San Francisco, California
The Mission District is one of San Francisco's oldest and most complex neighborhoods. It sits on a sunny plain just south of downtown. Its main artery is Mission Street, which is home to businesses, residential hotels and restaurants. Like many inner-city neighborhoods, it has undergone several evolutions. Fifty years ago, it was working-class Irish. My mom and dad grew up on opposite sides of Garfield Square and were married at St. Peter's. We lived in an apartment at Twenty-First and Alabama when I was little. We moved to the Sunset when I was nine and my dad had saved up enough money for a down payment on a house. About the same time, many of the Irish residents moved to other parts of the city and out to the suburbs. When they moved out, the Hispanics moved in. Rosie's parents were among the new arrivals. Her mom still lives at Twenty-Fourth and Bryant, three blocks from our apartment when I was a kid. Small world. Incriminating Evidence
|
California and Mason Streets |
 |
|
|
The Fairmont Hotel sits majestically atop Nob Hill at the corner of California and Mason. It is a grand old hotel that was once used as the setting for a TV series. The old wing was designed by Julia Morgan and built of heavy dark stones after the 1906 earthquake. An ornate array of flags greets visitors who arrive at the elegant circular driveway on Mason. An unimaginative high rise tower was added about thirty years ago. I walk through the main entrance later the same afternoon. The crowded lobby is the size of a football field. The old maroon carpet and velvet chairs were replaced a few years ago by more modern trappings. The marble pillars and the stairway to the Venetian Room add an elegant touch. A group of Japanese businessmen wait by the door, their name tags conspicuous. People are lined-up five-deep at the check-in desk. A string quartet is playing classical music in the lobby bar. Not much has changed in the last hundred years, except that the hotel is now part of an international chain. Incriminating Evidence |
||
Sixteenth and Mission, San Francisco, California
A hand-lettered sign above a black metal door denotes the entrance to the Jerry Hotel, which occupies the top two floors of a decaying three-story building. El Pollo Supremo, one of those fast-food chicken places, is on the ground floor. Incriminating Evidence
405 Valencia Street, San Francisco, California
Pete and I walk past the small markets until we reach the corner of Fifteenth and Valencia, where a faded sign on the marquee of a dilapidated five-story building says "Hotel Royan, daily, weekly and monthly." A burnt-out cheese steak shop sits behind metal bars on one side of the entrance. A boarded-up currency exchange is on the other side. Next door is an empty lot. It's been a long time since the Royan has seen better days. It's a pit. The entrance has a heavy steel mesh door. It's open, and there's a hand-lettered sign on it saying, "No visitors between 7 p.m and 7 a.m." The lobby, if you can call it that, consists of a folding chair on a black tile floor. It's acrid with the smell of urine. Incriminating Evidence
559 Valencia Street, San Francisco, California
The hallway of the Curtis is like those of the Jerry and the Royan--drab, gloomy, grungy, smelly, ominous. The lights are dim, but at least they're working. People are milling around in the corridor on the second floor. A young Hispanic man in a t-shirt and shorts is talking to the police. A woman holding an infant peers out her door. She appears frightened. I pause to consider how difficult it must be to try to raise a child here. Incriminating Evidence
|
1200 Florida Street |
 |
|
St. Peter's Catholic Church has been a center of worship at the south end of the crowded Mission District for more than a century. It rises above the modest bungalows and the two-story apartment buildings on Alabama Street, between Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Fifth. It isn't a particularly impressive structure, but it reflects the working-class community it has served for many years. St. Peter's was first dedicated on July 4, 1886, when San Francisco was still young and the Mission was a stronghold of Irish immigrants. It has been and always will be a symbol of our neighborhood. It rose like a phoenix after it was gutted by fire a few years ago. Although it has been completely refurbished, the feeling I have for the church that I attended when I was a kid is still there. To me, St. Peter's will always be much like the Mission itself: ordinary-looking on the outside, but special within. Incriminating Evidence |
|
25th and Bryant, San Francisco, California
The Mission Youth Center is housed in a fortress-like building that used to be a high school around the corner from St. Peter's. Fifty boys between the ages of thirteen and eighteen call the center home. Ernie Clemente's staff provides counseling and services for over three hundred other kids. The facility has grown substantially over the years. Every penny that Ernie raises goes into the programs. A couple of years ago, he was able to purchase two of the adjoining apartment buildings, which he has converted into dormitory space.
