The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-03-26

But the future is always a vague per-
spective drawn from the present, plus adj
ditions reasoned into position on the
abstract fabric. AS is the advance made
from past to present so must be the prog
ress on through time to come. Yet in San
Francisco even now may be found what
will be ages forward in the distance far
beyond the point of her elimination, when
the great city of the Western sea shall have
gone down in the dust of her ruin like
Thebes, Persepolis and Baalbec.
A concrete vision of what is to come,
generations hence, can be seen where
Harrison, Bryant and Brannan streets dip
into the bay. Not dipping into the bay
from the outer terminus of the piers as was
intended by the architect but tumbling
through the great gaping spaces which the
Incidence of years has permitted to be
opened in the crowded commercial
thoroughfares Of this big maritime city.
In short sentence those streets literally
fall through holes in themselves and be-
come prematurely lost among the decaying
piles of their wharf foundations.
Through the wrecked planking of Harri.
son street the Rincon Hill urchins catch
bullheads and pogies, sitting safely around
their far inshore fishing ground, well
kuOWluS tlldb ill lllc nuIlQIcQS VI u6dNY
loaded wagons, trucks and carts must
make wide sweep around the dangerous
locality if they, too, would not follow the
street down into the bay. Occasionally a
couple of laborers can be seen working
spiritlessly among the broken timbers, as
if the task of overcoming the swift ravages
of time was too much for feeble human
hands. ~
Along the Bryant-street front ruin and
decay have speeded fast. The State Harbor
Commissioners recently built new wharves
out in the bay on the line of the proposed
seawall, which further accentuates the
woefully tum ble-down appearance of the
old city wharfage. Facing the north line
of weary-looking old shacks the dock has
disappeared altogether and in place of that
structure is beach which, viewed apart
| from the surrounding pilestumps. is as
guiltless of the evidences of advanced civ
| ilization as when the mission Indian
grounded his canoe there in the pre-pioneer
days. OF verify, San Francisco is going
with its desolate hill and sedgegrass beach
where the sandpipers call shri11y through
the evening fog is coming back again.
What scene of We olden time this would
have been for the Midwinter Fair visitor.
Not only could he have seen all stages of
San Franciscos progress, but he could
have viewed her decay also, all under one
But it is at the bay end of Brannan
street that the ragged ruins of wharf archi-
lecture crop out in all their dreariness.
The loaded wagon or the hand-truck never
come to this uncanny locality, and the
foot-passer walks gingerly over the rotten
planking. The pogie-fsher and crab
catcher sit on the broken timbers like the
silent genii of decay. In that still spot the
| angling wharf-rat snares the mud-loving
creatures of the bay, undisturbed by the
cargo-rushing stevedore.
Along the once-safe places, but now gap
ing pitfalls for the unwary in daylight,
and locality to be stunned always at
| night, may be read the notices: "Private
No thoroughfare. The biting sarcasm
OF these old signs Is too obvious for dis
means of warning and instruction to the
public they do efficient duty as caustic
and ironical comment upon the principle
that permits the water front of great com
mercial city to become an eyesore to even
itself and the object of its own satire.