San Francisco Hotel Project8

Rainy 6th Street #2

^{WHITAKER, OAK TREE & HILLSDALE HOTELS – 41, 45 & 51 6TH ST.}

On a wet December evening a little more than a year after I shot Rainy 6th Street #1, I photographed this little scene taking place in front of what was once another neighborhood gathering place, Ginger's, Too.

Clock - Boeddeker Park

^{JONES & EDDY STREETS}

Boeddeker Park is a tiny inner-city park located in the middle of the Tenderloin. Since its opening and dedication over twenty years ago to Fr. Boeddeker, the Franciscan who founded St. Anthony's, the park has been plagued with problems — primarily drug-dealing, open drug and alcohol consumption, gambling and the intimidation of all who are not engaged in these activities. Ironically, the Tenderloin police station is just across the street from the park entrance.

The city's response to these problems was to erect a very tall, stout fence of steel around the perimeter of the park and along both sides of the brick-paved path that runs through the park's middle. The result of this shortsighted and heavy-handed "solution" was to make the park look and feel like a prison. One of the park's nicer features is the clock that stands at its entrance, thankfully outside the fence.

Gates

^{HOTEL GATES – 140 ELLIS ST.}

While the Gates was being renovated, I anticipated the restoration of the hotel’s classic neon sign. Much to everyone's loss, this was not to be. The hotel was renamed “Fusion”, a better name for a nightclub than a hotel, and the sign was transformed from a thing of beauty to a monument to bad taste with a canvas "sock puppet" covering on which the new name was painted in a style intended to appear edgy and hip, but which in reality looks cheap and impermanent. A renovation project that could have done a lot to bolster the historical and architectural integrity of the neighborhood became instead another open wound.

Fading Light

^{LAWRENCE HOTEL – 48 6TH ST.}

Shortly after beginning this photographic series, I captured this image of the last dying embers of a spectacular sunset. The building in the foreground is the Lawrence Hotel and my vantage point was the fire escape of the hotel across the alley where I once lived.

Summer Fog

^{(VANTAGE POINT: PACIFIC BAY INN – 520 JONES ST.)}

It was July 4th, 2004 and I was spending the day with a couple of my friends in their apartment on the 7th floor of the Pacific Bay Inn. This afforded me an excellent view of the lower Tenderloin. I took many photographs from their window that day, most of them in black and white, except for a few color shots I took of Jones Street that night. It was a typical San Francisco summer day, warm and sunny until around 4:00 in the afternoon. Then the fog, lots of it, began to pour in from the ocean.

Imprint of the Past

^{STEVENSON ALLEY BETWEEN 5TH & 6TH STREETS}

The history of this building is indelibly stamped upon it by the changes in its brickwork. The windows and doors were undoubtedly added when the opening through the arch was bricked up. The general design and complexity of the original brickwork hearken back a hundred years, when horses were still in common use. I like to imagine a smithy had his shop set up here (blacksmith shops needed plenty of ventilation and generally had an open wall on one side), where he tended to the needs of some of the City's horses back in the day.

Inner City (Homage to Chester Gould)

^{STEVENSON ALLEY BETWEEN 6TH & 7TH STREETS}

This covered footbridge spans Stevenson Alley just about midway between 6th and 7th Streets. It connects what used to be Weinstein's Department Store and the building that served as that company's office and warehouse space. The department store has been converted into live/work lofts and the one-time warehouse is now the home of a thriving dot.com enterprise. What matters to me is that the footbridge is still there. At one time, such footbridges were numerous in the alleys of San Francisco. This one is the only one remaining in the central city.

Chester Gould was the artist who drew the comic strip Dick Tracy for many years. I loved the way he drew urban settings — they were always ominous and foreboding and the buildings had a tendency to lean inward over the streets, making people appear small and insignificant. He owed a certain debt to film noir, I think; and I owe a debt to him for inspiring this picture.

Time Portal

^{APARTMENTS - 626 O'FARRELL ST. (View from HARLEM ALLEY)}

(formerly Annandale House). 1908. Architect: George A. Dodge. 3 stories, brick facade, entry remodeled in Art Deco style, base more recently remodeled.

In the Tenderloin, near the only 24 hour store in the entire neighborhood, was a little laundromat with the unlikely name of Snow Bell. The Snow Bell Laundromat for many years occupied the ground floor of a tiny, old apartment house that I have always found intriguing, not because it is decrepit, but because it is so modestly genteel in its decrepitude. It is a very old building. Along one side is Harlem Alley, a narrow lane leading to a small, gated parking area that is mostly hidden by the Admiral Hotel next door. The distance from the edge of the sidewalk to the gate is no more than six feet, but the six feet of wall that is exposed there speaks volumes.

