San Francisco/San Francisco Symphony

San Francisco is one of the most desirable places on the planet to live, both because of its climate and because of its amenities. As a result, many, many people want to live there. A good many of those people have substantial resources. A lot of those people are also highly skilled and/or unusually creative. That is why real estate in San Francisco is expensive. High demand. Step-function availability of supply. Basic economics: demand outstrips supply. Result: high prices. It is just not very complicated. And, more importantly it is a good, rather than a bad, thing.

            Admittedly, my recent visit was on spectacularly beautiful, cloudless days. The adjective “Mediterranean,” often used to describe the climate, could not have been more apt on this trip. We went to North Beach for a classic cioppino at Sotto Mare, we took the bus to the Pacific and sat on a park bench in the sun facing the ocean (with no sign of the generally ubiquitous “Carl the Fog”), reading the wonderful new, posthumous La Carré novel. We took in the Symphony and the Opera. We lingered at the new Salesforce Park. I was ready to start shopping for a new place to live. San Francisco, another city, like New York, is often described by the punditocracy as an astronomically priced hellscape; inhabited only by trustafarians, over-paid young techies and the wild-eyed, violent homeless. Sorry: not.

            We stayed at the wonderful Intercontinental in SOMA. The hotel has over thirty stores and floor to ceiling windows, with spectacular views of the City (many older San Francisco hotels are short and dark, with small rooms). However, the location, at Howard between Fourth and Fifth, exposes the walker to the epicenter of San Francisco’s un/under-housed population, which appears to be at 7^th and Mission. The walk through the Civic Center on a Saturday night after a concert by the Symphony, while not dangerous, required passing through large groups of individuals sleeping on the sidewalks, selling things from blankets, with some acting out and appearing to be seriously mentally ill, surrounded by piles of stuff. Avoiding feces on the sidewalk was a non-trivial endeavor. There were pairs of men who appeared to be a private unarmed security force labeled “Urban Alchemy,” who appeared to be ineffectual. We also passed people sleeping in doorways in The Castro and other folks who pitched tents around highway ramps near the Embarcadero. My rough estimate is that the total number of individuals occupying public space we passed was more than 500 and less than 1500. Notably, in most other neighborhoods we visited, people visibly living in public spaces or behaving in obviously unpredictively ways were not present (Richmond, Sunset, North Beach, Glen Park).

            It’s worth observing that it is individuals visibly acting out who most contribute to a perception of physical danger. People yelling at passers-by or even to themselves, punching the air, kicking the sidewalk or zigzagging along the sidewalk appear unpredictable. They create for many pedestrians the possibility of unwanted physical contact. These, perhaps clinically psychotic folks, can also be the most difficult to engage and reach for professional outreach workers.

            While this sounds like a large population, it is by no means beyond addressing. Walking down Market Street, and particularly at 7^th, it is apparent this is not a problem primarily about housing – there is social activity taking place among these San Franciscans that is part of what draws them to these locations, and their issues need to be addressed socially. At the same time, despite what I have been reading in the national media, there is new multiple dwelling unit residential construction happening all around the downtown, and lots of recently completed projects – even on Market Street itself. We spent an intrigued hour watching the process of the erection of an enormous construction crane across the street from our hotel.

We went for a walk in the expanding Mission Bay community, just south of the baseball stadium (the Giants lost the playoffs to the Dodgers our first night in town); a midrise, mixed-income, mixed-use neighborhood being built from the ground up. All the right moves seemed to have been made. While eating lunch in a parking space shed (kombucha soda, falafel sandwich — $45 dollars for two), I was reminded of our West End Avenue mid-rise neighborhood in New York, a highly desirable and successful product type. THIS is what Hudson Yards should have been. A vital, human scale place to live.

San Francisco needs to get past its politics and adopt a data driven, client centered approach to addressing the needs of its citizens living in public spaces. It should recognize that the issue ISN’T (just) housing and come to terms with that it’s never a rational life choice to sleep on the sidewalk. It needs Built for Zero and Community Solutions (https://community.solutions/built-for-zero/). It’s also important for the community to come to a consensus that people living in shared public space are monopolizing places that belong to everyone and should be available to be used in common. Someone playing loud music, engaging in commercial activity or even laying in a sleeping bag on the sidewalk, is EXCLUDING other folks from enjoying the experience of public space that, particularly post-COVID, we have learned is absolutely essential to urban living. No one should have the right to exclude others from quiet enjoyment of the limited resource of urban public space.

Creating a data base that includes a record for each client, working with them as individuals to get a medical and person history, building a trusting relationship with (potential) clients, and then linking them up with the benefits to which they are already entitled and the services they require. This is difficult, time-consuming work. But it can succeed, as Community Solutions is demonstrating across the country. In a city of 900,000, reaching a couple of thousand of people in distress, while important, is by no means a monumental task. It also doesn’t define the city.

Given the breadth of cultural offerings available in San Francisco, it is easy to forget that it a relatively small city. The depth of cultural and social resources is just remarkable. During our visit we took in an intellectually and visually overwhelming show of the paintings of Joan Mitchell at the SF Museum of Modern Art, a production of Fidelio at the Opera and a fascinating and engaging program at the Symphony. While I will leave to those more knowledgeable than myself to comment on the Mitchell show (Jed Perl has a long essay in the New York Review: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2021/11/04/joan-mitchell-painting-colors-conversation/) and to my spouse to review the Beethoven (staying in my conjugal lane), I would like to talk a bit about the Symphony concert. In fact, over the coming months, it is my plan to visit a different city every month, hear its orchestra and spend some time visiting and thinking about its downtown. Next month I’m planning to visit Cleveland. I’m particularly eager to go to Kansas City and Indianapolis – places to which I’ve not previously been.

