CHAPTER ONE

The Story

Before the boom of tech brought a great city to its knees, San Francisco was a nice place. Yes, it was raw, filthy, foggy, and shining-brilliant white. The air would smell of eucalyptus, citrus and fresh oysters. There was poverty and sadness. And there were days when the mist would carry the smell of ocean spray across the great city, while the sands of Baker Beach lay cool and bare, with waves pounding like a slow heart.

The Mission was a Hispanic neighborhood then. The birthplace of burritos. The corners of blocks were flea markets, and the streets were lined with thrift shops, closet-sized liquor stores and storefront churches. You could buy one hundred tortillas for a dollar or, at a cafeteria, a stale donut and a coffee for forty-nine cents. Decades-old cars were still clinging to life. Palm trees rose above the streets.

It seemed that the entire city was made of the same light-toned cement. There were stucco houses painted every shade of white and every color of bleached pastel. Further inland, great wooden houses stood proudly–their elaborate woodwork painted in bold colors. And when the sun shone strongly through the fog, the city-hills had a ghostly, almost holy, glow.

North Beach, The Mission, Chinatown, Haight; San Francisco was a city made of unique neighborhoods packed tightly together on a seven-by-seven mile peninsula. There was a beauty in the old streetcars, cable cars, ferry-boats and bridges. Even the dated subway stations had a certain...