61. Fadeaway Girl

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Reading

Back at the same seat in Peet's on Market Street. The woman next to me at this counter/table asked me to watch her stuff and I said sure. And at first I was just doing the usual Interwebs stuff so I was paying attention to her belongings -- or at least I would have been aware if anyone came by and messed with it. But then I switched to reading a chapter of Martha Grimes's Fadeaway Girl (but also here) and someone could have sawed her part of the counter off and taken it with them and I probably wouldn't have noticed. It was a short chapter, too. And only the one because we are down to the dregs of the world of Emma Graham and I'm trying to drag it out as much as I can. 

I think this is only the second time I've read this volume, anyway I don't recall much of the plot. And the chapter I was reading was actually plot heavy, for a change. Though even here it was more about what Emma was feeling than about what was happening. But at least what was happening was germane to the chain of crimes the novels are pretending to be about. 

Market Street

Back 24 years ago when I lived way up Market in Fox Plaza, I couldn't help noticing how the buildingsx along this diagonal street, Fox Plaza in particular, frequently created eddies of trash at entrances and other points where the shape of the building interacted with the near constant (and often fierce) wind in just the right way. Today they have to model new buildings to optimize (or minimize) the way they block the wind, but back then they just built and then tried to ignore the negative results. After all, it was some janitorial employee making minimum wage who had to pick up the trash that collected in every recess of the building.

There is a similar recess at the entrance of this Peet's, but what I see constantly blowing in, sometimes through and other times coming to rest, are the people of the streets. There is a complete revitalization of Market Street scheduled for not too far in the future. The current street-scape is a result of the construction project that put BART and Muni Metro trains underneath the street in the 1960s and 1970s. Since then little has changed, but everything has aged. Hallidie Plaza, for example, was a part of that same transit project and in the years since they have had to remove all the benches and trees to reduce crime and "blight." 

The excruciatingly creative types who will be crafting the new street design will be doing a cunning dance as they attempt to tart up the Mid-Market blocks -- where Twitter and Uber and Dolby have been encouraged to settle -- while discouraging the camping of the more feral elements. I don't envy them. The Seattle Public Library approach is probably the best, give them an area to inhabit that is convenient to them while not essential to the people with more work-a-day interests. But that requires the designers (and client) be realistic and honest. I would guess that this, instead, will be a design process within a world of pretend. In any case, it will be interesting to see what they come up with.

Next - 62. Braunstein + Trump