A Frisky Feeling by the Bay

SAN FRANCISCO —  Isn’t it a comfort to see L.A.’s beloved old Pacific Electric streetcar running again, all red and shiny and full of wide-eyed straphangers? Here it comes along the Embarcadero, looking just as the old rolling stock must have looked in 1940, zipping from Bunker Hill to Burbank.

Since March, this replica has been running all day, every day along the refurbished waterfront in this city, joined by a few dozen others painted to mimic old streetcars from around the world.

Board the red one for a dollar at the foot of Market Street, and in a facsimile of Los Angeles history you can roll past a good chunk of San Francisco’s future, beginning with the soon-to-be-malled Ferry Building, then gliding through Harry Bridges Plaza, which sports a new set of palm trees and brick walkways.

San Francisco, never a slouch when it comes to selling history or producing theatrics, is on a roll. Aided by buckets of Internet money, a post-quake redevelopment campaign after the 1989 Loma Prieta temblor, and a spiffy new baseball stadium, San Franciscans have thoroughly reinvented their Embarcadero and the area south of Market Street--SoMa, in the local language.

Most out-of-towners’ attention has been focused on Pacific Bell Park, the Giants’ new baseball stadium, which is both on the Embarcadero and south of Market Street. But there’s so much going on in these areas that a stranger can easily spend several worthwhile days, and without ever stepping aboard a cable car, strolling Fisherman’s Wharf or shopping around Union Square. An already rich city is now richer.

To be sure, the city’s new vigor is not confined to SoMa and the Embarcadero. But on a visit last month, it was those two areas that drew most of my attention.

“Changes every day,” huffed Keith Saggers, my pedicab pedaler, as he steered us toward the ballpark and glanced at a new upscale condo building across the street. “Haven’t seen that one before.”

Here, gleaned from my five days in the city, are a few ideas for a three-day exploration on the waterfront and South of Market.

Day 1: Get thee to the Embarcadero, especially if the sun is out, and whether by foot, bike, skates or streetcar, cover those three formerly grungy miles between Pacific Bell Park and Fisherman’s Wharf. Rental bikes at Pier 40 and Pier 43 run $5 an hour; a pedicab costs $15 for a trip from the Ferry Building to Pier 39 and back.

Heading north to south from Fisherman’s Wharf, you’ll find that Pier 39 is as full of tacky T-shirt shops and mass tourism as ever. But you do have to admire the entrepreneurial spirit of those kids with the crimson mohawk hairdos and the signs offering “Photos with Freaks” in exchange for a modest donation.

Across the street from Pier 15 is a parking lot that’s taken over every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. by the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market, known for attracting celebrity chefs.

At Pier 7, a boardwalk juts about 100 yards into the bay, outfitted with plenty of benches and lined up directly facing the Transamerica pyramid building up the hill. Stand at the boardwalk’s end and stare at the pyramid’s top and you’ll feel as if you’re in some sort of urban vortex, a citified version of those bluffs in Arizona where New Agers reflect meaningfully. Or you can less meaningfully revel, as I did, in a scene peopled by lunching office workers, scrambling skateboarders, giggling Vietnamese fishermen and a lazy gaggle of off-duty, tattooed bicycle messengers listening to a band called Manic Hispanic on a boombox.

Pier 1, no matter what you may have suspected, does not house rattan wardrobes and Chinese lanterns. The aged structure, unconnected to the retail chain, is being converted into new offices for port district workers. Those workers are moving because their previous headquarters, the 1898 Ferry Building next door--the landmark structure at the foot of Market Street with the tower that mimics Seville’s Giralda--is scheduled to be overhauled beginning in January. When that work is done (target date June 2002), the 660-foot-long Ferry Building will be remade into a high-ceilinged shopping mall.

This revitalization basically springs from the 1989 quake, which shook down chunks of the two-level Embarcadero Freeway that ran above this stretch of bay front. With the decision to tear the freeway down, acres of suddenly prime real estate emerged from the shadows into glorious daylight. Amid arguments over what should go up, San Franciscans voted to keep the port district’s waterfront property reserved for traditional maritime uses until the port had won consensus for a broad master plan. (The Harry Bridges Plaza in front of the Ferry Building is named for the legendary late longshoreman union leader.)

