Growing Up in San Francisco Read online

  Large retail stores such as Emporium represented stable employment for thousands of local residents, particularly women. Here, the store’s employees are attending a 1940s staff meeting on the main floor prior to store opening. Courtesy of San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.

  For many others, in that long-ago era before online commerce and stores like Costco, Walmart and Target came onto the scene, much of the city’s retail life revolved around department stores such as the Emporium on Market Street. Founded in 1896, the store had achieved a solid ninety-nine-year run when it finally breathed its last in 1995. For decades, downtown shopping was a regular destination for household basics, including January and August “white sales” on linens, birthday gifting and holiday events such as roof rides at the Emporium. It was only after World War II that stores began to open suburban branches, thereby diluting the whole experience of “getting dressed up to go downtown.”

  Utility companies such as AT&T, PT&T and PG&E were considered to be bastions of solid employment and secure retirement for generations of relatives and family friends, and these businesses offered solid career opportunities to women and minorities long before some other firms did so. The job of telephone operator was a highly marketable skill that could be used at any number of large businesses, operating a PBX (private branch exchange) or switchboard.

  Likewise, San Francisco was home base to multiple insurance companies—the Equitable, Royal Globe, Fireman’s Fund and others—that also employed tens of thousands of residents to sell their products, collect payments, respond to customer inquiries and process claims. All of them offered entry-level positions that could lead to steady career progression.

  Government work—at the federal, state or local level—has long been regarded as a smooth career path, with steadily rising wages, excellent benefits and a predictable retirement income from a stable source—the taxpayer. Particularly in San Francisco, with its large numbers of school-age children—well over 10 percent of the population back in the 1950s and 1960s—schoolteachers, librarians and support staff were constantly in demand and well compensated in both salary and benefits.

  Today, telephone call centers serve most types of businesses, clustering employees into row after row of cubicles, often with scant training, and frequently located on a remote continent in another hemisphere. Pay is often low, and success rates vary widely by institution, with frequent staff turnover. The negative similarity to the old factory assembly line remains an inevitable comparison.

  Likewise, retailers have replaced professionally trained sales staffs with a handful of “cashiers” whose only job is to take payments and move customers out the door (often just after they have strong-armed that particular individual into opening a new credit card account). As I learned this past Christmas, wrapping a customer’s purchase is no longer a free amenity because of bizarre local ordinances regarding the use of bags—the sweater I purchased at one large department store was thrust into my hand, along with the accompanying receipt, for me to lug around under my arm for the rest of the day.

  Where have all the good jobs and the accompanying steady pay and benefits gone? Today, Bank of America is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, while several of the products that I once serviced for it in seventeen years of employment (travelers’ cheques, Visa/Mastercard and stock transfer/bond registration) are businesses that B of A has since divested. Many of the operations that used to take place in downtown office buildings (555 California, 550 Montgomery, 55 Hawthorne, 1455 Market, 1 Powell, 1 South Van Ness—was there a conscious pattern of numerology in the bank’s selection of office sites?) were long ago moved to remote locations such as Concord, while the credit card operation was shifted to Phoenix in the 1980s. Likewise, Wells Fargo, though still with a headquarters in San Francisco, conducts many of its operations out of Minnesota and South Dakota. Crocker, UCB, Hibernia and Security-Pacific are ancient names, sometimes represented by a dusty, abandoned building, following multiple mergers and acquisitions.

  Retailers like the Emporium, Roos-Atkins, I. Magnin, Joseph Magnin and many others are long gone, and even the popular Williams-Sonoma Call Center where I once taught the intricacies of catalogue sales and customer service operations to classrooms full of enthusiastic new hires in the mid-1990s long ago abandoned San Francisco in favor of Las Vegas, Oklahoma City and other locales, with an extensive warehouse operation in Memphis, Tennessee.

