Insight: In a Golden Gate of Mind

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

Back when we were first married, my wife Nancy and I would take an annual summer vacation to some place that we had never been before.

Nancy and Ed Pierce got to tour the old Alcatraz Federal
Penitentiary while visiting San Francisco in 2007.
COURTESY PHOTO 

We would spend one weekend each spring figuring out where we wanted to go, the week we could go, how much it would cost and what we wanted to do while we were there on vacation. Since she was a teacher and off during the summer months, the days we could travel depended upon when I could get off from my job at the daily newspaper where I worked.

One year we both agreed that San Francisco, California might be a great place to visit. Nancy wanted to tour the former Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, made famous in the Burt Lancaster film “Birdman of Alcatraz,” and she wanted to go to a store in San Francisco that specialized in “Shabby chic,” a style of interior design using furniture and furnishings selected for their appearance of age and signs of wear and tear resulting in a soft pastel-colored cottage-like look.

I had hoped to see Fisherman’s Wharf, the Golden Gate Bridge, Chinatown, and maybe take a tour of Ghirardelli’s Chocolate Factory if there was sufficient time available during our trip.

We made our airline reservations and booked a hotel on Bush Street in San Francisco which was conveniently located near places we wanted to see and public transportation.

On our way to the hotel by taxi from the airport, we both noticed how big the city was and its unique architecture and high-rise buildings. Once we were settled into our room, we walked around outside and noticed a bronze historical plaque near our hotel indicating that famous American author Robert Louis Stevenson once lived in an apartment next to the hotel. 
 
The next morning, we set off exploring and walked around the city’s financial district and took photos of the famous Transamerica Pyramid Building. Then we took a bus to the Waterfront area, toured Fisherman’s Wharf and had lunch at In-N-Out Burger. For me, In-N-Out remains the best burger I have ever eaten, and though it’s been many years since the trip, I still remember how good that was.

Early the next day we rode on a cable car to a waterfront location where we could see Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. We inquired about getting tickets to tour Alcatraz, but we were told they had been sold out for months. Instead, we boarded a tour boat that sailed out into San Francisco Bay. It circled around Alcatraz Island as the tour boat operator pointed out the sights and then we traveled underneath the Golden Gate Bridge before returning to Pier 39 at the waterfront and an incredible sight there. At the end of the pier, within the view of tourists taking photos, thousands of seals sunned themselves on the pier’s planks.

That night we walked to a nearby steakhouse called John's Grill. We did not have a reservation, but they welcomed us there and informed us that the restaurant had been around since 1908. Our waitress said the restaurant had been a setting in the book “The Maltese Falcon” by writer Dashiell Hammett, who frequently dined there in the 1920s.

On the third day, we visited Chinatown and North Beach. Later we shopped at the Shabby chic store and took a sightseeing guided trip through town in a 1940s open-air car called “Mr. Toad’s Tours.” During that excursion, we saw the home where the movie “Mrs. Doubtfire” was filmed, and watched cars traverse Lombard Street known as the “crookedest street in the world.” 

Day Four saw us back at Fisherman’s Wharf trying to see if we could somehow find tickets for a tour of the former Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. We went to the tour’s ticket window, and they said tickets could only be purchased for tours starting in three weeks. But as we walked away, another tourist said we should try and see if a nearby booth had tickets available.

We were in luck, but there was a catch. To receive two tickets to tour Alcatraz that afternoon, we had to attend a company’s timeshare presentation that lasted for two hours. I didn’t want to do it, but so Nancy could fulfill her dream of visiting Alcatraz, I reluctantly agreed to it. After saying no to a sales pitch at least eight different times, the company handed over the tickets, and we immediately got in line for the Alcatraz tour.

A boat took us to the island, and we walked through the entire site. The prison cells were tiny inside, and the prison bars were rusty and old. Many seagulls inhabited the outside grounds, and the National Park Service tour guides painted a very grim depiction for us of prison life on Alcatraz Island before the prison closed in 1963. We also heard how in 1969, Native American tribes had occupied Alcatraz for 19 months.

Before flying out of San Francisco on our final day there, we took one last walk around the city and took photos of the Oakland Bay Bridge.

Nancy agrees with me that our “City by the Bay” adventure was truly unforgettable. <