Come on in, weary traveler
Have we got some sights and scenery to show you
The argument probably made sense at the time.
When Alcatraz Island was being converted to a federal prison in the 1930s, opponents spread fears that it would negatively impact tourism. Who will want to visit San Francisco when it gets a reputation for housing violent criminals?
“Most San Franciscans have long wished that a prison on Alcatraz did not have to stand right in the eye of the Golden Gate,” a 1933 San Francisco Chronicle editorial began. “Alcatraz is too close in for a bad man’s summer resort.”
It’s a nice story to tell next time you’re shepherding Midwest relatives to the tourist spot. Preferably after they’ve returned their headphones from the Alcatraz audio tour, but before they’ve bought multiple “Alcatraz Swim Team” T-shirts for the folks back home.
The moral: San Francisco is a wonderful tourist town without even trying. Lombard Street added its curves for practical reasons in the 1920s, when locals got sick of their cars stalling on the 27 percent grade. Coit Tower was a private citizen’s tribute to firefighters. And Fisherman’s Wharf, believe it or not, was once a wharf that was used by fishermen. The fact that people will travel thousands of miles just to see these things is part of the accidental genius of the city.
San Francisco is the student who gets straight A’s without studying, or your smug friend who eats all he wants and never gets fat. For the past 150 years, it seems as if city leaders, residents and Mother Nature have been in collusion to build the worst possible environment for an outsider to visit. And yet there they are, another tour bus full, shivering in their Dolphin shorts and happily listening to their driver’s bad jokes and mostly invented San Francisco facts. Politely asking for directions, getting a hurried response, then thanking us as if we had just fixed their transmission for free. Don’t hate the tourists, San Francisco.
The city was built on their backs. The Gold Rush was no different than you or me going to Las Vegas — hoping to quickly hit it rich, spend some money on something naughty that happens in Vegas and stays there, and then go back to where we came from as a conquering hero. Industries were created to serve this transient population, and during times in San Francisco history when our other get-rich schemes have failed (see: the tech bust of the late 1990s) a strong tourist presence helped keep the city afloat.
In the beginning, San Franciscans begged people to visit. Early Chronicle articles from the 1860s and 1870s projected a small town vibe, triumphantly announcing the latest C-list politician or celebrity’s plans to visit the city. Telegrams were reprinted in the paper, marking their progress traveling across the states. (The Odd Fellows conventioneers have passed through Reno!)
Coverage of tourism was breathless. The only tourism controversy in the 19th century was that there weren’t enough visitors.
“The present influx of travelers to our shores is but the initial sign of what we might expect,” an 1870 Chronicle editorial stated. “The tide of tourists … threaten to overwhelm us with their exclamation of surprise, and volumes of narratives relative to the wealth and beauty of California — the brightest gem in the circle of States forming this blessed union of industry, intelligence, bravery and defenders of liberty.” One 1860s tourism tradition that needs to come back: the Triumphal Arch. City leaders would erect hasty, enormous, slightly tacky arches over Market Street to welcome minor military figures and East Coast finance leaders.
The earthquake of 1906 and hard recovery brought tourism to the forefront of the city’s priorities. The Pan-Pacific International Exhibition in 1915 was San Francisco’s biggest showcase yet, a worldwide branding campaign for a city that had come back stronger than ever.
Tourism proved to be a renewable resource for the city, but the patience of the citizens was not. San Francisco Airport opened in 1927. The Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1936 and 1937, respectively. Movies and music heralded the beauty of the city. The floodgates opened even further, and the San Francisco’s “tourism problem” was born.
The controversy may have peaked in 1978, when Pier 39 was redeveloped as a tourism center. Arguably The San Francisco Chronicle’s two greatest columnists of the time, Herb Caen and Charles McCabe, bantered frequently about the subject — with pro- and anti-tourism barbs lobbed across the pages of the newspaper. “There may be a difference between tourism and prostitution, but it is a difference without much distinction,” McCabe wrote in 1978. “A place is discovered to have certain features — physical beauty, excellent climate, agreeable people — and these features are placed on the selling block for people who come from places that do not enjoy these advantages. These strangers tend to treat these amenities with much the same regard as a john pays to a whore.”
Caen’s response was more measured: “A ‘Tourist Trap,’ which we aren’t, would show more tenderness toward those who now provide our biggest income. Every time I see visitors shivering in the cold wind as they wait for the cables, I want to apologize. … A tourist town would see to it that there is proper, fast transportation to and through Golden Gate Park. A proper tourist town would have saved Playland-at-the-Beach and Sutro Baths, priceless, irreplaceable.”
McCabe is an underrated voice in The Chronicle’s history, but Caen was right about this one. San Francisco is overpriced and frustrating for those who don’t know all the secrets. The streets seem to have been designed by M.C. Escher, and when you finally reach your destination, your parking meter might cost $4.25 per hour.
I live here and know the secret passwords, and consider parking at Coit Tower, the Golden Gate Bridge and in North Beach at best a game of chance. Who knows what goes through the mind of an uninitiated visitor, one who has just discovered that Market Street was designed like a broken zipper — impossible for locals to negotiate, much less someone who doesn’t know the language. (What’s the Finnish translation of Critical Mass?)
At the very least, hate the tourism but not the tourist. It’s probably good to push back against a city that blindly wants to fill its coffers. Moscone Center, once an institution that balanced serving local citizens and tourists, seems to have one objective now: harvesting events that will fill the most luxury hotel rooms. (The people of the Bay Area have spoken: Bring back WonderCon!)
But no matter how many years your ancestors have lived here — third generation? Fourth? Seventh? — the tourists have been here longer. Their money helped build the city more than any philanthropist, finance leader or tech star. And they’re the most loyal people you’ll ever meet. They’ll keep returning, even when we don’t make it easy. We’ll give Caen the last word on that point:
“Here they come and away they go — Yellow Cabbed and cracked-crabbed, bottle-scarred, Gray-lined, gay-wined, scattered, battered and finally broke. The tourists: may they always come back for more in the Cool Gray City that loves ’em all, the long and the short and the tall.”