  The San Francisco Unified School District, famous for its series of pink-slip layoff notices that began in the late 1970s, has certainly lost its luster as a premier employer, and the daily challenges encountered in today’s classrooms are no longer offset by present-day salaries and benefits.

  Even positions in the healthcare industry have changed drastically. Insurance programs and advances in medicine have both contributed to shorter hospital stays, and many rehabilitation facilities are no longer located in San Francisco. In addition, many maintenance jobs have disappeared over time, with the introduction of single-use, disposable sterile implements.

  A few high school and college classmates of mine went to work for the airlines—as flight attendants, customer service agents, maintenance crews or pilots. However, deregulation and countless mergers have undermined their lives, pensions and employee benefits considerably over the last forty years.

  Having graduated from St. Ignatius, further education was a given, and virtually all of my 250 high school classmates were college-bound. Many knew that they were headed for careers in medicine or law, and their choices were straightforward, but many of us remained “undeclared” college majors for a long time. Almost without exception, though, those who opted for positions with the SFPD or the SFFD—with or without a four-year degree—seem to have achieved economic stability and comfortable retirements long before the rest of us.

  Nursing schools, present in many local hospitals, trained thousands for a lifelong profession, such as these graduates from the Children’s Hospital Class of 1954. Courtesy of San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.

  Opening a small business used to be popular in San Francisco. Just figure out what was needed in a neighborhood—hardware store, shoe repair, deli—and you were soon ready to begin raking in the money. Now, if the competition from big chains does not sink your plans, the regulations and permit process will likely do so. The City of San Francisco’s website for small businesses advises that a minimum of five licenses or permits are now required to open something as simple as a sandwich shop—even more if the place plans to offer seating or sell alcoholic beverages. Many people give up before even reading to the end of the website.

  Today, tech skills are highly prized and are often more important than academic achievements. Of course, the ultimate challenge today, after landing a job in San Francisco, is finding a place to live that is an easy commute to work.

  That, however, remains a topic for future discussion.

  13

  HOME SWEET HOME

  When recalling the past, most of us will invariably begin to recall what life was like when we were finally out on our own, out of school and away from our parents’ homes for the first time.

  Hang on for some interesting then-and-now comparisons.

  In the immediate post–World War II era, many of our parents were able to marry and purchase homes for themselves prior to raising families. Yes, there were some financial pressures back then, but there was still a great deal of open space in San Francisco, so the law of supply and demand worked in favor of first-time home buyers back then.

  Even as late as the mid-1970s, San Francisco rents were moderate enough that many young people could afford a place of their own. Back then, many downtown office workers seemed to gravitate to the west side of San Francisco when looking for a place to live. The Marina was a place for older Italian families, Noe Valley was still a blue-collar enclave and today’s newly trending areas—South Beach, the Mission, the Excelsior, Bernal Heights, Dogpatch—
weren’t even on the radar of most people. The whole notion of employer-sponsored commute buses running from San Francisco to Santa Clara County was unthinkable at that time. In those pre-Craigslist days, would-be renters often focused on the Inner Sunset and the entire Richmond District while poring over the San Francisco Chronicle’s real estate listings with their morning coffee and the Herb Caen column.

  That was how I found my first apartment at Parkmerced in 1976. As a recent college grad who had just begun working full time as a claims adjuster at Bank of America making $800 a month, my rent was $200, or one-quarter of my gross salary—a standard ratio in those days. Parking, water, gas and garbage collection were all included, leaving me with just a telephone and an electric bill each month—no Internet, cell phones, smart phones, texting, laptops, GPS devices, e-readers or streaming videos—not even a countertop microwave back in those days. Since it was a bit of a hike to the M-Oceanview streetcar or a wait for the 17-Parkmerced bus to West Portal, I often drove to work (at a time when parking downtown cost me exactly $25 per month—just over $1 per workday). Life was good, and with an extra part-time job, I actually managed to save a bit every month.