Here’s where dumb luck takes a hand: The redevelopment ban was lifted as port officials unveiled their grand plan in 1997, just as the economy was shifting into overdrive. Among the proposals still in early stages: a new international cruise ship terminal; a new (but so far unspecified) public attraction at Fisherman’s Wharf; a hotel near Broadway; and a 19-acre sports and recreation complex, although that last proposal has been stalled by environmentalists eager to save more old waterfront structures.

Amid all this, a handful of rustic old-timers have survived. The most popular is probably Red’s Java Hut near Pier 28, an old dockworkers’ haunt where San Franciscans of all stripes queue up for burger-and-Budweiser lunches. Silly me, I followed them. Apparently, in a city teeming with great restaurants, a lousy $1.80 cheeseburger is an oddity to be savored.

(That odd-looking houseboat moored behind Red’s Java Hut, by the way, is the main set for the TV show “Nash Bridges,” in which Don Johnson and Cheech Marin play San Francisco detectives.)

Night 1: You may have to enrich a scalper or stand in a long line, but you can get into Pacific Bell Park, which stands tall on a fairly small waterfront lot at China Basin. It’s mostly sold out for the season, but 500 bleacher seats in right-center field ($8.50 per adult) are held back for each game. A line forms four hours before game time.

Even while grumbling about the absence of parking (just 5,000 dedicated spaces for a stadium that seats 40,800), San Franciscans turn starry-eyed when discussing the stadium’s theatrical feel, its intimate dimensions. Despite its fresh vintage, the design drips with nostalgia for ballparks of a bygone era.

At an early April exhibition game there against the Yankees, I joined the crowd that saw Barry Bonds hit the stadium’s first home run into the bay, a shot over the right field fence that was recovered by a very happy man on a raft. (It turns out that baseballs float.) From the seats down the right-field line, you can look across the field and see the Bay Bridge. From almost anywhere you can see masts rising from pleasure boats just beyond center field.

But even if you don’t get inside, you should stroll around the exterior, perhaps squint in at 24, the upscale restaurant built into the stadium and named for Willie Mays’ old uniform number. On the bay side of the park, ferries deliver fans directly from Sausalito, Larkspur, Oakland, Alameda and Richmond.

Across the street from the ball-park stands Momo’s, a baseball-themed eatery with patio and a Mission-style interior that opened about 18 months ago. Nearby at 701 2nd St. is Paragon, a fancier, more modern place that opened in March. Ducking in on a Wednesday, I spied Mayor Willie Brown at a window table, nibbling on a power lunch with an important-looking guy I didn’t recognize.

For a non-baseball evening, the options multiply as you bear north along the Embarcadero. At Pier 27 stands the antique European tent of Teatro ZinZanni, an elaborate $125-a-head, four-hour dinner-and-circus experience. The tent, full of ingeniously portable woodwork and mirrors, holds about 275, so the trapeze work, juggling and contortions become quite an intimate affair. It’s a sort of close-quarters Cirque du Soleil, but it takes itself far less seriously and includes a four-course meal along with a generous measure of comedy. Most of the comedy was supplied by the ostensible chef, who changes accents and costumes for every course. For me, the comedy outshone the food.

“Are you prepared?!” the “chef” asks early on, in the tone of a Texas preacher. “Are you prepared to accept the soup into your life?!”

You’ll laugh. But you may also wince when the waiter tells you a glass of champagne will cost you $12. The show, which first ran for more than a year in Seattle, is selling tickets through early July but may stay longer.

At Market Street, head a block up the hill from the Embarcadero and you find a knot of possibilities. Aside from the new Chaya Brasserie, there’s the seafood place Red Herring (opened in June) and the Shanghai 1930 restaurant (opened 1997), along with the more established Boulevard restaurant and Long Life Noodle Co. and the Griffon and Harbor Court hotels, all clustered on one side of Steuart Street.

For a more casual, louder night, walk a few blocks south to the Pier 23 Cafe, a bar and grill that’s a holdover from the waterfront’s grittier days (fake marlin on wall, Patsy Cline on jukebox). I entered about 11 on a Friday and found the place full of beer drinkers, young and old, and roaring with jazz: a saxman, bassist, pianist and drummer playing very fast and very well in a room not much bigger than a garage. Along with a dining patio in back, the bar offers live jazz most nights (usually with no cover charge).

Day 2: The Yerba Buena Gardens, which adjoin the Moscone Convention Center, are perfect for lazing after a visit to the neighboring San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Between the museum and the ultramodern Metreon entertainment complex, the gardens’ great grass esplanade--more than five precious big-city acres--unfurls around shade trees and murmuring fountains.

