Tuesday – July 24, 2012
Today was our last day in San Francisco. It’s an amazing and interesting city. We visited most of the tourist attractions on our list in the last four days. We were beginning to know where things were in the city and how to get around. That sad feeling of leaving a nice place was setting in and we talked about how to make our last day really special. It’s not possible to see everything in a big city like San Francisco in a few days. It’s good to leave something “for the next time.” This was our pledge to return someday soon.
SFMoMA
We had saved the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for “a rainy day,” after all it was San Francisco!, but the weather had been so beautiful all week that we never got there. Today was the day! As soon as we walked into the large lobby, our eyes went up to the sparkling lights hanging above our heads. Like snow twinkling on trees in moonlight, an artistic oeuvre dangled from the high ceiling. The round lights flickered in what seemed like a random pattern. I had the sense of being in a soft snowfall!
View of San Francisco from SFMoMa
We took the elevator to the top floor with a plan to work our way down to the street level. As we left the elevator we were greeted by an expansive view of the city. It reminded me of some of the older areas of Manhattan. We walked to the indoor/outdoor roof garden to see the sculptures. Several of Louise Bourgeois’ giant spiders entitled The Nest greeted us in front of the cafe.
The Sherman Ice Cream Float
The cafe has clever snacks and desserts which were designed to celebrate modern and contemporary artists whose works are on display or are part of the museum’s collection. I especially liked the colorful Mondrian multi-level slice of cake and the bright Cindy Sherman ice cream float with edible glitter. I didn’t see any Louise Bourgeois spiders to munch on, thank goodness.
Sky Light & Shadows
We enjoyed walking through SFMoMA to see their installations and current exhibits. The museum has a good representative collection of 20th Century art, some of which was on display in a series of instructive galleries which described the evolution of contemporary art over the last 50 years. Oh my gosh! It’s been 50 years since the 1960s! It feels like yesterday…
Dim Sum Lunch at Yank Sing
All that art helped us work up an appetite for lunch. We found a Chinese dim sum restaurant a few blocks away from the museum with a Zagat rating of 26, which is extremely rare for Chinese food, so we walked over with high expectations. The dim sum at Yank Sing was good, perhaps the best in SF, but we have had better in New York. The ultimate best dim sum we ever ate was in Toronto a couple of years ago!
San Francisco Street Car 1940s Vintage
SFMoMA and Yank Sing are located in the SOMA District, South of Market Street, on the edge of the Financial District. The San Francisco Railway Museum & Gift Shop is located a few blocks away so we walked over to see the living history museum. It’s a small single-room shop located at the street car terminal of the “F” Line, across the road from the Ferry Terminal.
Brooklyn, NY Street Car 1940s
The museum/shop is manned by volunteers who have worked very diligently to buy, restore, and maintain the fleet of 47 street cars which operate in San Francisco daily. With the assistance of then Mayor Dian Feinstein and public donations, the group has been able to purchase old vintage street cars from a wide variety of cities (including Milan Italy) and restore them and get them on the street.
Italian Street Car From Milan 1920s
Because the street cars run on electricity and not diesel fuel, they are environmentally friendly as well as looking really cool rolling down the streets. There is only one route that the vintage cars run on which is the “F” Line. They go from Fisherman’s Wharf along the Embarcadero and then along Market Street to Castro and back.
1940s San Francisco Street Car
The very friendly woman in the museum/shop spent a good deal of time telling us all about the street cars. Then we went out to watch and photograph the cars as they went by the museum. There is also a great website giving more information about the history of this wonderful project. It is: www.streetcar.org
Los Angeles Street Car – 1940s
Rare San Francisco Street Car
Street Car from Philadelphia, PA
We would still be there watching the colorful street cars roll by, commenting on how beautiful they look, but we decided to move on. Literally! We jumped on one of the historic street cars for our last ride in San Francisco this trip! :-) I think, if we lived in San Francisco we would “collect” street cars by photographing and riding each and every one of them. It’s very reassuring to know that San Francisco is still the transportation wonderland that my young sons discovered many years ago. The city is preserving and continuing that tradition for future generations….. Bravo San Francisco!!!
San Francisco International Airport