I first moved from New Jersey to San Francisco in 1976, age 19, because I wanted to be a hippie, I wanted to explore psychedelic drugs and altered states of consciousness, I wanted to be an underground cartoonist, and I wanted to find the hippie chick of my dreams that I could live with for the rest of my life. So San Francisco 1976 seemed as good of a place as any to try and pursue those lofty goals. Ha ha.
It’s funny, because 45 years later the San Francisco I was looking for in 1976 no longer exists. And the person I was at 19 no longer exists, either. So there’s really no reason for me to even be here any longer. The passionate connection I had once felt between myself and the San Francisco Bay Area has devolved over the years into little more than a marriage of convenience, like two people who have grown apart and now have little in common. I guess the only reason we’re still together is because of inertia, habit, and because nobody else will have me. I often feel like the mythical Japanese soldier in World War II who got lost in a tropical rain forest and continued fighting World War II for decades after because he never got the news that the war had ended. Time has passed me by. sigh
Still, to this day I look back on my 19 year old self with sort of a bemused fondness — no matter how stupid, naive, unrealistic and misinformed I had been back then. It’s the kind of affection one feels for a hapless but well-meaning dunce. I was already severely psychologically damaged back then. And only managed to keep my shattered psyche together by a fierce act of will and a desperate show of bravado (I somehow managed to convince myself that I was smarter and more brilliant than everyone else in the world). . . I had already come close to being killed twice already before I was even out of my teens — had a loaded gun pressed up against my head and a knife pressed up against my neck on two different ocassions. And had several other extremely traumatic experiences inflicted on me. So as I turned 19 — unlike most of my peers — I wasn’t what you’d call a hard-charger, rarin’ to go, striving to make a life for myself and carve out my place in the world. At that point what I mostly wanted was just a quiet place where I could sit by myself and lick my wounds. And try to repair my already seriously damaged and warped psyche before I turned into some kind of permanently demented thing.
To that end, I ended up living on this off-ramp in San Francisco for a year. Camped there by myself with a sleeping bag and a framed backpack. It was the perfect spot for me, actually. Almost completely secluded and hidden away from the hustle and bustle of the city. This quiet little cocoon of space. This patch of grass and shrubbery hidden away at the end of this cul-de-sac (you can see the greenery on this photo, middle, far right). For one thing, you had to walk up the Fremont Street off-ramp the wrong way against the traffic to get to it (which few people would do). Then walk underneath the Bay Bridge, and then walk across this narrow dirt path atop this steep hill. To get to this grassy area on the top of the hill, at the foot of the bridge. Overlooking the San Francisco Bay below, and the Oakland skyline way off in the distance. Years later, they would build luxury apartment buildings nearby and their ads would all extoll “the million dollar views” that the apartments offered their tenants. But I enjoyed the view for free back then.
I’d sit there by myself, my back resting against the big slab cement foundation of the Bay Bridge, listening to the relentless buzz of all the cars, trucks and buses rushing back and forth across the bridge above me, completely oblivious of my presence below them. And I’d look out at the Bay below me and the endless blue sky above me. Practically seething with dreams of glory (you know how you can be when you’re 19). And my entire life stretching before me like this endless expanse of time, and like this blank canvas waiting to be filled.
And that area of South of Market was mostly just a warehouse district back then, so the entire neighborhood was almost completely deserted after working hours, so I virtually had the whole place to myself. There weren’t even any other homeless around. The homeless population in San Francisco was actually quite small back then, believe it or not (the term hadn’t even been invented yet). And most of the bummy types were contained within the couple block radius of Skid Row and the Tenderloin.
Anyways, whenever I come across a photo of the Union 76 tower, it’ll always take me back to the San Francisco of 1976, and my 19 year old self. Because I walked by the Union 76 tower every time I walked up the Fremont Street exit to my campsite. And sometimes I’ll think back on who I thought I was back then. And the person I aspired to be. As well as the person I finally ended up becoming all these years later.
Ace Backwords Photos 