For more culture to go with your nature, there is the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (more experimental contemporary work) next door. A block away at 678 Mission St. there’s the California Historical Society’s museum and bookstore. The galleries of the Ansel Adams Center for Photography, formerly on 4th Street, are due to reopen this fall at 655 Mission St. near 3rd.

For more physical pursuits, there are the Yerba Buena complex’s smallish bowling alley, a skating rink that offers a skyline view through one glass wall, a rehabbed 1906 carousel, a children’s fun-with-technology space (the Zeum) and a few snack shops. Since the bowling lanes and rink opened in October 1998, dozens of downtown workers have taken to spending their Friday lunch breaks on ice, skating in pickup hockey games.

While you’re in the neighborhood, you could also watch the dance of the construction cranes. Along with a major expansion of the Moscone Center due in 2003, a Bloomingdale’s-anchored retail center is to open in 2002 between Market and Mission and 4th and 5th, with a high-end hotel and a nine-screen cineplex.

The luxury Four Seasons chain is putting up a combination condo-hotel building on Market between 3rd and 4th, with opening expected next year. Neighboring the Four Seasons, beginning in 2002, will be the city’s relocated Jewish Museum (now in the financial district) and Mexican Museum (moving from Fort Mason). And within three or four blocks of that high-activity zone, at least two other major hotels and an African American cultural institution are in the works, with completions expected in 2002 and 2003.

Night 2: Surrender to the future. The Metreon complex, which opened in Yerba Buena Gardens last June, includes 15 movie screens, an IMAX theater, a fancy modern arcade and a raft of forward-looking retail operations with plenty of Sony and Microsoft products. I had a mediocre meal at Montage, one of the complex’s fancier restaurants, but another, Jillian’s South of Market (with pool tables and all sorts of sports on massive TV monitors), seems busy every night.

You could also test your HQ (hipness quotient) over dinner at the XYZ restaurant or a drink in its elegant upstairs bar. Both are housed within the newish W San Francisco hotel (where I decided not to stay when I couldn’t get a room for less than $349). It all seemed a bit self-conscious, but the airy modern setting was striking, and I did enjoy my lunch (pork chops with pears, maple- glazed potatoes and anisette sauce) at XYZ.

An even fancier dinner option (with a hefty HQ of its own) is the Fifth Floor restaurant in the Palomar Hotel, which serves dinner Monday through Saturday. Since the hotel and the 75-seat restaurant opened in November, the Fifth Floor has been one of the toughest dinner reservations in town. But more spontaneous diners can order from the same menu by alighting at the bar, as I did, around its 5:30 p.m. opening time. My dinner--asparagus soup followed by tuna “foie gras”--easily amounted to the best meal I’ve had this year. (The chef, George Morrone, is from the city’s celebrated Aqua restaurant.)

I also spent two nights at the Palomar: a comfortable, stylish room (although the faux leopard-skin carpet was a bit much for me) with cheerful, adept service.

Day 3: The same e-wealth that’s bringing lofts to greater SoMa has also turned the South Beach and South Park areas, which lie between Market Street and the new ballpark, into booming residential and retail neighborhoods. And they make good walking.

South Park, with a handful of restaurants and shops arrayed around a patch of grass and kids’ play equipment, is a great place for lunching and dawdling. Browsers pass the South Park Cafe (a neighborhood pioneer 15 years ago), the more casual Caffe Centro and the more formal Ristorante Ecco, along with the eclectic Maison d’Etre furniture and gift shop and the recently arrived William Stout bookstore, which specializes in design books. Yet another cafe, the Butler & the Chef, which features a vintage 1932 zinc bar and also sells antiques, opened in April.

(In a nod to the neighborhood residents seeking one day of peace, the cafes close on Sundays, a genteel habit that probably can’t last.)

Also, South Park is a premier spot for eavesdropping on the dot-com revolution. Three conversational snippets I culled in a half-hour’s nosiness:

“It’s a start-up. . . . Six million users now. . . . “

” . . . Maybe get some stock if it goes well. . . . “

“You gotta think their databases are completely stacked.”

South Beach makes sense for a weekend snack before or after adventures on the Embarcadero. I liked the Crossroads Cafe, which opened recently at 699 Delancy St. and includes a small bookshop, a gallery space and a pleasant courtyard garden. I have some concerns, though, that its databases may be stacked.

