San Francisco is a Ghost Town and Union Square is a Haunted Forest
When most people hear the phrase “ghost town,” it conjures up an image of a deserted town with few or no remaining inhabitants. Chances are this image is also of a small town, probably rural, rather than suburban or urban (the city of Pripyat in the Ukraine notwithstanding.)
By definition, San Francisco is not literally a ghost town. After all, the majority of the city’s inhabitants are still here and the neighborhoods are not deserted. Most of the city’s populace is just following the shelter-in-place order and limiting their outdoor activities. But in a city with more than 900,000 residents — and approximately 70,000 visitors each day who would normally flock to places like Fisherman’s Wharf, North Beach, and Union Square — San Francisco often looks and feels a ghost town.
A normal spring Saturday at Fisherman’s Wharf would include sidewalks and restaurants and stores filled with tourists and customers, families and couples descending upon Pier 39 to enjoy a seafood lunch and explore the Aquarium of the Bay and watch the sea lions lounging and cavorting at K-Dock.
Instead, on a Saturday in the early spring, at the height of the lunch hour on a warm, sunny afternoon, the streets are deserted, the restaurants and souvenir shops closed up and empty, the only sounds that of an occasional seagull and the sea lions barking in the distance. It’s as if the entire area has fallen asleep and is waiting to wake up.
In the SOMA District, on a Friday afternoon at the peak of the afternoon rush hour, the on-ramps for the Bay Bridge along Bryant Street are devoid of traffic and the sidewalks empty of pedestrians clad in black and orange on their way to the Giants game against the L.A. Dodgers at Oracle Park, just five blocks away, as the 1:35 p.m home opener was cancelled.
And along The Embarcadero and at the Ferry Building at 2:00 p.m. on a sunny and warm Friday afternoon, pedestrian traffic is almost non-existant, the F-line streetcar tracks deserted, the outdoor dining tables at Gott’s Roadside empty, the ferry terminals non-operational, and most of the businesses inside the Ferry Building closed. Although El Porteño is still serving empanadas and Humphry Slocombe is open if you need a gourmet ice cream fix.
While San Francisco is on a virtual lockdown — with restaurants, bars, cafes, movie theaters, nail and hair salons, hotels, clothing stores, and every type of business shuttered or boarded up — there are still signs of commerce in neighborhoods throughout the city.
In North Beach, there are restaurants and cafes open for take-out, including Portofino Seafood on Grant and Liguria Bakery on Stockton. But at 8:00 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, you can stand on an island at Stockton and Columbus, the Transamerica Pyramid in the background, and see a single car waiting at the stop light. Along Broadway, most of the restaurants are closed until further notice and the strip clubs have all gone dark. You can walk out into the middle of the intersection of Columbus and Broadway and snap a picture without having to worry about the usual crush of the morning commute.
On Chestnut Street in the Marina District, all of the shops and stores and bars are closed, many of them boarded up to prevent theft or vandalism, signs posted to let would-be thieves know that there’s no cash, computers, booze, or other valuables to be found inside so move along. Come back when we’re open again. However, more than two-dozen restaurants are open, serving to-go orders, adhering to the protocols the city has placed on them to remain in operation during the lockdown.
So even though foot and vehicle traffic in these and other neighborhoods has fallen to the point that prime shopping and dining hours often resemble a Twilight Zone episode where it’s always Christmas morning in an alternate reality where Santa Claus is a mob boss, a sense of normalcy persists. Or at least the pretense of normalcy.
The same cannot be said for Union Square.
In Union Square, other than the Westin St. Francis, nothing is open. Not Saks Fifth Avenue or Sears Fine Food or The Apple Store. Not Tiffany & Co. or Victoria’s Secret or Louis Vuitton. Not Macy’s or Neiman Marcus or the Sir Francis Drake Hotel.
Normally there would be tourists walking along the sidewalks and in and out of hotels and storefronts. Normally there would be customers enjoying the variety of world-class fare provided by the restaurants and filling the outside tables on Belden Place. Normally there would be cable cars clanging their way up and down Powell Street and traffic flowing east and west along Geary and Sutter and Post.
Now, there is only a smattering of residents and tourists wandering along the streets in wonder or in a dazed disbelief and a handful of cars passing through the intersections at every green light.
There is no sense of normalcy here.
Instead, there is a palpable sense of apprehension and anxiety, as if the apocalypse has already occurred and this is the inevitable result of what happens when the end of the world comes knocking. This apprehension is heightened by the dozen or so homeless people who have not shaken hands with sanity in quite some time and who shuffle along in silence or who stand upon the empty stage of Union Square and shout unintelligible curses to an empty theater.
While the vibe shares some similarities to that of Fisherman’s Wharf — lonely and melancholy, the streets deserted, the restaurants and souvenir shops and tourist attractions closed up, not a tourist or street performer to be found — Fisherman’s Wharf feels more as if it’s enchanted in a deep fairy tale slumber, waiting for the spell to be broken so that it can awaken and resume its story.
Union Square, conversely, feels more like a haunted forest where you’ve become lost and the crows have eaten the breadcrumbs that you left along the trail to help you find your way out and at any moment you expect to stumble upon the front door of a cannibalistic witch who invites you in for a nice warm meal.
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S.G. Browne is an author of dark comedy and social satire. His published works include the novels Breathers, Fated, Lucky Bastard, Big Egos, and Less Than Hero, the short story collection Shooting Monkeys in a Barrel, and the heartwarming holiday novella I Saw Zombies Eating Santa Claus. He’s an ice cream connoisseur, Guinness aficionado, cat volunteer, and a sucker for It’s a Wonderful Life. You can learn more about him at www.sgbrowne.com.
