Urban renewal

When I was a kid, we used to take the Southern Pacific into San Francisco from the Sunnyvale station. Now it's Caltrain, but it used to be Southern Pacific.

In those days the SP Depot was this Mission Revival building with a ceiling the height of an airplane hanger and wooden benches and ticket counters and a huge clock on the wall, and across the street there was a Doggie Diner with the big plastic dachshund head wearing a chef's hat.

Normally you would take the 30 bus from the SP Depot at least as far as Market Street because the area from 4th and Townsend where the depot was to Market Street was pretty run down.

I walked it once, all the way up 4th Street to Market. I remember what really made an impression on me was this woman who looked like Etta James, the '70s-era full-figured Etta James, complete with blond wig, high heels and snug-fitting black cocktail dress, chatting with one of her neighbors in the doorway of an apartment building and holding a leash attached to a white miniature poodle.

The Doggie Diner is long gone, of course. So is the SP Depot, replaced with a ticket booth made out of concrete slabs and glass and aluminum.

And much of 4th Street has turned into some kind of family fun area. In fact, they moved the old carousel from Playland at the Beach over there, which is great. I mean, the kid loves it over there, and they don't make me buy a ticket to stand next to the kid, which I definitely appreciate.

But why does everything have to be so squared off and devoid of kitschy accident? Where is my Doggie Diner head? Where is Etta James and her poodle? How is this space supposed to fire my child's imagination? It's all too sterile, predictable, bland.

But I figure I can just take him to Children's Fairyland in Oakland, and that kind of balances it all out.

Kurt "big daddy" True
15 january 2008