Desmond

^{DESMOND HOTEL – 42 6TH ST.}

When I first started to photograph these old residential hotels I made it a point to include their signs as I framed the buildings in my lens. I am now particularly glad that I did this since several of the old signs have disappeared forever, having been consigned to History's dustbin in the name of "modernization". The sign for the Desmond Hotel is gone, replaced by a canvas awning that looks like an enormous shoebox.

Summer Evening - The Tenderloin

^{(VANTAGE POINT: PACIFIC BAY INN - 520 JONES ST.)}

This is one of a handful of nighttime shots that I took from the seventh floor of the Pacific Bay Inn on July 4th, 2004. I love the way all of the buildings are lit from below, making their features stand out in sharp relief.

Invocation

^{SHREE GANESHAI HOTEL – 68 6TH ST.}

This hotel was my home for nearly six years. The title of this image is derived from the name of the hotel — Shree Ganeshai. Many centuries ago Sanskrit scholars began their writings with an invocation to God, usually the one their family worshipped. One such invocation, to Ganesh, was “Shree ganeshaya namah”. In the Hindu pantheon Ganesh is the god with an elephant's head, the god who brought writing to the world by breaking off one of his tusks to use as a pen, and therefore the god of wisdom and auspicious beginnings. Over time the invocation came to be used before starting any activity and was gradually shortened until “shree ganesh” sufficed as a prayer for an auspicious beginning. The phrase is used today before any beginning, whether it is a meal, a journey, or a task. During my time at this hotel it was comforting to know that I lived within an endless prayer to Ganesh.

Encroaching Fog

^{(VANTAGE POINT: PACIFIC BAY INN – 520 JONES ST.)}

Minutes before I captured the image I call Summer Fog, I took this picture of the old skyscraper that was the Empire Hotel in one of its former incarnations. The one-time luxury hotel shows up in a number of my photographs. It tends to stick out, although usually more in the background, simply because it is the tallest building in the neighborhood. I gave it the leading role here and in Summer Fog because it looks so dramatic against the fog.

Sunset - The Senator

^{HOTEL SENATOR – 519 ELLIS ST.}

1923. Architect: H.C. Baumann. 6 stories, stucco facade, totally new entry, marquee stripped & replaced.

This image is one of those serendipitous "right place, right time" shots, captured as the 2004 "Art In the Streets" celebration was winding down. I had spent several hours that day photographing the festivities and was standing below the Senator's sign, talking to a friend. The sun had been setting for awhile and I was looking for things to photograph in the reddening light. The Senator's sign said, "Shoot me!" and so I did.

My Back Yard

^{(VANTAGE POINT: SHREE GANESHAI HOTEL – 68 6TH ST.)}

I captured this image from the roof of my hotel a few minutes after I captured Island Out of Time. The Lawrence Hotel, of which just a corner is visible, is the closest building. Directly behind it is the Seneca Hotel. A small part of the building that is the subject of Daybreak is visible just above the roof line of the Lawrence before it intersects with the line of the Seneca's rear wall. The phallic structure in the background is the McAllister Tower. What appears to be the platform for an artillery turret is framework that once supported a rooftop water tank. Many of the older buildings in San Francisco have still-functioning water tanks, built in response to the devastation caused by the conflagration that followed the 1906 earthquake.

Nazareth

^{NAZARETH HOTEL – 556 JONES ST.}

(formerly Hotel Towanda). 1913. Architect: A.A. Schroepfer. Engineer: H.J. Brunnier. 7 stories, brick & galvanized iron facade, base painted, new door.

The Nazareth Hotel sits at the edge of the Tenderloin on the corner of Geary and Jones. Its battered, weather-beaten sign is awkward and far from beautiful, looking out of place with the hotel; but it was the sign that attracted me, not the hotel. After some searching I found the sign's "home", framed against the visual anarchy of a tangle of nearby fire escapes and pipes.

Under Lowering Skies

^{HELEN HOTEL – 166 TURK ST.}

(formerly El Rosa Hotel). 1906. 3 stories, facade stripped.

I like stormy weather and turbulent skies as much as I like early mornings and dusk. I am also a lover of old, painted advertisements, and this "7up" sign is one of the best that (for the time being, anyway) is still extant. There is another, even older, hand-painted sign farther back on the same wall, but that is a different picture, captured on a different day.

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