San Francisco is Not Quite the Same

We lived in San Francsico 2000-2002, when the dot com boom was really booming and the downtown area of Union Square and Market Street was alive with the hustle and bustle of tons of people.

So, I was surprised on our recent visit to see everything so quiet. Not a lot of people walking around and lots of closed stores. San Francisco is not quite the same as we left it, when we moved away 20+ years ago.

I remember a city full of excitement. We were here about a week and ended up on the front page of the newspaper while attending a dot com party. We befriended the crew from sfGirl.com and learned the fine art of dot com party crashing from Patty Beron and friends.

Writing for sfGirl was one of my first forays into writing for an Internet site! The legendary party scene and Patty are both featured in the show Valley of the Boom. Wikipedia does a good job of summing up that time: sfGirl and Valley of the Boom

We moved to SF right after college and had zero money but managed to eat and drink for free most night of the weeks at lavish dot com parties that we literally just walked right into most of the time.

We lived four blocks from Union Square in a teeny tiny studio apartment that had a Murphy Bed and was smaller than my bedroom is now. My husband proposed to me on the corner of Post and Leavenworth.

So, with all these amazing memories, we were excited to bring our son with us almost 25 years later, to show him where mom and dad started out.

The corner where my husband proposed many years agoUnion Square and Trolley Cars

So far, he’s been a bit less than impressed. There are a LOT less people, and a lot more poop than I remembered. It seems like the Tenderloin, which was always a sketchy area, has crept into Union Square.

Everything looks a bit dirtier, and there’s more trash. Many of the stores are closed and empty. And my old job appears to be non-existent anymore.

When I lived here, there were so many people that promotions were a big thing. I worked for so many different companies, standing in busy areas and handing out free samples. Everything from Mentos to Coffee Creamer. I saw none of that, and not even enough people to make it worth the time.

There used to be huge lines for the trolley cars, but we easily got on and rode one to the wharf. There were only about five people on the trolley and my son got to hang on the side for the whole ride. This was the first thing he seemed actually excited about!

Fisherman’s Wharf and Sea Lions

Fisherman’s Wharf was a bit busier, but still a fraction of what it used to be. And large businesses there were closed down as well.

We made our way to Pier 39 to see the famous sea lions that hang out there. Usually there are hundreds there, but June and July are the off season so there was a much smaller amount.

During the summer, many of the sea lions head south to the Channel Islands to breed, but some stay at Pier 39 year-round. They are always neat to see!

We walked over to Ghirardelli Sqaure and got some chocolate. I love their chocolate squares and was excited about getting two new flavors I’d never tried.

Palace of the Fine Arts

On our last day, we ventured to Palace of the Fine Arts to see the interactive Balloon Museum exhibit. The exhibit was really cool, and I plan to do a full post on that later.

Palace of the Fine Arts is always impressive to see in person. The whole area is beautiful! So at least that was as nice as I remembered it.

Other areas of town were actually quite nice and more family-friendly than I remembered. And many places had outside dining areas leftover from Covid times.

So, while Union Square seems to have gone downhill, the other parts of town like the Marina and Pacific Heights were clean and pretty and filled with people.

Visiting San Francisco

San Francisco still has a lot to offer for vacationers. I just wouldn’t recommend staying in Union Square or the areas surrounding it.

It was really neat to go back and show our son where we lived right after college and where his dad proposed. Hard to imagine while living here that we would be back one day with our 10-year-old child.

One thing is for certain- we made the right choice moving away. It’s a cool city, but I definitely would not want to live in San Francisco anymore! I’m glad we got to experience it back in the dot com heyday.

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