It may not be quite the Bay Area Backroads but certainly we’re turning BACK the hands of time as we view one of the more interesting old newspaper columns. Already 44 years ago and a full decade before he retired/passed, famed San Francisco newspaper columnist HERB CAEN was already bemoaning the changing skyline of ‘The City’ and the ‘corporatization’ of San Francisco when this column first saw light, February 8, 1970. This would include the new, in-the-planning TransAmerica Pyramid, already pictured (falling) in Caen’s signature logo, above. Also interesting for us nostalgists, is Caen roaming the streets in discovering relics of the past in old storefronts
Revisiting HERB CAEN, San Francisco Chronicle Legendary Column(ist) – Already Disillusioned with Changing SF Scene in 1970
As Greta Garbo never said, in particular, it’s nice to be alone once in a while, even for lunch. When the misanthropic mood is upon me, I head for a dark little oasis in my favorite hotel, the St. Francis, there to drink an Americano, dawdle over a chef’s salad and read the airmail edition of the Times of London. There is just enough light — and privacy — to make this possible.
I don’t know what the oasis is called, exactly. It is nestled between the English Grill, which is usually too crowded, and the Medallion Room, which is a shade too fancy for lunch. I mean waiters in white tie and coat tails! Who ever heard of tails in the daytime? Rully, dolling.
The oasis has a few tables and a bar presided over by a sober, serious elderly bartender named George. That’s a plus right there. All the good bartenders in history, from the Paris Ritz to the St. Francis, have been named George. This George hasn’t mixed a bad drink in 50 years. No matter what you throw at him — Sazerac, Pink Lady, Picon Punch, Negroni — it comes up perfect.
One day I watched George make a Pousse-Café with eight colors, a trick that requires great concentration and a steady hand. Just as he was trickling in the float of cognac, a tourist in a sport-shirt hollered “gimme a beer” and he banged his hand on the bar, causing the two tops colors of the perfect Pousse-Café to spill. George did a slow burn worthy of the immortal Edgar Kennedy in his prime, then filled a glass of beer to the brim and slid it down the bar. Not a drop was spilled, but the artistic gesture was wasted on the bum.
About the chef’s salad in the oasis. It costs $3.50, which is a stiff price for a salad, but it’s worth it. “A meal in itself,” as mother used to say, and why the chef doesn’t keep it for himself, I’ll never know. It’s heavy on the julienne of ham, tongue and turkey, as a good chef’s salad should be. Order it with the creamy Roquefort dressing, and ask the waitress to toss it for you; if you’re in a sportive mood, toss HER for it. The only minus in the oasis is the horrible canned music, which runs heavily to Mickey Mouse dance bands of the ’30s — but hell, I’ve probably ruined the place already by writing about it. I won’t even vouch for the chef’s salad. Every time I plug a dish it turns crummy for the next six months.
As the city grows bigger, older and colder, the little things become more valuable, like a bartender you can trust and a salad that was great till tomorrow. The pretentious thought filled my birdbrain as I left the oasis and wandered through the town, quietly cursing the dark new skyscrapers that are robbing the city of its sophisticated small-town charm.
Is it fun to walk the streets? That’s the test of a city, not the height of its buildings. I window-shopped along Kearny, north of Sacramento. “Original Missouri Meerschaums!” said the sign above a display of corncob pipes. Pitiful plants drooped in the window of the You Sun Laundry (You Sun, Me Moon?). The Sun Quong Fat Grocery features — salami and liverwurst sandwiches? So it says.
Recorded classical music pours scratchily out of Mori’s Kosher Delicatessen, where the daily newspapers hang page by page from the walls under a sign reading “Eat, Read, Munch, Run.” (At Commercial St., you can look to the right and see the Ferry Building, its clock recording All Our Yesterdays.) In the window of the Chinese Christian Center, a fearful poster; faithful Chinese climbing to the True Cross and on to heaven, faithless Chinese carrying “SIN” on their backs tumbling over a precipice into hell! The windows are sinfully dirty.
In the doorway, a mailbox reading “Chan & Wong,” and on the door, a faded sticker reading “We Gave — United Crusades 1963.” At the corner of Clay, Sam’s Cleaners, a rheumy-eyed collie lounging in the doorway, an incredible collection of junk in the windows (an 1886 Fior d’Italia menu lists veal sauté for 5c., veal chops for a dime). The Diamond Oyster Co. — what happened to the pearls? — featuring a marvelous old poster showing the “The Original San Francisco Ocean Shrimp — The Delicious Pint-Sized Crustacean — Barbary Coast Fandango Style,” with illustrated directions on how to shell these morsels that have gone out of our lives forever.
The Compass Bookstore, musty and dusty. Cathay Arts: Chinese postcards in the window, a case of Red Mountain Wine visible through the door. Tong Yee Hong’s the Peanut Store — a shiny motorcycle parked amid peanuts strewn everywhere. The Bird of Paradise: stained glass church windows, a Tiffany lamp and groovy shoes. In the entrance to Architect G.M. McCue’s building, Joe Slusky’s $7,000 sculpture of purple welded metal. And across the street, that ironic juxtaposition: the Armed Forces Police, next to the Hotel Justice.
This is good walking, even though at the end of the block gapes the vast hole where soon will rise the Transamerica pyramid, the shape of things to come in a city where the little things — a good chef’s salad, a peanut store, a sculpture where you least expect it — are becoming rarer than diamonds in oysters.
This column originally appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle on Feb. 8, 1970.
Revisiting HERB CAEN, San Francisco Chronicle Legendary Columnist – Already Disillusioned with Changing SF in 1970