Delectations

They’ve grown rather arrogant in San Francisco of late—The City, they call it in print, not to differentiate it from the countryside, but to assert its superiority to any other city. They’re probably justified in many ways. San Francisco offers a superb nightlife (topless, bottomless, mindless, as well as real talent), excellent restaurants (ever eat Moroccan? Try Ma-rakesh), Chinatown, good beaches within the city, first-rate shopping, a pleasing architectural mix, excellent colleges and universities, respectable although not brilliant music and art. And especially, to any seeing person’s never-ending delight, San Francisco provides breathtaking views within and from across the Bay in Marin County to the north and Oakland-Berkeley to the east. Like Boston, San Francisco is compact, arrogant, historic and proud of its history. It’s sophisticated like New York and clean like no metropolis in the East. It should be growing, explosively, as William Rusher predicted in his ecstatic delectation in NR (June 4, 1968).

It isn’t. Growing, that is. San Francisco’s in trouble, shrinking in population and losing its industry. Its labor unions are more corrupt than usual and the administration of Mayor Joseph Alioto is commonly thought to be Mafia-infiltrated. Its most pressing grief is in the area of the “social issue.” They don’t talk about this much on paper, except the taxation-welfare aspect. But San Franciscans are keenly aware of its dimensions and over a drink or two, pour out their feelings to strangers.

DB

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David Brudnoy

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They’ve grown rather arrogant in San Francisco of late—The City, they call it in print, not to differentiate it from the countryside, but to assert its superiority to any other city. They’re probably justified in many ways. San Francisco offers a superb nightlife (topless, bottomless, mindless, as well as real talent), excellent restaurants (ever eat Moroccan? Try Ma-rakesh), Chinatown, good beaches within the city, first-rate shopping, a pleasing architectural mix, excellent colleges and universities, respectable although not brilliant music and art. And especially, to any seeing person’s never-ending delight, San Francisco provides breathtaking views within and from across the Bay in Marin County to the north and Oakland-Berkeley to the east. Like Boston, San Francisco is compact, arrogant, historic and proud of its history. It’s sophisticated like New York and clean like no metropolis in the East. It should be growing, explosively, as William Rusher predicted in his ecstatic delectation in NR (June 4, 1968).

It isn’t. Growing, that is. San Francisco’s in trouble, shrinking in population and losing its industry. Its labor unions are more corrupt than usual and the administration of Mayor Joseph Alioto is commonly thought to be Mafia-infiltrated. Its most pressing grief is in the area of the “social issue.” They don’t talk about this much on paper, except the taxation-welfare aspect. But San Franciscans are keenly aware of its dimensions and over a drink or two, pour out their feelings to strangers.