“No good!” she said, not allowing me to talk. Not that it would have mattered, I don’t think she spoke English.

“They sit here and they smoke,” she made a puffing gesture, “cops come and they…” she then motioned as though she was hiding her imaginary smoke.

“The police…”, she paused, looked at me with indirect contempt, “No good.”

“Tourists! No good.”

“Businesses, so few, No good!”

“…they sleep here, pee everywhere,” I noted her duct taped jacket and Muni Fast pass dangling from her neck with a big ‘S’ on it, “No GOOD!”.

She wondered off, continuing her conversation with herself.

“No good”.

But on to the topic at hand: the TL. I stumbled across this blog on TL & 6th street motels. It’s a great way to burn a night if you are into urban decay. Just spectacular.

The Chronicle calls for the plaza to be filled in, citing it as another mistake of ’70s urban renewal. Years ago, the plaza was occupied by far more useful theaters, lost to the building of Bart and Muni Metro in the ’70s.

Coming out of Powell station was different today, however. The Emporium is set for their grand opening tomorrow, which really an very large extension of the Westfield Shopping Centre. With it comes swanky high-end shops such as Bloomingdales and a new Centure Theatre. When I came out of the train station and into Hallidie Plaza, I was greeted by people dancing, a live band, and not a single person urinating on the wall. For once, in probably my lifetime, the plaza was alive with people.

Will this change be only temporary? Time will tell for sure. Other stores have started to open up on the once heavily blighted block of 5th to 6th, and even the largest blighted structure between 5th and 6th, the long since abandoned St. Francis Theather, is due to become 156 condos. The boarded up Strand theater may or may not become condos, but with the growing commerce and excellent transit in that area, there may still be hope for it.

According to Randy Shaw, author of Theaters of San Francisco, Mid-Market, the area between 5th and 8th streets, used to be known as “The Great White Way of San Francisco”. It was called so because of the “non-stop stream of lights” and constant theather activity: almost 25,000 theatre seats. I see the opening of these new high end stores, and all the commerce and condos opening just steps away, as a renewal of mid-market in a new form. What that may take form as can hardly be as bad as what it is like now.

Features:

• Ninth floor private entrance

• Hardwood floors in main room
• New kitchen (no d/w though)
• New bathroom
• View of SoMA and the Mission
• I won’t have to take Muni to work any more. That’s right, F* YOU Muni.

Oh, and it has a shared deck on the opposite side of my unit.

Photos coming soon!