Herb Caen’s San Francisco
Posted: November 8, 2025 Filed under: the California Condition Leave a comment
The ’40-41 San Francisco was a Sam Spade city. The Hall of justice was dirty and reeked of evil. The criminal lawyers were young and hungry and used every shyster trick in the law books they never read. The City Hall, the D.A. and the cops ran the town as though they owned it and they did. Hookers worked upstairs, not on the street; there were hundreds, maybe thousands, most of them named Sally. The two biggest abortion mills-one on Mar-ket, the other in the Fillmore —were so well-known they might as well have had neon signs. You could play roulette in the Marina, roll craps on O’Farrell, play poker on Mason, get rolled at 4 a.m. in a bar on Eddy, and wake up at noon in a Turk St. hotel with a girl whose name you never knew or cared to know. Sam Spade went through all this and his face showed it. You’d see him alone at 1 p.m. at a Taylor St. lunch counter, drinking coffee, chain smoking
You hear often – usually from rich tech people – about San Francisco being a warren of drug addled zombies. There’s truth to this, I’ve observed it myself. Feral zombies wander the Tenderloin.
But wasn’t San Francisco ever thus? Doesn’t Mark Twain report on the bums on the street? And hasn’t the charm always outweighed the derelicts?
If I do go to heaven, I’m going to do what every San Franciscan does who goes to heaven. He looks around and says, ‘It ain’t bad, but it ain’t San Francisco.’
I got this collection after a visit where I walked Herb Caen Way, with the ambition of getting some historical perspective on the city.
Forgive me if I’m about to go over familiar ground, but I get a little sick of hearing people say, as a society woman said the other night: “Who cares about those old drunks? Kick’em out and start building.” I think she would have voted for gas chambers.
(1972)
The tourists. They used to beat a path from the Ferry Building to the Cliff House. Now they roam around the Vaillancourt Foun-tain, making funnies, and stay in Hyatts and Holiday Inns, eat at whatever place is handy and ask plaintively: “Where do the real San Franciscans go?” There is no satisfactory answer, for the San Franciscan is forever a tourist in his own hometown, mingling with the tourists from elsewhere and usually having just as good, or rotten, a time as they… Come let us play and pay together.
Topic A:
Some of us old newspaper hacks were sitting around at the Nam Yuen in Chinatown the other night, eating stuffed chicken legs and discussing Topic A, as usual, which is not what you think. Sex may be Topic A in most places, and food is certainly Topic A in Paris, but in San Francisco Topic A is —San Francisco.
After we’d covered the usual high spots (Things Ain’t What They Used to Be, but were they ever?), a former Front Page Farrell who has been put out to pasture as an editorial writer sighed a wine-laden sigh. “When I was covering a beat,” he said, “I knew the town pretty well-and most of the characters. Now I feel like a stranger in my own city. Out of touch. The old characters are fading out, and I have no idea who’s taking their place.
January 20, 1963
Meeting John and Yoko:
Earlier that evening, the Lennons, and their local close friend, Craig Pyes, the co-editor of SunDance magazine, had dined sumptuously at Mme. Cecilia Chiang’s Mandarin in Ghirardelli Square, looking out over the quiet Bay and the old ships at rest.
“We’re crazy about this city,” said John, peering at the view through his bottle-thick glasses. “First time we came here, we walked the streets all day— all over town-and nobody hassled us.
People smiled, friendly-like, and we knew we could live here. We’d like to keep our place in Greenwich Village and have an apartment here, God and the Immigration Service willing … Los Angeles? That’s just a big parking lot where you buy a hamburger Ifor the trip to San Francisco.”
They raved over Mme. Chiang’s newest delicacy, scallop soup.
“The food in this city is fantastic,” John went on. “Better than Lon-don. You know, more variety. And the beautiful old houses and the strange light. We’ve never been in a city with light like this. We sit in our hotel room for hours, watching the fog come in, the light change.”
Peking duck, mandarin style, came wrapped in paper thin pan-cakes. “We drove here from New York,” John continued. “Yoko and I probably have seen more of the United States than most Americans. United Statesians? When I was a Beatle, I didn’t see anything —whoosh-whoosh-whoosh. In Nevada, we got out of the car and rolled in the sand. We’d never seen a desert before.”
In answer to a question: “Yes, we want to live here perma-nently. There’s violence, sure, and it’s scary, sometimes, but there are so many good people, so many chances for change. Not like England, which is dead. Sure, we’d be happy to become American citizens. We’re not here on a tax dodge, you know.”
The Immigration Service will make a decision in November on whether the Lennons can stay here. “We’re in limbo till then,” lamented Yoko. “It’s hard to settle down, to write, to work, when you don’t know where home will be.” A kind, gentle, soft-spoken couple. I think we’d be lucky to get them.
July 21, 1972
On the anniversary of the World’s Fair:
Tonight, if you’re in the mood, you may listen to Woody Herman, visit Top o’ the Mark and drink a toast to Treasure Island, thereby celebrating three silver anniversaries in one. Like most anniversaries, it will be a little sad.
February 23, 1964
(Previous coverage of San Francisco)
Helytimes 