  In the post–World War II years, many couples purchased homes prior to the time they began raising families. Note the ashtray and the cigarette box—popular accessories of the era—on the coffee table of this home on Stratford Drive near Stonestown in 1950. Courtesy of the Alan and Ruth Mildwurm Family Collection.

  One college friend was renting a small in-law apartment at the back of a garage in a Richmond District home on 42nd Avenue, complete with a miniature kitchen and bathroom, at a very reasonable rent—far less than mine. There was a problem with smells drifting upward, though, and any time the cooking involved spices stronger than salt and pepper, the landlady was knocking on the door complaining. Likewise, any shower lasting longer than just a few minutes managed to deplete the capacity of the home’s ancient hot-water heater. The unit, directly below the landlady’s bedroom, also amplified the sound of her incessant snoring, and when she watched the evening news without her hearing aids, every word spoken by Walter Cronkite was clearly audible in the downstairs unit. My friend quickly realized why the rent was so low on this “great” place.

  Couples who married shortly after college graduation in the mid-1970s often seemed to settle near Irving Street in the Inner Sunset. Parking was a regular challenge whenever they had friends over, and invariably, some of the nosier neighbors tended to comment on what had been seen in the trash—“My, Stouffer’s for dinner a lot this week…”—to the point that most of these newlyweds wanted to move on to something else very quickly.

  Another friend rented a large studio on California Street near Arguello, which gave her a variety of easy MUNI options for getting into downtown. As gasoline prices began to soar in the late 1970s, though, the 1-California, 2-Clement and 38-Geary all became so overcrowded with riders who were leaving their cars at home that the buses were regularly bypassing her and other waiting morning passengers because they were over capacity before ever reaching her stop at Arguello. After several morning hikes to catch the 31-Balboa or the old 5-McAllister on Fulton, my friend began searching for a new apartment closer to the beach so that she would be assured of a seat every morning.

  During those same years, one former classmate found a great, though pricey, studio apartment on the north side of Twin Peaks, yet the costlier rent was offset by the fact that he could walk to work near University of San Francisco. It was an easy downhill stroll getting there, though the trip home was significantly harder—all uphill, and with several flights of both exterior and interior stairs before reaching the tiny apartment itself. The place had a spectacular view, though visitors often felt like mountain goats struggling up an Alpine incline and many of his guests gave up long before getting there, since the nearest parking spot was often at one of the public garages near UC Medical Center.

  For most baby boomers, the roommate situation—fraught with peril both then and now—was always a fallback position to be avoided if possible. In the past, typical complaints about roomies involved messiness, cigarette smoking or a blaring television or stereo when others were trying to sleep. Chronicle articles over the last decade or so have highlighted a whole new series of “roommate-from-hell” issues: sharing a studio apartment with nothing more than a curtain dividing the sleeping areas or roommates running a methamphetamine lab in the kitchen, cultivating marijuana in a closet, operating a house of prostitution in their bedroom or manufacturing fireworks in the garage (these last few issues apparently being “new” problems in the once-tranquil Sunset District).

  For many renters, if things did not work out, they could always move—and “For Rent” signs were once a certain sign of spring in San Francisco. Since 1979, San Francisco’s rent-control ordinance has helped many people maintain some affordability in housing, though the downside comes when someone decides that it is time to move but cannot afford to give up a rent-controlled unit and take a chance on what the current market has to offer.

  Once MUNI’s Market Street subway began operation in 1980, more people began selecting a place to live that was near a streetcar line, thus increasing the popularity of Cole Valley. This invariably led to the same problems experienced by my friend on California Street. After my move from Parkmerced to the Sunset in 1979, I sometimes got onto the N-Judah at 22nd Avenue on a weekday morning, though from 9th Avenue and Judah Street all the way to the Duboce Tunnel entrance at Cole and Carl Streets, waiting passengers were being passed up because the streetcar was packed to the rafters.

