2 worlds collide on brassy, glassy block
San Franciscans are feeling a little odd this summer, a little uneasy, a little unsure about their hometown. That’s only natural because we are living in two cities at the same time.
One is the old, familiar San Francisco: boxy apartment houses, twoand three-story flats, neighborhoods full of stucco homes crowded together, a Victorian or two, gray in the summer fog.
That city is still there. You can see it on Geary Boulevard, on Church Street, in the Sunset, in the Outer Mission, in North Beach. There is also a new and different San Francisco, amazing in its way, growing and growing like mountains of glass and concrete. And we live in both places.
The two worlds can be seen in a single block, distilled, freeze-dried almost, on Tehama Street between First and Second streets near the new Transbay Transit Center, in the giant shadow of the thousand-foot-tall Salesforce Tower.
Even if you have lived in San Francisco for a while, you probably have not given Tehama Street much thought. It’s an alley between Howard and Folsom streets. It runs west from First Street in a kind of intermittent manner, disappearing at Second only to reappear again a few blocks west.
The first thing to remember in this part of the city is to forget the past, though parts of it are still there, old brick buildings, still standing, like ghosts from another San Francisco.
It is easy to see the mixture on the first block of Tehama. Two buildings stand like bookends at either end of the alley: a big former machine shop is on the First Street end, and the hiring hall of the Marine Firemen’s Union is where Tehama runs into Second Street.
In between is one of the best of the survivors of yesterday’s city —the old Brizard & Young Sheet Metal Works at 72 Tehama. The walls are faced with metal fashioned to look like red brick, and two ornamental lamps bracket the front door. The sheet metal business closed long ago, and now the 110-year-old building is available.
Just east of Brizard & Young is a bridge that will carry buses from the new Transbay Transit Center. Next to that will be a public park one day, open space between the towers.
All along this block of Tehama Street, a new city is rising. One of the most impressive is under construction at 33 Tehama, a 35-story glass tower with 403 rental apartments touted as “an iconic new residence in the heart of SoMa in San Francisco ... truly cosmopolitan living, sophisticated design and unrivaled amenities in one of the most connected, walkable and cultured locations in the city.”
Just down the block is 19 Tehama, a four-unit luxury apartment building in “immediate proximity to the area’s world renowned employers, restaurants and recreational amenities.” It is for sale for $5.7 million.
This, of course, is techie country, and near First and Tehama is Gather, an eating place with the Silicon Valley look — tables for dining and working, open seating areas, couches and big chairs ideal for networking. The staff wears dark T-shirts that say, “Learn work grow.”
On the other side of the room is Galvanize, a tech school that describes itself as “a community of curious, driven individuals just like yourself.”
Galvanize has six campuses around the hightech West and one in New York City. “Become a web developer in 24 weeks,” one brochure says. “Become a data scientist in 12 weeks,” another says. Both brochures ask the key question: “Have you got it?”
I stood for a moment, watching the Galvanize members working away, as intent as monks. I felt like a visitor from another country.
All this in a single block in a single alley. I left it behind and turned down First Street toward Market. The last time I walked on this part of First there was a stretch of little shops and coffee places there — and that was just the other day. Now there was only a pile of bricks behind a chain-link fence in a vacant lot. Construction machinery was being moved into position.
The new towers, the new people and all that energy was kind of dizzying. It was time for a change, or maybe lunch.
So I crossed Market and headed for the old Financial District, up Montgomery Street, up Bush Street toward Sam’s Grill, founded in 1867. The sand dabs were quite good. It’s nice to be able to live in the best of two worlds.