Pacific Heights

43 Masonic | Lombard and Lyon Streets

When people ask me how I spent my teenage years, I tell them a lot of different things.  Sometimes I try to describe the political and social climate of San Francisco during the late 1970s and early 1980s, or talk about spending evenings at Baker Beach, the Palace [...]

Chinatown

Off of Washington Street near Grant, you’ll find an unassuming little byway cutting you a path toward Jackson Street. You’ll see tourists clustered in front of the fortune cookie factory, locals toting pink bags of groceries, laundry hung out to dry on the fire escapes high above the storefronts. You’ll see signs for acupuncture, the [...]

The Marina & Fisherman's Wharf

On Labor Day 2007 I escaped from Alcatraz, braving the September waters of San Francisco Bay.
Only three times did I make the mistake of looking back at the Rock and thought to myself, “Doesn’t that damn island ever get any smaller?” as rollers broke in my face and toxic salt water went up my nose.
“The [...]

The Sunset District

Chick Perkins’ cherry ’59 Chevy roars up the Great Highway. In the darkness, headlamps reveal only the moment of road before him, and if he didn’t know this stretch like his face in a mirror it might seem a mystery. But a road doesn’t change. Once you know it, you know it, and following it’ll [...]

The Tenderloin

It was an annoyingly bright October morning, too warm too early in the day, when I learned Bobby had died. I read it over breakfast on the Chronicle’s obituary page. I looked up and told myself I should have a drink, not to settle my nerves, but a final tip o’ the glass to one [...]

Oral Histories

An Interview with Shari Mueller
It was Christmas Eve, 1974, and a girlfriend of mine was supposed to visit from L.A. but she canceled at the last minute. I felt a little upset, so I decided to go for a walk. Everything was closed for the holiday. I lived right off Union Street and I was [...]