Nov 10 2003
Walking Home Suzy
Today you get to walk home with me, only without all that annoying physical effort. There will even be visual aids.
I walk home up Columbus, through North Beach, the Italian neighborhood. Past Beat era icons City Lights bookstore (celebrating its 50th year) and Vesuvio’s, and then past the strip clubs (for some reason, there are a lot of them in North Beach, though they are not noticeably Italian), including what’s left of the Condor.
The Condor has the distinction of being America’s first topless bar, when Carol Doda danced on the bar in mod designer Rudy Gernreich’s topless bathing suit in 1964. The Condor used to have a wonderful neon sign of a nude woman with flashing red nipples, which sadly disappeared after the club was sold and it became the boring restaurant it is now (the new owners thought it was rude!). The sign looked particularly charming in the fog. I miss it.
Turn left on Vallejo* and you’ll see why I say I walk home up it. The hill is so steep that the sidewalk gives up in despair and becomes a stairway. You can’t tell, but this is only the first block of four or so that are stairs (the rest are hidden in the trees). But it’s worth the hike. Halfway up, it looks like this, and then like this, and at the top, this.
If I’m not taking pictures for you (it is, however, fun to play tourist in your own town), I can do all the stairs without stopping, which is very gratifying. Past the multi-million dollar houses and it’s all downhill to Chez Suzy from there.
*Named for General Vallejo, one of the early settlers of Northern California. The guy who answers the phone at my pizza place always corrects my pronunciation of “Vallejo” (Va-lay-o) by giving it the full Spanish treatment: “Ba-yay-ho”. It just wouldn’t feel right if he didn’t.
14 Responses to “Walking Home Suzy”
San Francisco looks gorgeous… I’ll have to see it for myself someday.
I agree! And I don’t see snow in any of the photos. 🙂
Your city is absolutely beautiful, suzy. Thanks for the tour!
Thanks for the tour Suzy. I have always maintained SF was beautiful – you just refreshed my memory. You are my hero! All that walking and you still go to gym. I am hanging my head in shame here.
Thanks for the ….pant…pant…walk, Suzy. All those…pant…pant…steps were worth it. The view! The time with you! pant…pant…are we there yet? pant…pant…do you have any water?
I wanna be in SF!
Maybe if I could have afforded a $3,450,000 house like that I would have stayed in SF! I WANT THAT HOUSE! 😉
You’re lucky to live in such a wonderful place – where you can WALK to things! That’s unheard of in WI. Thanks for the tour! Much more interesting than my route home. lol
That was cool! Thanks! I think everyone should give a little tour :)!
I think you may have started a trend. What a cool idea to share your neighborhood with us 🙂 I would so love to be in SF but those pesky earthquake thoughts just keep me away.
Thanks for the tour. I wonder if I walked any of those streets with you while I was visiting? I can’t remember. I was too busy trying not to pass out. Hahahaha.
PS – what’s up with the camera being all blue and stuff? You guys had an awesome camera before… that’s not the same one, is it?
That was lovely! (and I’m still smiling at Jar’s comment). Do you know what happened to the Condor neon sign? Was it sold and now hangs elsewhere?
Daisy-
The old Condor is now a ‘sports bar.’ Can’t have too many of those, right? The sign is supposed to be inside, in their ‘museum.’ Sensitive asswipes. Suzy and I stopped in there once years ago, and it was just another sports bar with outrageous prices.
You can still see the old Condor sign all lit up, and for free… in reruns of the old Karl Malden Michael Douglas series ‘The Streets of San Francisco.’ It appears in the opening credits.
Ah, I remember that show! It hasn’t been on UK televisionin many years. Time for a cult revival I think.
Candi, it’s the same camera – I think it’s user error (as usual), and I also think I made you walk up Columbus! I’m so mean!
Glad you guys enjoyed this so much!