SAN FRANCISCO — George Sterling, the poet, called it “the cool,
gray city of love.” He was something of an expert at it, being a
man of passion, both physical and intellectual. He celebrated its
seductive charms for several decades before committing suicide one
day in 1926 in a room at the Bohemian Club. He is largely forgotten
today.
Herb Caen, who died just a few years ago at age 83, is in danger
of being forgotten, too. He celebrated The City (as nearly everyone
in these parts calls it) in a daily column in the San Francisco
Chronicle for nearly sixty years. He functioned as a sort of
soul of the city, recording the comings and goings of its more
colorful characters, instructing newcomers on its ways and dishing
up large helpings of nostalgia.
To a boy growing up in the hills across the bay, facing the
Golden Gate, San Francisco was always the Center of the Universe.
Washington and New York could only be imagined, but San Francisco
was real, with its sparkling blue skies and light breezes
(“nature’s air conditioning” they call it here), steep hills and
the deep shadows of its the narrow downtown canyons, their
buildings suggesting that important things were going on
inside.
Dining in a club here today is to be reminded of a time when San
Francisco was considered a very “dressy” city. The men and women
are once again in well-tailored suits. The main difference from,
say, 40 or 50 years ago, is that the women no longer wear hats and
gloves. Outside precincts such as this one and a number of high-end
restaurants, however, anything goes in the way of attire, as it
seems to everywhere these days.
One of the happiest ways to spend the cocktail hour is to sip a
martini on the third floor balcony of the University Club, facing
eastward. The skyline has changed mightily since I first enjoyed
the view from that aerie. Forty years ago, the sand-colored Russ
Building — for several decades the tallest in the city — stood
out majestically, its fluted surfaces good examples of the
architecture of the 1920s. The then-new International Building,
about 20 stories tall, seemed to float from its platform at the
edge of Chinatown. The Bay Bridge and the Oakland-Berkeley Hills
stood out clearly.
Today, the Russ Building is overshadowed by a series of 50-story
towers; the International Building, looking very tired, is squeezed
between more behemoths. The view of the bridge and the hills across
the bay is blocked by this wall of monuments to maximum rentable
square footage. There is a notable exception, the Transamerica
Pyramid, which caused a lot of controversy when it went up, but now
soars toward the stars as if it had always been there.
One of the most endearing characteristics of “The City” has been
its great tolerance for the eccentric, aberrant and
individualistic. It goes back to the founding of the modern city.
With the discovery of gold in 1848, San Francisco changed virtually
overnight from a sleepy Spanish-Mexican pueblo to a bustling
gateway to the gold fields. Thousands of men (and a few women)
flocked here to head to the Mother Lode to make their fortunes.
Many were getting away from something. They may have been second
sons who weren’t going to inherit the farm; possibly on the lam
from the law; running away from family troubles — or other
complications. People in San Francisco learned to take one another
at face value without many questions about background and
breeding.
This has been a strong leitmotif of the city ever since. Waves
of later immigrants — Chinese, Italians, Irish — all contributed
to San Francisco’s variegated heritage. The history of tolerance
explains, in part, why San Francisco became a congenial haven for
an energetic gay community.
All these varied constituencies live side by side and more or
less in peace and harmony, although the city’s politics in recent
years have reflected bitter feuds between various groups. The
result has been a city government that is often gridlocked in
meaningless quarrels and bizarre proposals. It’s not as zany as
Berkeley’s city council, but it’s not far from it.
With its cable cars and colorful characters and probably more
good restaurants per capita than any other city in North America,
San Francisco remains a great magnet for tourists and for many who
want to make a new start at the western edge of the continent,
putting behind them the frustrations of life to the east. Some
never make it and end their lives by jumping from the Golden Gate
Bridge into the cold waters of the bay. Of the several hundred who
have done so, all but a few have jumped facing eastward, at
continent’s end, to say a last farewell to the land they left
behind.
