, and everything in between.
There is a reason why San Francisco is rated as a world class city in the same league as Paris, London, and New York.
Then there are things that tug at your heart as in those “little cable cars that climb halfway to the stars.”
I must have ridden them two dozen times growing up. My last ride — although it was aborted — was my favorite.
I had driven Cynthia to Drake’s Beach at Point Reyes Seashore where I proposed and she said “yes.”
On the way home we stopped at Alioto’s at Fisherman’s Wharf for dinner. Even though the late May skies had turned threatening after sundown, we opted to hop aboard a cable car grabbing onto poles as we took the last two standing positions just as the rain started falling.
As we stood there kissing and apparently blocking the view of a middle-aged French tourist, he uttered “les imbeciles, sortir de la voie.”
Those few words changed the myth that all Frenchmen were romantics.
How can you be idiots in San Francisco where part of the view are people in love with life?
With San Francisco down three runs,
Police in San Francisco released body camera footage and additional details following a shootout with a robbery suspect that critically wounded an officer.
On Tuesday, the department held a virtual town hall meeting on the incident, which occurred on the night of May 31.
“In the San Francisco Police Department, we recognize that our sworn duty as law enforcement officers is to honor and respect the sanctity of human life. We also know that as police officers, we are sometimes required to use force, including deadly force, in the performance of our duties,” Police Chief Derrick Lew said.
Acting Commander Thomas Harvey delivered a multimedia presentation of the incident. Shortly before 10:30 p.m. that night, a license plate reader alerted officers about a vehicle associated with an armed robbery entering San Francisco on the Bay Bridge.
Officers found the vehicle, a gray Toyota Camry sedan, traveling northbound on Fifth Street from Folsom Street. Drones and other resources were requested as part of a plan to conduct a traffic stop on the vehicle.
Around 10:40 p.m. officers attempted to stop the vehicle at Mission and First streets in the city’s South of Market.
In bodycam footage, officers are heard ordering the driver to turn the vehicle off. One of the officers is heard saying, “He’s gonna take off. I think he’s gonna take off.”
The driver led officers on a pursuit, which ended with the driver striking a concrete median on Bayshore Boulevard near Jerrold Avenue.
Harvey said as officers told the suspects inside the vehicle to come out with their hands up, the driver emerged from the vehicle and fired at police, striking an officer. One of the officers, identified as Brittany Taylor, was struck by gunfire.
Several officers returned fire, striking a passenger in the vehicle.
Harvey identified the officers who discharged their weapons as Officer Rachel Carranza, Officer Jeremmy Catiller and Officer Angela Maniego.
Taylor is receiving medical treatment for her injuries at a local hospital.
“I also want to send our best wishes to our officer in her continued success in recovery and also want to thank the public for the overwhelming support that we’ve received,” Lew said at the briefing.
The passenger, later identified as Ariunsanaaa Dolgorsuren, was arrested and is currently receiving medical treatment for his injuries, police said.
The driver of the vehicle left the scene on foot across Bayshore Boulevard, through a Chevron station parking lot and eastbound Jerrold Avenue. Shortly after 12:15 a.m. on June 1, police received a call that the suspect was inside the gate of the Bayshore Navigation Center.
Officers arrested the suspect, later identified as 36-year-old Norris Reed III of Oakland. Video from police showed officers seizing two firearms from Reed, which were determined to be a .40 caliber Glock 23 handgun and a 9mm privately manufactured handgun with no serial number.
Reed faces multiple charges, including four counts of attempted murder, assault with a firearm upon a police officer, resisting an executive officer with force or violence, reckless evading, being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm and conspiracy.
Jail records show Reed is being held without bail, with his next court appearance scheduled for June 11.
Dolgorsuren is also facing four counts of attempted murder, assault with a firearm upon a police officer, resisting an executive officer with force or violence, conspiracy and shooting from a motor vehicle
The shooting remains under investigation by multiple entities, including the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, the police department’s Investigative Services Division and Internal Affairs Division, along with the Department of Police Accountability.
A new mural in San Francisco is getting lots of attention as the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on the fight over birthright citizenship this summer.
Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco’s Chinatown, cemented birthright citizenship in the U.S. more than 120 years ago.
“I am an American” is written in both English and Chinese with Wong Kim Ark’s portrait at the corner of Sacramento Street and Grant Avenue. The mural is located near the corner where Wong Kim Ark was born in the 1870s to Chinese immigration parents.
Norman Chuck, known as “Vogue,” along with Elaine Chu and Marina Perez-Wong of Twin Walls Mural Company, have been working on the project for the past month.
“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Wong Kim Ark,” Chu said.
“It tells us that we belong here and we matter just as much as the next person,” Vogue said.
“Both my parents were immigrants from China,” Vogue went on to say. “I am a first-born American, so it directly relates to me.”
The mural and a bronze plaque are on display at the Chinatown corner for people to stop and learn.
Wong Kim Ark was refused entry back into the U.S. after a trip to China under the Chinese Exclusion Act. Wong Kim Ark challenged the Supreme Court on his right to be called an American citizen and won his case in 1898.
“We want this mural to not also educate but also be a part of the community where people can see themselves reflected in these spaces, in Wong Kim Ark,” Chu said.
“A lot of our aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-grandparents came through Angel Island, and that shouldn’t be something that’s looked at as a negative,” Perez-Wong said. “We’re what makes this community vibrant.”
California and other states are suing President Donald Trump over his executive order to end birthright citizenship. For San Francisco, it means the story of “Wong Kim Ark” is more relevant than ever. Gia Vang reports.
The artists collaborated with the Chinese Historical Society of America Museum (CHSA), community and family members on the project. Each image on the wall has a story to tell, reflecting Wong Kim Ark’s life like his village and passport photos. There are also images that reflect the Chinatown community, like a vendor or family.
“The story of immigrants, the story of people who were born here who shouldn’t be considered foreign because they were born here, it’s birthright citizenship,” Perez-Wong.
The artists hope when people walk by, they will see the layers of history that spark curiosity and celebration.
“This is a legacy mural for me,” Vogue said.
“I had a little kid walk by and he read, ‘I am an American,’ and I just remember he boldly and proudly said, ‘I’m a Chinese American,’ when he walked by with his mom,” Chu said.
San Francisco leaders on Friday commemorated nearly 130 years since the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed birthright citizenship to everyone born in the country, including the children of all immigrants. Sergio Quintana reports.
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