Frisco Vista

Not all businesses are contracting in the down economy. Robert Berman, based in Santa Barbara, has opened a new gallery in San Francisco, located at 1632 Market Street. For its inaugural show, the gallery is featuring historical photos (newly printed) of San Francisco by Julius Shulman. Shown is San Francisco Bay Bridge under Construction, 1934.

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Last night the ceremony announcing this year’s winners of the Goldman prize for environmental activism was held in San Francisco’s Opera House. The award is the brainchild of Richard and Rhoda Goldman. Rhoda passed away in 1996. This year it appeared Richard’s health had taken a turn for the worse, although he still spoke cogently.

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United Nations Plaza was conceived as the entrance to a grand walkway leading from Market Street to City Hall, a vision that never quite materialized. The plaza commemorates the founding of the United Nations in San Francisco.

On Wednesdays and Sundays the plaza hosts a farmers market, while an arts and crafts fair holds sway on most Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. In the photo above the fair is at its colorful best (but sometimes it is a little too colorful).

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The strange shapes lurching over the pollarded trees of Civic Center Plaza are not homeless shelters — they are an “environmental sculpture installation,” entitled The Upper Crust, by Patrick Dougherty. The eight-foot tall structures are made of  18,000 lbs. of willow saplings interwoven into the sycamore trees. No fastenings were used; instead, the saplings were bent and twisted through the branches.

The installation will run through November.

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Maybe it’s just because I’m familiar with it, but the freeway system in the Bay Area seems a lot more sensible than in DC, where I have been visiting.

To go left in the nation’s capital you usually have to start off to the right. Generally, to get anywhere at all you have to go in a circle first.

Something fitting in that.

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Image (not acually DC) from 1Sock’s photostream.

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