69. When Cities Work

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Finally a shot of the refused left flank of that new building going up on Bush. This facet of the building preserves natural light (and views) for both the neighboring Russ building and the new structure.

The Green Door building

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that no one else, writing about city planning and the urban experience, would ever choose this building as an example of the city at its best, but all those straw-men would be wrong, wrong, wrong.

The chief virtue of this building is everything it has going against it. On the Bush street level,

My building of interest is the small structure housing the market. Note that it is dwarfed by both the residential building on the right and the parking garage on the left. 

In this view you can see that, in addition to the market, there is also a small restaurant and a fairly famous bar named The Tunnel Top.


...it lies a block too far down a recently gentrifying street and a block too far up a hill from one of the City's highlight intersections -- where the Union Square shopping district meets Chinatown's tourist extension at the Chinatown Gate. (There's an odd, but ingenious, three block Chinatown finger or limb or root that taps into the Ghost world right at the heart of the French Quarter, across from Cafe de la Press. The real Chinatown starts at Sacramento and extends north but also east and west. Grant street south of Sacramento is Chinese only in the buildings facing Grant itself.) But back to my building of interest...

On the Stockton street level,

This is the view looking down on the lower level of Stockton from Bush. Note the Green Door Massage sign to the right.

This is the view looking back down lower Stockton toward Bush. Here you can see the Stockton tunnel that runs under Nob Hill, below both Bush street and upper Stockton, to the real Chinatown.


...it faces a huge parking garage and anchors one end of a block of opportunistic businesses that thrive (I hope) in old buildings in a zero status location on the edge of a good neighborhood.

The south section of the block: (I'm ignoring what will be a CVS pharmacy if they ever finish work on the place) The red awning belongs to an upscale hotel and bar.

Boba Guys is a popular new addition. There's always a line.

Mana is a pretty decent taqueria.

This story has to start with The Green Door itself. Trying to find some background I found THIS, even better, instead. I think I would like Katy St. Clair. With that as an appetizer, here's my understanding of the layout of the building, but first a little about the unique geographic character of the structure. 

Even in San Francisco it's unique to have a building with street access to one street on the third floor and street access to another street on the ground floor. And then there's the civic stairs next to the tunnel that connects the Bush and Stockton sidewalks. As near as I can tell (without bothering to get a massage), the third floor is divided between the bar, restaurant, and market. The ground floor is divided between the salon, photography store, shoe repair place, and the massage parlor. I assume most of the massage parlor is on the second floor.

This is probably the best view of the building. The small arch on the right leads to the pedestrian walkway through the tunnel and also to the stairs that lead up to Bush. A year ago I would have said the stairs/urinal, but this is one of the places they've used this special paint that caused urine to bounce back onto you if you releave yourself against the wall. To my surprise, it has been effective... though not perfect.

The shoe repair place (decent for simple jobs) shares an entrance with the massage parlor. A friend of mine took all her new paintings to the photography business in the center to have professional images made for submitting to gallery competitions. While waiting for the photographer to finish with the painting so I could put them back in the van, I noticed the interior of the salon on the right which is stylishly white and clean, as you would expect.

So seven business operating in this one little, old building in a questionable location. While I said the location is off the beaten path, there is still decent foot traffic especially down on Stockton where three busy bus lines stop. Still, I think the main advantage for business in this block is reasonable rents due to the age and condition of the buildings, and that no business with options would opt to settle here. These are the kind of buildings Jane Jacobs had in mind when she claimed shiny new developments are not supportive to city life.

But remember I'm also the guy who always wants to find a way to sneak around Jane Jacobs' rules. That so much can be packed into this single block (ignoring the Bush street addendum for the moment) suggests that really tiny zones of below market rate commercial rents could make a big difference in a city. A city, or a non-profit, could conceivably organize and sponsor something like this. The less desirable the location, the lower the rents would have to be. The more businesses the better. Call it a commercial incubator if necessary, though it would be better if successful businesses could persist at the same location for an extended period. 

Postscript

It turns out the name Green Door, and even the porno Behind the Green Door, are probably a reference to a song from the mid 1950s. Here's "Green Door."

Next - 70. A new book