Ernie's small office is just inside the main entrance. His beat-up wooden desk is covered with piles of papers, books and magazines. He has an open-door policy. In fact, he has no door at all. He told me years ago that he never wanted a needy kid to see a closed door. Incriminating Evidence
Sixteenth and Mission, San Francisco, California
The area around the BART station on the corner of Sixteenth and Mission is a mixture of run-down two- and three-story buildings housing burrito shops, produce stands, fast-food restaurants and seedy hotels. According to a recent article in the Chronicle's magazine section, there are fifty-six residential hotels within walking distance of the BART station. Most of them are on Mission and the surrounding numbered streets and alleys
Sixteenth and Mission is the center of San Francisco's heroin trade. It isn't something neighborhood residents are proud of. They understand the problem and they don't try to hide it. They acknowledge it can't be fixed easily. The J.C. Decaux public toilet next to the BART station has become a center of commerce and is known as the "Green Monster." People hop off the BART trains, buy their stuff and get back on. It gives new meaning to the term "one-stop shopping." The Mission police station is just around the corner on Valencia. It doesn't seem to deter the dealers. The area gained notoriety a few years ago when the son of a local rock star died of an overdose in one of the residential hotels on Valencia.
The sun hits my face as I come up the escalator from the
underground BART station and look around the familiar red brick plaza,
which is dotted with sad-looking palm trees and fenced-in shrubs. A Wells
Fargo bank branch greets me as I reach ground level. At least ten people
are lined up at the automated teller machine. Two young men ask me for
money as I step off the escalator and turn toward Sixteenth. I glance
behind me toward Mission, a busy street with a colorful array of small
stores, restaurants and produce markets. Tired banners hanging from the
street lights proclaim that we are standing in the "Heart of the Mission."
Cars and orange Muni buses sit bumper-to-bumper on Mission in front of
the BART station. The street is too narrow to have any hope of keeping
up with the volume of traffic. It's a lively corner, but the assortment
of homeless people, prostitutes and drug dealers would be intimidating
to those who are unfamiliar with the territory. Things have changed a
lot since I was a kid.
A large man wearing a dirt-covered windbreaker stands next to the Green Monster. He's chatting with a middle-aged prostitute, who is dressed in a short green skirt, a halter top and high heels. She's been around the block a few times. Up Sixteenth, I see a bar called the Skylark, which used to be a trans-gender and gay Latino bar called La India Bonita. Now, it's a hangout for the young professionals who are moving into the neighborhood. Farther up Sixteenth, just past Valencia, is another popular yuppie hangout called Ti Couz. They line up on Friday night to eat crepes. It's common knowledge among those of us who spend time down here that people in the hotels across the street are shooting up. The Mission has something for everybody. Incriminating Evidence
Valencia Gardens Housing Projects
Fifteenth and Valencia Streets, San Francisco, California
We are standing at the corner of Fifteenth and Valencia in front of the cast-iron fence near the entrance to the Valencia Gardens housing projects, a series of faded pink three-story buildings with a dozen or so apartments in each. They were built back in the fifties, when urban renewal meant tearing down the old ghetto structures and housing the poor in new ones. Although the Valencia projects are not as notorious as those in Bay View or the back side of Potrero Hill, they're a mean place, too. The politicians are talking about starting over yet again. Kevin Anderson's father is trying to get permits to raze them and put up a mixed-use project with some low-income housing and some expensive lofts. He's hired Turner Stanford to help him get the approvals from the city. We'll see. Incriminating Evidence
Seventeenth and Valencia, San Francisco, California
The Mission police station is a modern low-rise building that takes up half of a block on Valencia, between Seventeenth and Eighteenth. Incriminating Evidence
San Francisco General Hospital
1001 Potrero Avenue, San Francisco, California
San Francisco General Hospital is a huge brick complex on Potrero Avenue next to the 101 Freeway, just west of Hospital Curve on the eastern boundary of the Mission. I was born here. The facility is a small city that somehow manages to handle everything from gunshot wounds to drug addiction to insect bites. It has one of the largest AIDS wards in the country. The doctors live on the front lines of the urban medical war. They win most of the battles.
The emergency room is like a giant assembly line. Even at this hour, it's busy. A young resident named Dr. Chu takes a close look at the golf-ball-sized bump on the back of my head right away. She says it looks like a concussion, but orders an x-ray and a CAT scan to check for fractures or brain injury. In an abundance of caution, she decides to admit me for twenty-four hours of observation. She tells me that I should try to stay awake for a few hours to reduce the possibility that I will slip into a coma. She lacks a certain degree of bedside manner, but she seems to know what she's talking about.
I'm escorted back to the waiting area until the CAT scan equipment becomes available. It is depressing to watch shooting victims and unconscious drug overdoses being wheeled past me. I take a seat between Pete and Rosie. Tony's across from me. I recall sitting in almost the same spot over thirty years ago when my dad got shot in the leg. Cops get the royal treatment. My mom was stoic. I'll never forget the look on her face. Incriminating Evidence
Skipper and Natalie Gates's House
Pacific Heights, San Francisco, California
Like many homes in this neighborhood, only a few small windows face the street. You'd never know there was a five-million-dollar house behind the unobtrusive gate. In this part of town, it's considered more desirable to live on the north side of Broadway, where the homes have clear views of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. The houses on the south side aren't quite as fashionable because their sightlines are obstructed.
