Second Sight: Remembering Some San Francisco Neighborhoods - 2. ii. A Two-fer – Lower Haight & Hayes Valley

.

ii.

A Two-fer –

Lower Haight & Hayes Valley

As the rain falls today, I think upon

An urban neighborhood designated

Lower Haight, which is not to be confused

With the famous, Upper – Hippy Realm – Haight,

So splendid with parks and open spaces.

For no, Lower Haight is concrete sidewalks,

Houses and a few scattered businesses.

The flowerbeds are few here, and the streets

Seem to roll up at night for outsiders,

But her shopping on Divisadero

Was once quite an experience for me.

For at the corner of Page Street I’d come

When a choice holiday-mandated cut

Was needed for a special occasion.

It was here I’d come to buy the rib roast

We’d have that one Thanksgiving in Oakland,

Which, besides a twenty-four-pound turkey,

I’d cook for Keiji and Sal’s collection

Of saint and sinner guests at their Turkey

Day extravaganza of characters

Suitable for one hell of a Queer play.

And without this Page Street ‘meat market,’ we

Wouldn’t have had roast beef that holiday,

For among the very first things I’d done,

After my moving to San Francisco,

Was to borrow my friend’s Yellow Pages

And let my fingers do the walking to

Find listings for the city’s butcher shops. [i]

To my sobering grasp of just the type

Of place I’d relocated to, I found

There was not one butcher shop left in town:

The hollow, “Everything’s Frozen” words of

“See ‘Meat Markets’,” sure made my blood run chill.

And so to Page Street I’d go to buy my

Veal sweetbreads, because even the frozen

Was preferable to going without.

And speaking of culinary delights,

Further up Divisadero was where

I’d discovered a remarkable shop:

A place with antique cooking implements.

Round about the walls stood imported French

Black-iron and brass baking racks like those

All the boulangeries display their goods.

Only here, they were recruited to hold

Plates and molds – dinnerware and stemware too –

From two hundred years of San Francisco

Kitchens, dining rooms, pantries and hotels.

But my magpie eyes were drawn to the molds,

For she had tons of 19th century

Vessels of copper, tin and clay to serve

Formed desserts of ice cream, jelly and such.

More than a few of her items walked home

With me over the years from her business,

But I never bought that huge turbotière

I had my eye on for the longest time.

However, when I’d stroll home from this shop,

I never failed to stop at the nearby

Wholesale storefront opened to the public,

For here, a Palestinian family

Dealt in the bulk distribution of nuts;

Turkish dried apricots; the genuine

Golden raisins known as sultanas;

Figs of every hue – their so delicious

Whole-wheat fruit ‘Newtons’ as well – along with

Any number of other dried items.

Their bins were arranged in aisles, and you

Simply scooped the weight you wanted to buy.

In addition to these, the store kept stocked

Refrigerated cases on one wall,

For they also imported much cheese

– From France, Spain, England, Germany, and such –

And in the days before supermarkets

Got swank with the varieties they sell,

The Lower Haight already had it all!

And another store unique to this ‘hood,

Still open to this day, I’m pleased to say,

Lives on Haight Street proper, near to Duboce,

And offers costumes to rent, buy or sell.

It’s here I let the dress one Halloween

I hosted as Queen Marie-Antoinette.

And being close to Duboce Park in mind

Puts me in mind of house-shopping there once.

Our friends Bob and Jose had decided

To take the leap from renters to owners,

And wanted the four of us to move in.

Naturally, it wasn’t a bad idea,

But meant the building needed to allow

For duo family living arrangements.

One Saturday, we went to see a house

Steps from the park on Carmelita Street,

Which clever town planners had cul-de-sac’d

‘Gainst the grassy edge of the park itself.

The layout of this single-family home,

Unfortunately, proved unworkable

For two couples to make it comfortable.

We were soon to move to Noe Valley,

While our friends went to buy in Hayes Valley,

And their investment proved fortuitous.

A non-descript place when they moved there,

Hayes Valley took off as the trendiest

Neighborhood for the rich to take over.

Yet, far from complaining, I saw a switch

As if on a light bulb being turned on,

And gentrification opened new stores

Of the best Gay pop-‘n-pop description.

One couple then opened “Alabaster”,

And the gift of a stone pencil holder,

Which Jose gave me one Christmas, is still

Holding pride of place on my desk today.

An interesting shop, where its name told one

To expect calcite and Carrara things

To predominate, which they did in spades.

There were those carved marble end-table lamps,

Considered tacky when I was a kid,

For sale for hundreds of dollars apiece,

And alabaster bowls for your waxed fruit,

And little figurines to hold your rings:

All so trendy with Hayes’ newcomers.

But just around the corner from them lived

A store owned by another male couple.

Both in their twenties, one of them was French,

And their shop contained merchandise brought from

All the local Parisian flea markets

The one partner grew up with as a kid.

To say this store could provide the best type

Of rummage would be putting it mildly.

You’d never know what you’d find there, and what

Better excuse did one need to go back?

But alas, all such shops are closed there now,

And even the mega-brunch establishment

Directly across from Alabaster

At Hayes and Laguna Streets has closed down:

A victim to pandemic restrictions.

But in my mind’s eye, I can easily

People the sidewalks round it with tables,

And with the long, snaking line of hungry

Don’t-know-how-to-cook-at-homes just itching

To get in and dig into their waffles.

Yes, they’ll always be there in my memory

– Come here any Saturday or Sunday –

Seated at their cozy, two-fer tables

To enjoy their up-and-come neighborhood.