The San Francisco Symphony has been widely admired in recent years both for its sound, as well as for its unique programming under its music director of two decades, Michael Tilson Thomas (now, unfortunately, recovering from surgery to remove a brain tumor). Most critical observers agree that the orchestra is the most interesting one, certainly west of Chicago, and perhaps in the country. With MTT’s retirement last year, he was succeeded by Essa Pekka Salonen, the former music director in Los Angeles – and long the object of desire of the New York Philharmonic, of which he has made clear he wants no part. The program that the SFO presented was a knock-out, including Debbusy, Messiaen and Saariaho, following an important stream of French composition from the late 19^th through the early 20^th Century – a current of compositional thought to which I am particularly drawn. Under Salonen’s baton the orchestra sounded, sharp, bright and tightly disciplined. While it didn’t particularly convey that characteristically mellow, French sound for which the Boston Symphony, for example, was once known, the performances did great justice to the music presented, and at the conclusion of the concert, I was delighted not to have to peel myself out of my chair as a result of the enthusiasm of the brass section as is so often the case at the end of Debussy’s La Mer. Debussy also kicked off the concert with Prelude à L’Après-midi d’un faune, showcasing the distinctly personal playing of the woodwind soloists.

But the concert’s featured events were (Oberlin alums) Jeremy Denk playing Oiseaux Exotique and Claire Chase playing Saariaho’s 2001 flute concerto Aile du Songe. Both were outstanding. Worth remaking on is that the Messiaen dispensed with the ensemble’s string sections and the Saariaho was played without winds other than the soloist, setting up an engaging contrast. Both performances made compelling arguments for each of the works. Denk, playing this rhythmically non-intuitive piece from memory, demanded attention – highlighting the contrasts with orchestral writing, and stressing the exotic nature of the bird calls that form the inspiration of the work. Chase’s performance was theatrical and intense. In both cases the orchestra was a committed and skilled partner, making the most of the coloristic writing of these composers, without blurring their impressionistic edges. The playing in La Mer sounded highly rehearsed and polished, reserving dramatic power for the appropriate places. One might argue, after hearing this concert, that the harmonically complex, French impressionist compositional style has ultimately proved a more productive path for composers than the spiky, audience alienating Second Viennese School – which seems to have proved to be something of a dead end.

This engaging program is one, unfortunately, we would be unlikely to ever hear in New York, and it must be said that about a quarter of the auditorium was unsold. This was the sixth concert in a big auditorium we had attended this fall (two at the Met in New York, one at Carnegie, one at Chicago Lyric and one at St. Ann’s warehouse), and while masking is certainly a suboptimal experience, all of those other shows played to full or nearly full houses and I have lived to tell the tale (so far). Fidelio at SFO also appeared to be fully sold.

We visited San Francisco’s newest public space, Salesforce Park, which is on the fourth-floor roof of the new downtown transit center. The transit center is actually a surprisingly appealing bus station – a more unlikely application of an adjective I can scarcely imagine. The loading platforms are airy and bright – as different from New York City’s Port Authority Bus terminal as one might possibly conjure! The park is six acres (the same size as Bryant Park), and most distinctively features a fabulously wide array of plant species from Mediterranean climates around the globe. The creation of roof soil and irrigation conditions to support this biosphere, particularly mature tree specimens of considerable height, is absolutely remarkable.

The operation of the park by BRV Redevelopment Ventures is nearly flawless. The “B” in BRV is Dan Biederman, my former Bryant Park boss, who has outdone himself, fixing a number of the problems we faced on Sixth Avenue, with the possibilities presented by ground-up new construction – particularly an attractively designed and appropriate performance area, something that Bryant Park lacked from day one. The park incorporates the successful Bryant Park tropes – movable chairs, well maintained restrooms, a complete slate of daily programs, a working water feature, meticulous trash removable and discreet security. The sinuous path around the space is often flanked by shaded benches facing the continuously varied gardens. The maintenance of those complex planting beds has to be a major undertaking. Bravo to Dan, his staff and to the design team for a massively, magisterially successful collaboration.

Certainly, the park can only be accessed by a one-way gondola from the Salesforce Plaza and a reasonably large number of elevator banks (and we thought Bryant Park was set off from the street!), making it somewhat inaccessible. I visited on a quiet Saturday – so I didn’t experience the park with a large crowd. But simply the idea of a quiet Saturday in the park is a luxury no longer afforded by Bryant Park, even on a rainy day. That inaccessibility presents the challenge for the park of becoming only an amenity for workers in the Salesforce Tower (now San Francisco’s tallest). But, unlike New York’s High Line, Salesforce Park is a real park (rather than a tourist attraction) which can be enjoyed in a multitude of ways (rather than being principally the experience of walking from one end to the other). It is a triumph for San Francisco and will likely increase in viability and strength as food and other concessions are developed over time.

San Francisco is a great, livable, vibrant city – and its real estate is expensive as a result. It has some serious problems, particularly its underperforming school system. Our reaction to San Francisco as urbanists shouldn’t be to denigrate or bemoan its success, but to work for the creation of more great places in order to enable more people to enjoy the benefits of living in a vital city.