The house hangs over the side of a cliff. The place doesn't exactly have a lived-in look. To my right is a hallway that probably leads to the servants' quarters. To my left is a three-story atrium with stained glass windows and a skylight. A concert Steinway grand sits silently in the corner. I can picture Skipper and Natalie standing next to the piano and greeting their guests. At the moment, the only visitors are uniformed police officers and plainclothes evidence techs huddling by the piano.
The living room is furnished with antique tables, Persian rugs, Louis the something chairs and large oil paintings. There is the obligatory picture-postcard view of the orange-gold towers of the Golden Gate Bridge, which is framed against a cloudless blue sky. Natalie has an eye for the exquisite and a checkbook to match. The room reeks of old money. The only item that appears out-of-place is a sleek laptop computer that is sitting on a table in an alcove near the windows. Nowadays, I guess even aristocrats surf the Web. Incriminating Evidence
Twenty-Fourth and Bryant, San Francisco, California
The little wooden bungalow could use a coat of paint and some new carpet. Rosie's mom won't hear of it. She says the next owner of the house will pay for the new paint job. Our repeated suggestions that she treat herself to a few new appliances have gone unheeded. Hand-made curtains adorn the small windows that look out upon a paved backyard. I can see the steeple of St. Peter's. The house has hardly changed since I first met Rosie. I suspect it looked about the same when her parents moved in almost forty years ago, except there's a small color TV in the corner of the kitchen and an old laptop computer on the dining room table. Sylvia uses the computer to e-mail Grace. The TV is always tuned to CNN. Black-and-white pictures of Rosie and her brother and sister when they were kids hang on the kitchen wall. Incriminating Evidence
"Fast Eddie" Molinari's Office
Washington Square, North Beach, San Francisco, California
"Fast Eddie" Molinari is all smiles when I arrive at his office in a flat on the second floor of a renovated two-story building overlooking Washington Square later that afternoon. The place looks like an Italian villa and smells of North Beach Pizza, which is just down the street. Instead of traditional artwork, the walls are adorned with enlarged newspaper clippings about Fast Eddie's legal conquests. Right above his antique roll-top desk is a blown-up headline that reads "Molinari Wins Stay of Execution--Client Avoids Death Penalty." Fast Eddie has a nose for publicity.
I take a seat and admire the view of St. Peter and Paul across the park. The hardwood floors are a nice touch. A state-of-the-art laptop sits like a trophy on the corner of his cluttered desk next to a fashionable humidor. Not surprisingly, there are no pictures of a spouse or children. Fast Eddie plays pretty loose with women. He's been married five times. His divorces always make the gossip column in the Chronicle. Incriminating Evidence
Montgomery Street, San Francisco, California
Dan Morris is sitting in his memorabilia-filled office on the ground floor of a refurbished Gold Rush-era building on Montgomery, just north of the Transamerica Pyramid. The space was formerly occupied by a flamboyant personal injury attorney. The desk is covered with souvenirs from his political triumphs. Coffee mugs. Buttons. Banners. Straw hats. One wall is full of political posters. Another has an array of photos of Dan's favorite person--himself. You can walk up Montgomery and look right into his office. It is a privilege to watch him work. Incriminating Evidence
20th and Mission Streets, San Francisco, California
Donald Martinez has given us a nine a.m. appointment the next morning, a Thursday. Rosie and I are sitting in the leather chairs in his office in an old department store at Twentieth and Mission. The building houses his produce distribution business as well as the offices of the Mission Redevelopment Fund and the Donald Martinez Charitable Foundation. Martinez could run his empire out of a high-rise downtown, but he's chosen to stay in the neighborhood. He's a tanned, charismatic man in his late fifties who looks and talks a little bit like Ricardo Montalban. He's only about five-ten, but his erect bearing gives the impression that he is taller. His presence leaves no doubt that he is a man who gets what he wants.
The office is full of pictures. He's got his life on display. There's one of his wife, adult children and four grandchildren on his credenza. There is an enlarged photo of an old delivery truck bearing the logo of Martinez Wholesale Produce on one wall. Martinez tells us proudly that he started his business thirty years ago with that single truck. There are pictures of several low-income housing developments on the opposite wall. I can see citations from the mayor, the Mission Youth Center, St. Peter's and various other community agencies. We exchange polite, labored conversation for a few minutes. Then we get down to business. Incriminating Evidence
Restaurants
La Victoria Mexican Bakery and Grocery
2937-24th Street, San Francisco, California
La Victoria is a hole in the wall at the corner of Twenty-Fourth and Alabama. It's a bakery and small grocery store and it's been there since I was a kid. The sweet smell of freshly-baked cakes and cookies surrounds you. Handmade pinatas line the ceiling. We come here every year just before Grace's birthday to pick out a special decoration. When you walk in the door, the women behind the small counter hand you a metal tray and tongs. You select baked goods from the racks in the window and along the wall. A long counter runs the length of the store and there's a small refrigerator in the rear that holds drinks. There are a few seats near the back. It will never make the Chronicle's list of the fifty best restaurants in San Francisco. On the other hand, it's reliable and cheap.
