How to Be Depressed in San Francisco
Written: May 28 '01 (Updated May 29 '01)
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Pros: For the existentialist: fog, climbing steep hills, public displays of despair.
Cons: For the optimist: fog, climbing steep hills, public displays of despair.
The Bottom Line: See pros and cons.
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| Urbanist's Full Review: San Francisco |
Note: This piece is one in an occasional series on traveling for people inclined to depression or at least a certain existential or fatalistic world view. (The boundary between the official illness of depression and a mere existential world view is something I'll leave to greater minds than mine; I seem to cross it haphazardly all the time, and nobody has checked my passport.) Nothing in these pieces is meant to trivialize depression, a serious and underdiagnosed condition which I know firsthand, and which is best managed by remaining amused.
For the depressed tourist, San Francisco may be the ultimate challenge. Spectacular beyond all description, the city reveals a new panorama every few moments as you travel through it, striking diagonals that disorient and inspire. Even the famous fog can often be an inspiration, especially as viewed from the east side of the city where it often hangs over Twin Peaks like a pure, meditative thought, occasionally giving off wisps that vanish selflessly into the blue.
The depressed or existentialist tourist, then, needs to approach San Francisco with care, lest sudden epiphanies hurl one too abruptly into a childlike marveling at the beauty of the world. No, simply walking with your head down won't do it. There are too many hills, not to mention traffic hazards and diverse sidewalk obstructions, for you to maintain this pose for long. It's easy to cultivate a rich and memorable downer in San Francisco, but you'll need some tips:
When To Go
Summer. "The coldest winter I ever spent," Mark Twain hyperbolically said, "was a summer in San Francisco." July and August, especially, are the months when San Francisco is likely to offer citywide fog and blistering cold wind. Happy-minded tourists inevitably come to the city with suitcases full of shorts, sandals, and thin Hawaiian-print shirts. All those smiles emanating from the cable cars are really the rictus grins of people gritting their teeth to stay warm.
Dress warmly. Besides, a suitcase full of warm clothes is harder to lug around, offering a nice ball-and-chain effect that always enriches a good funk.
Those #$*@% Panoramas
Even in the summer, alas, the city is spectacular. Inevitably, you'll find yourself on some hilltop gazing at a dramatic sweep taking in the great mottled whiteness of the city's diverse and crowded buildings along with all variety of landmarks. You'll also probably see water, the Bay or the Pacific, and one or more of the city's great parks, patches of screaming green in the generally whitish gray panorama of the city.
Even in fog, it can be inspiring. If you want to put your depression to the ultimate test, go to Sacramento & Mason and look east at the shaft-view along Sacramento Street; skyscrapers wall in the street on both sides, but between them you see a vertical core-sample of the waterfront, the Bay, distant lands to the east, and impossibly high, a slice of the Bay Bridge.
What to do? Well, to get here, you've probably already walked uphill. It was work, kind of tedious, and your legs ache, but you also have an alarmingly antidepressant sense of achievement. Now, however, you have to walk down. And on the steep hills of this city, walking downhill is almost as hard as walking up. Like the apocryphal elders who tell us that they walked miles to school in the snow "uphill both ways," you face a topography where down might as well be up, because you'll work almost as hard braking yourself on the steep descent as you did climbing to get here.
Before you walk down, though, take a moment to notice some really depressing buildings:
Bank of America Tower. This is the 50-story dark brown thing with corrugated sides that sits near the Transamerica Pyramid. Way out of proportion even in the highrise financial district, this beast is a permanent scar on the skyline. (For extra credit, walk to this building and feel its oppressive mass, while also enjoying the matching black marble orb of corporate art on its chilling steps, known to locals as "The Banker's Heart").
The Federal Building. Just north of the grand dome of City Hall is a huge black rectangular solid that looks like an alien implant. One of the worst examples of 1960s-era Brutalist architecture anywhere (and this is saying a great deal), it mars almost any view of downtown, and offers a nice focal point for those who would tire of too much beauty. Like the Bank of America tower, it is too large for future development ever to hide it.
St. Mary's Cathedral, locally known as "Mother Mary Maytag" or "The World's Largest Philips Screwdriver." Shaped, indeed, like the head of a Philips screwdriver or the agitator of a washing machine, this concrete upwelling slices into the sky with a violence that feels, well, not especially Christian to this viewer. Even by modernist standards, its interior is dramatic and (be careful!) kind of uplifting. The gray parabolic slopes of the exterior, though, practically cry out: "All concrete leads to God!"
and finally, above it all:
Sutro Tower. In a city studded with prominent structures, the most prominent of all is the one that everyone tries to ignore. Many guidebooks don't even mention it. Yet Sutro Tower, the huge, vaguely hourglass-shaped broadcasting tower rising from near the city's highest point, is the only structure visible from practically anywhere in the region. Its shape is not intrinsically depressing, but the authorities who regulate these things have made it grim by painting it with the requisite horizontal bands of red and white. If the structure were painted the same color as the Golden Gate Bridge, it might be, well, uplifting. Fortunately for you as a depressed person, Sutro Tower gazes down on you in a hideous grin made of prison-uniform stripes.
