Watching 2 worlds collide
We had a heat wave last weekend, remember? It was 94 on the hottest day. Global warming!
Next day, the fog rolled in and the temperature dropped though the floor. It was like one of those Power-Point presentations. Look, it’s cooking hot. Click. Next slide. Now it’s freezing. Two extremes, same city, same week.
That’s the San Francisco we live in these days. There’s a cutting-edge, high-tech San Francisco, and a traditional, Old School San Francisco — and they are only a few blocks apart. It’s amazing. In San Francisco right now you can live in two worlds at the same time.
Fetish fixation
Take this Sunday for example. You could put on your leathers and go to the Folsom Street Fair. Or you could put on your Sunday best and go to the matinee at the Opera. Same time, same city. The two events are within a mile of each other.
Never mind the opera and leather, both fetishes in their own way. Consider food and drink, the one thing all San Franciscans celebrate. If New York is the city that never sleeps, San Francisco is the city that never stays home.
Our research took us to Market Square, in the old Western Furniture Exchange and Merchandise Mart. Like most San Franciscans, I never gave the place a second glance. For one thing, the building was big and ugly. For another, it was at the nowhere corner of 10th and Market.
The complex — two buildings joined by a landscaped plaza — has more than a million square feet of office space. It houses the world headquarters of Twitter, an outfit that’s helping to change the world.
It also has three restaurants, an upscale market, a bank and a giant fitness center. The plaza, once part of the Stevenson Street alley, is as green as a faux Ireland. Drought? No worries, the turf is artificial.
There is a fire pit in the center that’s fueled by gas, like an eternal flame, and patrons of nearby businesses sit around on benches with drinks and snacks, like high-tech cowboys around a campfire.
Next door, the Art Deco lobby of the old Merchandise Mart glistens like a corridor in a Viennese palace. A centerpiece of the ground floor is Dirty Water, a bar and restaurant with a 6,252-square-foot interior space that is more than three times the size of the dining room at old-line Sam’s Grill on Bush Street.
It is designed to knock your eye out, all smooth edges and dark textures. “We want you to come in and say, ‘Wow! What is this?’ ” said Matthew Hawes, event manager and part owner.
The bar has more than 100 wines by the glass and 52 craft beers on tap. The menu? Choose from axis deer tartare, seared duck hearts, or pig ear frito misto, among other things.
I was wowed. Had a glass of San Francisco apple pie mead and headed out. No food. Didn’t want to spoil my dinner.
I headed for Washington Square and a literary event at Original Joe’s. Nothing is more Old School San Francisco than Washington Square, in the heart of North Beach. Russian Hill is on one side, Telegraph Hill on the other. Chinatown is just up the street, and the bell chimes of SS Peter and Paul’s, the Italian cathedral, ring out the hours.
Dining and derelicts
The literary event was a book release party for Ernie Beyl’s “Sketches From a North Beach Journal,” a nostalgic look at the district.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the city’s most famous living poet, was there, and so was Jeannette Etheredge, who used to own the famous Tosca Cafe. Narsai David, the food guru, was on hand along with crowds of people who all seemed to know each other. It was like a class reunion, and nothing like the scene among the twitterati at the Market Place.
The crowd drank white wine and told stories. It was comfortable in a way that old San Franciscans are comfortable with each other.
We stayed for dinner: a Caesar salad and pasta, nothing fancy, but very good in the San Francisco tradition.
The next day, we had an Old World lunch at Montesacro, a new place in an old bakery at the corner of Sixth and Stevenson streets. Your old Aunt Josefina wouldn’t be caught dead in this neck of the woods, as it is the heart of Skid Row.
Montescacro, which serves food with a Roman flavor, is right on the frontier between the worst of the old San Francisco and some of the best of the new.
“I used to be afraid to come here,” said Giulia Pattini, who runs the place, “but now, gradually, it got better. It’s changed.”
Outside, though, there were still derelicts. Inside, wonderful food. Two worlds.