La Victoria sits in the heart of what was once the Irish enclave at the south end of the Mission and my mom and dad passed by this corner thousands of times. But that's long gone. The business district on Twenty-Fourth now caters to the Hispanic neighborhood. Tony's produce market is across the street. When you're at the corner of Twenty-Fourth and Alabama, you can smell the mesmerizing aroma of baked goods, burritos and ripe fruit.
The neighborhood is changing again. Affluent new arrivals are moving down the hill from Noe Valley to the west into the traditional working-class area. As a result, rents are on the rise. Long-time residents are feeling the squeeze and they're fighting back. Community organizers are trying to retain the Mission's character, but sometimes things get a little out of hand. Every now and then, there's a story on the news about tires being slashed on a BMW. Rosie's mom insists that the Hispanic community won't give up its neighborhood without a fight. Incriminating Evidence
Tommy's JoyntGeary at Van Ness, San Francisco, California
I'm having lunch with Roosevelt Johnson at Tommy's Joynt, a bar and hofbrau on Van Ness and Geary. We'd set this up yesterday; I wanted an update on the police findings. Tommy's isn't the most politically correct restaurant in the Bay Area. Deer and moose heads hang from the walls. A long cafeteria-style counter where burly men cut brisket, turkey, roast beef and even buffalo extends the length of the restaurant. It smells like a cross between a deli and a gymnasium. People from all walks of life show up here. You stand in line and tell them what to carve for you. Except for an occasional paint job, the place hasn't changed much in the last forty years. Incriminating Evidence
|
Pancho Villa Tacqueria 3017-16th Street, San Francisco, California He says that Johnny worked at the Pancho Villa, the taqueria across the street. I know the place myself. It's a hole-in-the-wall with a long counter, industrial-strength Formica tables and chairs and zero ambiance, but I'm one of the aficionados who think it serves the best burritos in town. Incriminating Evidence |
 |
2031 Polk Street, San Francisco, California
Pete and my favorite Chinese restaurant isn't in Chinatown. It isn't in the new Chinatown in the Richmond District, either. It's a hole-in-the-wall on Polk, just south of Broadway, called Tai Chi. People line up out the door and down the block for the house specialty, Hunan General Tsou's Chicken, a heart attack on a plate made of nuggets of deep-fried, batter-covered chicken in a flaming sweet and sour sauce that could burn a hole in the stomachs of mere mortals. Pete and I come here every couple of weeks for our fill. Then we go home and drink water until the sun comes up. Incriminating Evidence
Mike's Chinese Cuisine (Map)
5145 Geary Boulevard, San Francisco, California
The same evening, Kevin Anderson and I are sitting in the back of Mike's Chinese Cuisine, an inconspicuous two-story restaurant in the middle of the block on Geary, between Fifteenth and Sixteenth Avenues. Many people believe the muckity-mucks who run San Francisco dine only in places like Postrio, Boulevard and Aqua. Not true. On a given day, our resident U.S. senator, our congresswoman and half the board of supervisors will stop by Mike's. I'm amazed the paparazzi haven't figured this out yet. Then again, maybe they have. I'll bet they eat here, too. Incriminating Evidence
|
La Cumbre Taqueria (Review) We head up Sixteenth past the residential hotels and the Pancho Villa toward Valencia, where we turn left. We see a dangling sign over the entrance to LaCumbre. It's early for lunch, so the modest taco stand is quiet. The sweet aroma of burritos and beans fills the small room. There's a young Hispanic man behind the counter. We order two cups of coffee. Incriminating Evidence |
 |
|
North
Beach Restaurant (Map) The North Beach Restaurant has been a neighborhood hangout in the heart of the old Italian enclave for decades. Although it was refurbished a few years ago, it hasn't changed much. You won't find it written up in trendy food magazines. What it lacks in chic it makes up for in reliability. The long bar, paneling and heavy tables give the place the feel of a traditional men's club. As I look around the packed dining room at noon the next day I see only two women. Some things never change. Incriminating Evidence |
 |
|
1652 Stockton Street, San Francisco, California The same night, I'm dining upscale with Nick Hanson at Moose's on Washington Square, just down the block from Ed Molinari's office. Nick's a regular. He nods to the proprietor and then dips his bread into a plate of olive oil and chews it heartily. The jazz combo in the middle of the crowded room is banging out Duke Ellington's "Satin Doll." |
 |