Who can afford the asking price of S.F.’s soul?
Last week we brought you the #SurrealSF package on all things pretentious, overpriced and just plain ridiculous about modernday San Francisco.
From the Richmond District house with 300 jars of urine and a mummified corpse that sold for $1.56 million to the $18 cocktails and $90 steaks at Epic Steak, the eye-popping prices people are willing to pay these days are shocking.
Of course, we couldn’t pack all the nuttiness into one story — and readers and colleagues had plenty of their own ideas, too. Here’s some more about #SurrealSF — and because the craziness probably won’t
abate anytime soon, please let us know when you spot new additions to the list.
That $18 cocktail is nothing compared to the World’s Greatest Martini on the menu at Ame, the restaurant at the St. Regis Hotel. How much would you pay for a martini with “a very small production gin” that’s “infused with saffron and lemon verbena”? If you answered $125, you’re in luck. If not, it’s back to Epic Steak for you and your $18.
In San Francisco, you can buy an Audi, BMW, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, Lamborghini or Bentley at dealerships within city borders. But a Ford? That’ll cost you a BART ride to Colma.
Another week, another real estate listing that can’t possibly be real but is. A total teardown wreck with two bedrooms and one very scary-looking bathroom on Revere Avenue in the Bayview — and it’s walkable to McDonald’s, the ad boasted! — has just sold for $525,000.
But then there’s a literal shack on the market for $350,000 that’s so far out in the Outer Mission, it’s nearly at the Daly City border. The tiny 1906 earthquake shack looks like a decrepit playhouse sandwiched between two actual homes in the real estate photos, but here’s betting it’ll sell for well over the asking price.
Sick of the housing prices? Nobody’s required to live here, and poet Anne Leonard recently packed up for Nashville. She gave up her unit in a North Beach single-room-occupancy hotel, which cost $1,600 a month for a room and access to a communal bathroom and kitchen.
“I have a beautiful, amazing one-bedroom with an incredible view that goes for about 50 miles into the hills,” she said. “It’s $585 a month.”
The median price for a one-bedroom in San Francisco hit $3,530 this month, according to a quarterly report from Zumper, a real estate site. The report also makes it clear that there are no affordable neighborhoods left in the city. A one-bedroom in the Tenderloin, for example, will cost you $2,190 a month.
But one reader thought San Francisco hadn’t quite out-parodied itself.
“Meh, call me when you have an artisan butter store,” Jason Twombly wrote on Facebook. “Signed, Portland.”
It’s true. Our hipster pals in Oregon have Buttercraft. “Buttercraft is more than handcrafted artisan butters,” reads the shop’s website. “At Buttercraft, we can help in your quest for making culinary memories with your friends and families. You butter believe it!”
OK, we feel butter — er, better — now.
High-grade fever: Readers also had strong reactions to last week’s news that their fellow San Francisco residents graded local city government a B-minus in the new City Survey, conducted by the controller’s office every other year. The grade was the highest ever granted in 15 such surveys, but most readers thought this was a major case of grade inflation.
“D-plus to C-minus is more realistic,” e-mailed Lesley Schroder ,a third-generation San Franciscan who lives in the Inner Sunset.
Dirty sidewalks, trash flying everywhere, too many potholes, very crowded Muni trains and buses, homeless people sleeping in her doorway and inattentive politicians. Those were just some of her complaints. She does love Golden Gate Park, though. That, she said, scores an A.
Other complaints centered on the increasing number of car thefts and break-ins, the corporatization of politics and the high cost of housing. Just about everybody who responded thought the D range was about right. Or maybe lower. “I would not pass the guy, you know what I mean? I’d flunk him,” Connie Rubiano said of Mayor Ed Lee. She lives near Buena Vista Park and said her two grown children say nightly prayers that their landlords remain in good health — because once their building owners die, it’s curtains for her kids’ ability to live in pricey San Francisco.
She shared with us a letter she sent Lee blaming him and economic policies for the affordability crisis that’s driving nonprofit workers, artists, teachers, families and others out of the city.
In an editorial board meeting with The Chronicle on Wednesday, Lee said the housing crisis was decades in the making and he doesn’t regret his economic agenda — particularly the “Twitter tax break” that lured tech companies to the longderelict Mid-Market neighborhood.
“I’m not apologetic,” Lee said. “I’m quite enthusiastic about what has occurred.”
He did say that the priorities in his second term will be building more housing and dealing with the homeless crisis.
Not everybody who responded to news of the City Survey thought their fellow residents had been too generous. John Glander thought they’d been a little harsh and said he’d give local government a B-plus. The Hayes Valley resident said his 2-year-old son, Jack, loves his regular trips to the Main Library with his nanny and that the improvements to Mid-Market are impressive.
But he seems like an eternal optimist. Even the city’s beleaguered public transportation system rates well in his book.
“Muni?” he said. “I’m just used to it.”