Night 3: SoMa, baby. The rough-and-tumble, semi-industrial district around 11th Street sprouted its first hip nightclubs and eateries in the 1980s, and many remain, such as Slim’s, Julie’s Supper Club and Hamburger Mary’s, the Folsom Street greasy spoon where many clubbers end up after last call. But Internet wealth is changing things, and with the upstairs loft rehabilitations have come a few new restaurants, shops and clubs.

The neighborhood still includes many blocks that I’d rather not walk alone after dark. But most of the night life is concentrated on 11th between Harrison and Folsom streets.

On that block, I took my taste of the neighborhood at Butter, an of-the-moment hangout that opened nine months ago with a yellow front and interior walls crawling with psychedelic colors and projected film clips from forgotten NASA missions. A DJ’s table is built into the bar. The place’s most distinguishing characteristic, however, is the menu: “white trash bistro” cuisine, which amounts to classic junk food and anything that can be prepared in a microwave oven. The food comes out of a trailer in the back. Really, this is a club masquerading as a restaurant. But if ever you’ve dreamed of sitting in a restaurant, consulting the menu while club music throbs, then ordering the Swanson’s frozen dinner No. 2 (Salisbury steak) for $6, this is your place.

And now the egress: Board a southbound plane in daytime hours at SFO, as I did, and peek down when the jet bank-turns; you’ll find yourself staring into an abyss. That’s right: Candlestick Park, a.k.a. 3Com Park, the late and long-reviled, cold and windy home of the Giants before Pacific Bell Park came along. Now grassless, gray and idle, the stadium shrinks to nearly nothing, then vanishes in the distance, as obsolete as a red streetcar in L.A.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

GUIDEBOOK

Staying and Playing in the City

Getting there: Southwest offers round-trip fares between LAX and SFO starting at $112, followed by United, American, Delta and Alaska at $118. United and Southwest also have LAX-to-Oakland, Burbank-to-SFO and Burbank-to-Oakland service beginning at $112.

Where to stay: Trendy, 198-room Hotel Palomar is better for grown-ups than for kids. Brochure rates for standard doubles begin at $325, but weekend specials go as low as $175, especially if you book months in advance; 12 4th St. (at Market), telephone (877) 294-9711 or (415) 348-1111, fax (415) 348-0302, Internet https://www.hotelpalomar.com. For the hotel’s Fifth Floor restaurant (main courses, $25 to $39; a chef’s tasting menu, $75), tel. (415) 348-1555.

The renovated Argent Hotel feels more like a boutique hotel than any 667-room convention lodging I’ve encountered (formerly the ANA Hotel, a block from Moscone Center). Brochure rates for a standard double room begin at $249; weekend specials can drop to $169; 50 3rd St., tel. (877) 222-6699 or (415) 974-6400, fax (415) 348-8207, Internet https://www.argenthotel.com.

The W San Francisco, a year old with 423 rooms, is even hipper. Brochure rates for standard double rooms start at $369, with corporate discounts as low as $289; 181 3rd St., tel. (877) W-HOTELS or (415) 777-5300, fax (415) 817-7823, Internet https://www.whotels.com.

Minimalist-design Hotel Milano opened in 1994 South of Market. Doubles begin at $179, but I got a room for $149; 55 5th St., tel. (800) 398-7555 or (415) 543-8555, fax (415) 543-5885, Internet https://www.hotelmilano.citysearch.com.

Hotel Griffon is a 62-room boutique hotel with double rooms starting at $230 (but weekend specials go as low as $165); 155 Steuart St., tel. (800) 321-2201 or (415) 495-2100, fax (415) 492-3522, Internet https://www.hotelgriffon.com.

Next door, the Harbor Court Hotel’s brochure rates for double rooms begin at $195; through May 28 a limited number of weekend “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” specials are $99 per night; 165 Steuart St., tel. (800) 346-0555 or (415) 882-1300, fax (415) 882-1313, Internet https://www.harborcourthotel.com.

What to do: Pacific Bell Park, tel. (415) 972-2000, Internet https://www.sfgiants.com. Teatro ZinZanni box office, tel. (415) 438-2668, Internet https://www.teatrozinzanni.org. Metreon, tel. (415) 369-6000, Internet https://www.metreon.com. Yerba Buena Ice Skating & Bowling Center, tel. (415) 777-3727, Internet https://www.skatebowl.com.

For more information: San Francisco Visitor Information Center, 900 Market St., P.O. Box 429097, San Francisco, CA 94142; tel. (415) 391-2000, fax (415) 362-7323, Internet https://www.sfvisitor.org.