I was recently in San Francisco on business. I was there on business because, well, I would never go there for pleasure.
That’s right, I don’t like San Francisco. When talking to avid travelers, I’ve found that voicing this opinion is equivalent to announcing that you find baby animals repellent or think Michael Jordan is an overrated athlete. Yes, I grant that the setting, with its hills, bay, and bridges, is geographically spectacular. And the city doesn’t lack for fascinating history or interesting local color.
In fact, the problem with San Francisco may be that it’s a little too colorful. While I was there, I was walking back from a movie around 11 p.m. This wasn’t a bad neighborhood. I was right near Union Square, and the boutique hotel I booked to be in walking distance of the American Political Science Association annual meeting was across the street from luxury shops.
Nonetheless, as I neared the lobby of my hotel, I had to rebuff a streetwalker, who proceeded to grab my arm as I tried to walk past her. I was even more startled by this than you might imagine—because I was already distracted by the filthy shirtless man holding forth beneath the glowing Swarovski sign across the street. In between hacking coughs, he was shouting “Get used to it!” over and over again into an empty shoebox. For a moment, I pondered the (presumably) astronomical odds of contracting VD and TB in the same instant. But what really perfected this uniquely San Franciscan tableau was the saxophonist on the street corner ahead playing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
This was my second night in town. The first night, walking to dinner, I was approached by a police officer who wanted to know if I had seen anyone engaged in a street fight. Fortunately, I had not. But I’m confident this is not the kind of interaction the board of tourism is hoping for an hour after you check into your hotel.
As for the meal itself, well, I admit I knew better than to pick a restaurant in the DMZ between Union Square and the notoriously shady Tenderloin district. But I like Mexican food, and burritos are a San Francisco specialty. The Internet informed me this restaurant nearby was a favorite local haunt. Maybe the homeless person who wandered into the restaurant and lunged for my food read the same reviews. Normally, if someone is that desperate for food I would be inclined to give it to him. But the frantic motions and disturbing guttural noises suggested that, like a lot of the city’s homeless, this person was stabby. I corralled my food with one arm, stiff-armed the hobo with the other, and waited for one of the cooks to hop the counter and shoo him back out onto the sidewalk.
And did I mention downtown San Francisco smells really bad? It’s a very precise and inescapable funk—maybe 50 percent marijuana, 50 percent urine. Now drugs and San Francisco are the chocolate and peanut butter of American urban culture. But saying the place reeks of urine is not hyperbole. In August 2015, a three-story lamp post fell over and landed on a car, narrowly missing the driver. It was later determined the post had corroded from so many people micturating on it.
I realize I’m sounding like a heartless curmudgeon. San Franciscans could doubtless not care less what I think of how they run their local affairs. But without resorting to predictable complaints about San Francisco liberals, it does strike me as odd that a city that has probably generated more wealth than any other in human history over the past couple of decades has decided to enable widespread human tragedy with its approach to the homeless. And it did this as New York and other cities made incredible strides cleaning up the streets and taking care of people.
It wasn’t all bad, of course. The third and final night I was there, I took a cab to the legendary Amoeba Music and discovered Haight-Ashbury is pleasant and gentrified just enough. Later that night, I walked across Union Square and up through Chinatown, which was eerily calm for a Friday. I peered through storefront windows at exotic Asian goods. And I paused to imagine the thrill of careening downhill on San Francisco’s stairstep roads in a Mustang fastback, toward the beautifully lit-up Bay Bridge in the distance. I ended up at Vesuvio’s, the bar next to the famous City Lights bookstore. I hadn’t been there in over 20 years. My older sister slung drinks there for a time after she dropped out of college. It brought back fond memories.
But the next morning, I got up and left San Francisco—and my heart was sprinting right behind me.
