As someone who’s lived in downtown San Francisco since before the tech boom, seeing what the city is nowadays is haunting and distressing.
I live in Nob Hill, steps away from the once touristy Chinatown entrance, a block away from the once bustling Financial District, and another two streets from the once frenetic Union Square. I’ve lived in the heart of this city, where nothing used to stop and no one could ever get bored. During my recent walks through the now desolate streets that were normally like the Shibuya Crossing, I can’t help but picture the pre-pandemic scene on a pre-pandemic day.
I’ve realized that I don’t only miss the old, charming aspects of the city — like dancing to live music at a bohemian North Beach bar or tucking into a dimly lit restaurant — but even the annoying, random things.
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I miss being stopped on a regular weekday by a distracted tourist in the middle of the street taking a photo of Chinatown.
I miss a sporadic sighting of the “therapeutic piglet pet” making its way up to Huntington Park. (Please Google this amazing creature if you don’t know what I’m talking about.)
I miss the traditions, like climbing the steep Nob Hill streets as I made my religious weekly walk up to yoga in the labyrinth at the almost fully gothic Grace Cathedral, where I’d gather with neighbors to move and meditate.
Who would have thought that all these little moments that made up life in San Francisco would now be impossible?
Remember when we used to share rides with strangers?
Remember when we could all go out to the streets making a collaborative rainbow to celebrate Pride?
Remember when we could be together at all?
I often think back to moments that now seem so far away.
Like the last Halloween party I went to in 2019 at a big, old, four-story house in the Mission. One of those that a friend of a friend invited you to, so you ended up inviting other friends who invited other friends and so on. Everyone and no one knew each other. Rooms filled with strangers. We sang and danced past 4 a.m. It was loud, crowded. There was sweat, there were drunk witches and vampires.
Like the Castro of the Before Times. If you have ever been heartbroken and not ended up in the Castro where a stranger and most likely your next gay best friend would cheer you up, buy you a $1 margarita, and hug you endlessly as you cried, you were doing it all wrong.
Like networking in the city, which was so much fun and easy. On any given night, you find a cool underground meetup for innovators, or engage with an international group of people here to create the next great invention.
Like a night out when you maybe would have met a new crush who was raised in South Africa and moved here from an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. You would have to quickly sneak away to the bathroom to Google some cool facts about those places and casually drop them in the conversation to keep up.
We were constantly learning. Constantly moving. Constantly challenged.
We met people who were in town to promote a new gelato-making artifact at a convention, heard about that friend of a friend who got millions in funding for a new idea, making you wonder why you didn’t think of it before.
The City by the Bay was an expert at allowing you to discover new cultures in so many ways, especially the experimental food scene. On a weekend you could visit France at the newest hip restaurant on Octavia street, and on Sundays you could take a quick detour to Thailand at the best-kept local secret, Thai Time, in the Inner Richmond. I really hope they survive this.
Dating used to be more of a part-time hobby for us, not the current research experiment we put prospects through now to qualify whether the risk of meeting them in person is worth it.
Going to the office used to be a drag, and now, we miss it. A friend of mine mentioned she even misses running late to work because she’s stuck on BART with no cell phone reception. We miss the routine, the rush, and the ordinary.
I see flashes of the ghosts of San Francisco’s pre-2020 past. They’re wearing North Face and Lululemon, roaming around FiDi and Market, making endless lines for an overpriced kale salad. I hope you are all doing all right, you good-looking, fit, rich people! Wherever you are!
The San Francisco I miss will resurface because that’s how this place has been wired since before you or I were born. This is a city with flowing energy and the minds of innovators — it’s always searching for gold, the new world-shaping idea.
While I realize I’ve sounded melancholic throughout this essay, I promise I’m also optimistic. It’s part of the grieving process. It’s good to remember the past and let it lead you to become a better version. The past, the present, and a positive vision are the influences we need to lead us to escape these “dark ages.”
Renaissance will come.
This moment in time was a fragment of a picture telling us what we were, what shaped us, what brought you and me here.
Post pandemic, I’m excited to see how our creative and progressive minds can shape new ways to hug each other, to learn from one another, to come together to make our city better.
Until then, I’ll mourn.