People of the Streets
Once you get down off the hills and walk the neighborhood streets of San Francisco, you can find grist for grim feeling even in the nicest neighborhoods. For best effect, notice the people, especially:
The Prone Homeless people attempt to sleep pretty much everywhere. By and large, San Francisco's homeless are older people in very serious trouble. Locals learn not to let a human-shaped heap of old blankets in the corner of a parking lot ruin their joyous strolls, but if you want to be reminded of how cruel a wealthy society can be, gaze at them. Don't worry, they won't notice you.
The Panhandlers If you walk in a neighborhood that has lots of pedestrian activity, you can expect to be asked for money at a rate averaging at least once per block. For maximum depressive effect, notice the diversity of these people. They are of every race, every age (though older on average), and their range of personal styles is as great as that of the whole population. On one block of Market Street downtown you may encounter (a) a couple of casual black guys in baggy pants who may call you "bro" regardless of your race and noncommittally hold out a can, usually taking no offense when you pass by, (b) a 60+ woman primly dressed in 40-year old clothes who politely says "even a dime would help", (c) a conventional older drunk, who usually knows not to try to walk, calling out to you from his position of last collapse and (d) a man with a small cardboard sign asking for money for cat food, accompanied by his cats, because the homeless discovered long ago that the average American would rather give to cats than to people.
The Solo Performers Finally, many people walk the streets of San Francisco talking rather loudly to nobody in particular. These, too, are not unique to San Francisco, but seem especially intense here. Usually, they seem to be reliving or rehearsing some tirade about some past oppression. Many are probably entirely justified, but there's no sorting them out. Some of their stories, even caught in passing, can be quite baroque. Don't follow them, though, in hopes of an ending. These stories don't really end.
Depressing, no? Of course, these problems are not unique to San Francisco, but having travelled plenty of comparably-sized cities, there's no question that San Francisco is a national leader in the way it prominently displays its most desperate and miserable citizens. It's not that the city is cruel; many argue the opposite, that this liberal city's generosity in helping the homeless draws more of them here. This is one of those chicken-and-egg problems that can turn a funk into a serious downer (if it doesn't first get you into a roaring Swiftian political fight between those who scream "chicken" and those who scream "egg"). So even if you're seeking cause for depression, exposure to the street people of San Francisco should be taken in moderation.
Places to Go
While it is possible to be depressed in almost any neighborhood of the city, especially in the fog, you'll find the most intense depressive experiences in neighborhoods just west of downtown. Walk straight west from Union Square (or the Powell & Market cable car terminus) and in a few blocks you'll be in one of the city's bleakest areas, the Tenderloin, where all kinds of misery (as well as various illegal services) tend to be on especially prominent display. For maximum depression, try not to notice the Asian (mostly Vietnamese) children playing in the very constrained spaces of this crowded and traffic-plagued area -- because if you notice how much fun they're having, you may realize that happiness is possible anywhere, and then your depression will be in real trouble.
Finally, if you appreciate literary gloom, don't miss City Lights Bookstore, famous as the hangout of Beat figures like Kerouac and Ferlinghetti. It's certainly the best place in the city to buy existentialist, socialist, and other angry literatures, all organized under classical Marxist subject-headings. (No other store in the state, I imagine, has a "Commodity Aesthetics" section.) It's also gloomy, dusty, crowded, and if you go downstairs, seriously oxygen-deprived. If you buy something, you'll also get to deal with the staff, mostly young people selected and trained for an almost Parisian hauteur. The more money you spend, the more they'll make you feel how worthless you are. Just another sucker, you imagine them thinking, as you emerge onto noisy Columbus Avenue with your new collection of books, one City Lights bag in a crowd of thousands.
Since you've probably left your bags at the hotel, the bag of books is your new ball-and-chain. Don't just sit down in the wonderful adjacent Vesuvio's bar and start reading. Haul your worldly burden up nearby Telegraph Hill first. Notice the vista, and return to the "Panoramas" section of this piece for tips on how to experience it.
Repeat as desired ...
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Singles
Best Time to Travel Here: Jun - Aug
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Urbanist
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Location: San Francisco
Reviews written: 78
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About Me:
Streetwise, academically credentialed gay renaissance man. For real bio, click "more" in profile.
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