Individual Entry: location, location, location
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October 17, 2008

San Francisco : location, location, location

I hope to get out my camera and do a short photo essay on our new neighborhood soon; but until then here's a brief description of the area. I'm in a block bounded by 3rd Street on the Northeast, King on the Northwest, 4th on the Southwest and Berry on the Southeast, where our place is near the center of the block. Looking at our block and the 8 blocks adjacent or diagonal to ours, we have is very easy access to:

- A grocery store (Safeway). This is directly across the street (so it serves as our extended pantry – easy to run across the street and buy things to make dinner)
- A book store (Borders)
- A branch of the SF public library (perhaps I won't be buying as many books!)
- A waterfront (well, canal-front) Park
- ATT Baseball park (home of the SF Giants)
- Several restaurants - including an Amici's Pizza, which was one of our favorite pizza places down in Mountain View as well as a sushi bar, a steakhouse, a couple of sandwich shops and an ice cream parlor and several others, not all of which we have had a chance to try.
- Two coffee shops
- A phone store (AT&T, our provider)
- Two banks
- Two MUNI stations (SF's subway/light rail system)
- The SF terminus of Caltrain (commuter rail, runs down through Mountain View)
- The terminus of two major city bus routes (behind the Safeway, very close).

One of the two bus routes that terminate behind the Safeway (the 30 bus) seems to go past a lot of useful places
- Whole Foods Grocery Story (which is almost close enough for us to walk to if we aren't buying too much)
- Moscone Convention Center (main convention center for SF)
- Yerba Buena Gardens (mixed arts complex)
- The Sony Metreon (large shopping/movie/restaurant complex)
- SF Museum of Modern Art
- Union Square (center of SF's main shopping district)
- SF's Chinatown (one of the best in any American city)
- North Beach (traditional Italian neighborhood, and the edge of the old "beat" area)
- past one end of Fisherman's Warf (tourist trap; but our favorite breakfast place is near one of the stops there)
- the Marina District (classic SF waterfront area with view of Golden Gate Bridge)
- and finally to near the Palace of Fine Arts and Exploratorium Science Museum

Its nice to have such a useful bus route nearby!

The MUNI also takes us into Downtown, including a stop that is only a couple blocks away from my office. Walking to downtown is also not out of the question – it is only about a mile to get to Market Street (which is as close to a “main street” as SF has). Even walking to my office isn’t bad – only 1.6 miles, 1.7 if you take the scenic route along the bay.

The only problem with our immediate neighborhood is that it is so recently gentrified. Now that newness has advantages – the area is clean, safe, shiny; but on the flip side it has not yet had the time to accumulate unique local stores and restaurants the way other older neighborhoods in the city have. Most of what we have in our immediate area are chain stores and chain restaurants. Fortunately, we only have to go 3-4 blocks to get to older and more interesting areas with local shops and restaurants.

Posted by Steven at October 17, 2008 05:00 AM