  Then there were home furnishings—another area where boomers exhibited a strong sense of thrift. Almost all of us had a table and chair set that had been relegated to our parents’ basements decades earlier. Whether wood or Formica, these items had seen long, hard years of use, and now they were our standard place for meals, board games, typing grad school term papers and hanging out with friends.

  Another item in every single 1970s boomer apartment was the “cinderblock-and-plywood” bookcase, often dressed up with wood-grain contact paper on the shelves. These graced thousands of living rooms, at least until marriage, when a new spouse declared, “Those have got to go…” Old textbooks (remember the Norton Anthologies of English literature?) and paperback novels filled the shelves, along with rows of vinyl record albums in their covers, all standing on end. In those days, a Sony Trinitron television and a stereo receiver with turntable and movable speakers made up all the electronics in the home. A Smith-Corona portable electric typewriter constituted the “home office,” and a rubber plant in the bookcase or a hanging fern in the window rounded out the décor.

  Mismatched plates and glasses from the kitchen of a deceased grandparent were standard for early kitchens, though sturdy oversized mugs from Cost Plus were the choice for morning coffee rather than tiny cups and saucers. And no matter how scruffy the juice glasses, most of us had a couple of nice matching wine glasses to grace the dinner table when serving the Carlo Rossi jug wine that had to be kept under the sink because of the large size of its gallon bottle. Pots and pans were often of the mismatched variety, but there was always a large Pyrex baking dish and an enormous round serving bowl for the inevitable lasagna or spaghetti dinners shared with family and friends. For those who found cooking to be too much of a challenge, many nearby restaurants offered substantial meals at moderate prices from late morning through the wee small hours of the next morning.

  Grocery shopping in those days might have found us at one of the older, smaller 1950s-era Safeway stores or else one of the many small neighborhood grocery stores that still dotted the western half of San Francisco—Pine Lake Market on Vicente Street, Carriage Market on Noriega Street, Sunset Super on Irving Street, Lick Supermarket on 6th Avenue in the Richmond, Sutro Super on Point Lobos Avenue in the Outer Richmond—you just had to remember when the weekend was approaching, since most of these places were usually closed on Sundays. There was nothing r
esembling Costco, Walmart, Sam’s Club or Trader Joe’s for groceries, and those tiny apartment-sized refrigerators necessitated food shopping every few days.

  Although “across the line” in Daly City, Joe’s of Westlake was popular with thousands of San Franciscans from the day it opened in 1956. Photograph by John Byrne.

  The Coliseum Theatre was damaged by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and forced to close. It sat vacant for years but was eventually revitalized with housing units built inside the shell of the original building, plus new ground-floor retail space. Jack Tillmany Collection.

  Sutro Baths, Fleishhacker Pool and Playland all disappeared between 1966 and 1972, yet there were still many low-cost local entertainment options in the mid-1970s. The Alexandria, Bridge, Coronet, Coliseum, El Rey, Parkside and Surf theatres were all still in operation, along with the Mission and Geneva Drive-Ins just over the line in San Mateo County. Date night at any of these places, snacks included, might cost about five dollars per couple.

  Front Room Pizza on Clement Street still featured ten-cent beer one night a week. The Hot House was operating on Balboa Street, plus Tien Fu at 21st Avenue and Noriega, with Zim’s locations still dotting the city for late-night eats. There were no McDonald’s, Jack in the Box or Carl’s Jr. outlets in those days, but there was always Beep’s on Ocean Avenue near City College for a quick bite to eat.

  Many rock music venues were also still in business in those days, and even a couple of tickets to a Giants home game at Candlestick Park on a Saturday afternoon, plus snacks, would yield change from a ten-dollar bill. The iconic S.N.A.C.K. (Students Need Athletics, Culture and Kicks) concert, organized for March 1975 in support of public school programs, offered music in Golden Gate Park by the Doobie Brothers, Jefferson Starship, Jerry Garcia, Joan Baez, Tower of Power, Neal Young and others for a mere five-dollar advance purchase.