Give me a break....

San Francisco died, again

SFGATE editor-at-large Andrew Chamings on a long history of San Francisco obituaries

By Andrew Chamings

San Francisco is dead, they say. And they've said it an awful lot in 2023.

Empty downtown skyscrapers, a spike in retail theft and a crippling fentanyl problem led to the birth of the “doom loop” this year. (The trending term has hopefully, maybe passed already). Everyone from The Atlantic to the San Francisco Chronicle ran eulogies. But the news of our city’s death presented an opportunity for some. In June, presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis took advantage of the reported crisis in a liberal coastal city to vacation in the Tenderloin, where he did a piece to camera to report on all the “riffraff” he had seen. Elon Musk proclaimed downtown a “derelict zombie apocalypse” earlier in the year (before later strangely tweeting about the city like a forgotten child of his). Fox News right-wing mouthpiece Laura Ingraham even paid a visit to the dying city to inquire about buying heroin.

But for those who have been around awhile, 2023 was not the first time San Francisco’s obituary ran somewhat prematurely.

‘Behold the city’s ruin’

The world was eagerly, and somewhat justifiably, pondering the end of San Francisco in April 1906 after the almighty 7.9 magnitude quake, and subsequent fire, destroyed 80% of the burgeoning city, made 300,000 residents homeless and took 3,000 lives.

“Women and children walk aimlessly in the dying city,” the newspaper wires reported, a week after the disaster. “Distressed and almost insane.”

“Will San Francisco survive?” asked the Salt Lake Tribune. “Whether or not San Francisco survives the tragedy is a question that engages every thinking man tonight. … Even heroes tremble as they behold the city’s ruin.”

The rebuilding of San Francisco in the following decade was a truly impressive feat, honoring the phoenix rising from the ashes on its flag.

As soon as the bank vaults had cooled down enough to be opened, hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on the rebuilding of the city. Those efforts culminated in the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, the world’s fair in what’s now the Marina District that drew nearly 20 million visitors and championed San Francisco’s rebirth.

‘A mighty sick city’

“San Francisco, A Dying City,” pronounced a lavishly written, yet seemingly off-target, 1939 essay in the prominent literary magazine American Mercury.

“Behind the fixed smile on its false-face, San Francisco is a mighty sick city,” author Phil Hamilton wrote before describing the state of businesses downtown as a “commercial colic.”

“San Francisco grows sicker and sicker,” the author goes on, as if channeling a Depression-era Tucker Carlson. The article even complained that the newly built Golden Gate Bridge wasn’t built high enough for tall ships.

The article did include a defense of the city from officials that sounds eerily familiar today: “San Francisco is not a ghost town!” leaders reportedly told a business delegation at City Hall that year.

The subsequent reaction in San Francisco to the story, and back-and-forth discourse in the press, was reminiscent of headline jockeying between some right-wing pundits and local outlets today.

An opinion published in the Los Angeles Times a week later called the article “wholly misleading,” adding, “San Francisco is too favorably situated with respect to commerce to become a ‘ghost city.’”

Another rebuttal published on the wires, pointedly titled “San Francisco not dead, must be the author” argued that downtown San Francisco life was bustling like never before. That article boasted that the city rivaled Manhattan as “the most gustiest and urbane of American cities.” The opinion piece pointed out the charms of the busy and sophisticated Top of the Mark and Cliff House restaurants, and exemplified the city’s class by observing that “men wear waistcoats and hats” and “do not drink scotch with sweet soda pop.”

‘San Francisco’s going to the dogs’

Nearly 50 years later, San Francisco was somehow still standing. But the devastating AIDS crisis gave some opportunists a chance to punch down again on the bay.

“There’s a crisis of confidence in what used to be San Francisco’s most confident city,” an overconfident news announcer proclaimed on a 1987 CBS News segment. “Its city skyline is becoming a facade, hiding empty offices,” he added over news chopper footage of the Transamerica Pyramid.

The startling diatribe continued with the heinous line, “San Francisco is now known for AIDS, as well as for cable cars.”

“I think San Francisco’s going to the dogs, in every way,” an older resident complained in the segment.

The clip was recently shared on TikTok by the Cali Nostalgia account. Underneath one astute observer noted: “Same as it ever was. Every 30 years.”

‘At least half-dead’

A year later, the city’s most famous columnist got in on the doom loop beat. In a series of observations in early 1988, the aging voice of Herb Caen opined on the question of the city’s death. “It seemed at least half-dead,” Caen wrote after talking with a newspaper seller at the cable car turnaround on Powell and Market about the quiet streets.

Somewhat ironically, one of the reasons Caen concluded that the city did indeed have a future was the gleaming Nordstrom building on Market, a commercial anchor that famously announced its closure in 2023. “The Nordstrom building is looking good,” Caen wrote. “Understated. Classy.”

But the voice of San Francisco for half a century knew the booms and busts of the city better than anyone and saw right through the idle doom-mongering.

“The title of today’s Imponderable doesn’t mean anything,” Caen wrote under the “Is San Francisco Dying?” headline. “It’s an attention grabber.”

‘Long live San Fran’

As Oakland was going through its “Brooklyn of the West Coast” hype in 2016, longtime San Francisco opinionator (and SFGATE dive bar expert) Broke-Ass Stuart spoke to the city’s decline in a story titled “San Francisco is dead: Long live San Fran.”

“How crazy is it that, at this point, Oakland is way cooler than San Francisco?” Stuart asks.

“Most of what made The City special for so many years has been evicted, displaced and pushed out,” Stuart continued, in the essay that rightfully highlighted the loss of diversity in both ethnicity and income levels in the city. Stuart then leveled one of the most vicious attacks on San Francisco put into print, pointing out that the city was slowly becoming the embodiment of its much-maligned nickname, “San Fran.”

Despite this, even Stuart wasn’t ready to take his broke ass over the Bay Bridge. “I already know there are some of you who just spittled and red-facedly yelled, ‘Then why don’t you just move to Oakland!?’” Stuart wrote. “The answer is simple: This place will always be San Francisco to me, even if it has become San Fran.”

A city that literally recovered from the ground beneath it opening up and spewing a fire that engulfed nearly every block can undoubtedly withstand whatever 2023 has thrown at it. For some reason, alarmist opinions on San Francisco seem more prevalent than those on any other American city. Maybe that’s due to the indelible effect the beautiful 7 by 7 miles have on those who visit. Even Laura Ingraham admitted it’s “one of her favorite American cities,” before one of her rants.

Or, as John Steinbeck put it, “When I was a child and we were going to the City, I couldn’t sleep for several nights before, out of busting excitement,” the author wrote on visiting San Francisco. “She leaves a mark.”