My Favorite Corner of SF
This article is part of My Favorite Corner of SF, a feature series that pays homage to a special place in the city.
As a self-identified friendly misanthrope (a person who generally dislikes humans and human society), I don’t miss much about the pre-pandemic, “normal” life. I do not miss sitting behind a desk. I do not miss oppressive politeness of most day-to-day social interactions. I’ve reveled in the lack of group interaction, for the most part — I even gleefully declined my Zoom invite to the graduation ceremony to honor the degree in sociology I earned last year. I took a walk on the beach instead.
Perhaps it’s surprising then that, of all things, I miss BART.
Yes, Bay Area Rapid Transit — the network of trains that is under-funded, over-crowded, and the subject of much lamenting by people in the Bay, including here in The Bold Italic.
More specifically, I miss emerging from the underwater tube into the West Oakland Station and seeing the container cranes perched at the Oakland Harbor. I probably get sentimental about the area because I’m a desert rat who grew up around wind farms. Thousands of turbines would greet incoming visitors entering my home in the Coachella Valley; the cranes did the same thing for me in West Oakland as I headed to my adult apartment. Maybe it’s just the loneliness talking, but growing up around them has a funny way of making mechanical structures feel more like distant friends.
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Now, when I ride my bike down Oakland’s 7th Street corridor, I wistfully look up whenever BART roars past me, colossal and just out of reach like some mysterious urban phenomenon. I miss the atonal hum of the train screeching on the tracks. I miss the triumphant feeling of finding an empty seat during rush hour. I miss boarding the Antioch-bound train at Powell Street Station, where I’d occasionally hear my favorite busker playing sweet, sad arpeggios on a standing keyboard.
I vividly recall the last time I took the train: It was about three days before the shelter-in-place was announced in San Francisco, and I left my museum job early that day. News of the virus was just beginning to emerge, and no one had a plan. I was angry, frustrated. That afternoon, the atmosphere on the train was tense. It was noticeably empty, even for a weekday. People sat staggered and far apart; a blond woman tentatively held a printed scarf over her nose.
Looking back, I wish I had considered just how different my reality could become, or at least appreciated the familiar figures around me: the boys who danced and performed acrobatic tricks to the bass-heavy rhythm of Top 40 rap; the college-age girls with their baggy Jnco jeans and pink-dyed hair. The train, for all its gross imperfections, provided fleeting glimpses of true Bay Area life.
And though it might sound hyperbolic, I owe my own life to BART: that’s because it gave me some of my best memories. In my early 20s, my friends and I would cram into a four-seater by the window, where we’d sneak shots of warm whiskey and fix our makeup while the train jerked from side to side. Before the Ghost Ship tragedy, we took it to Lower Bottoms, where we’d pay five dollars to see discordant punk and electronic shows in abandoned churches and gutted buildings. Now, most of these venues have faded into West Oakland’s dilapidated landscape.
Like a dependable friend, BART was also there for me when I needed it most. It took me home after I had gotten into my first car accident on the Fourth of July. It brought me to a friend’s house when I needed an escape from my self-sabotaging ex-boyfriend. It (mostly) took me to work and school on time, ensuring I could make a living and continue my education.
Now, whenever I ride my bike back home on West Oakland’s Peralta Street, I listen for it: that omnipresent, spectral hum. It’s comforting, because while the Bay Area’s cultural landscape changes, BART stubbornly remains the same.
Now, it too has become a shadowy, familiar figure. A faded memory, a friendly stranger I look forward to seeing again someday.
