king pigeon
another reprint from 2004. Those pigeons really like high tension wires. I think they’re all going down in a few days. The wires, I mean. The pigeons tend not to care.
2010July» king pigeon» benched » Waiting Room » mainline u-turn » dark hallway » Up and Down » elevator panorama » telephone sign » nameless diner nasty-ass stools » Cuddles - tight view » Cuddles - long view » 3 » slot » dirtiest job in town » Shoeshine Sign » Welcome Mat » No Barking » Pigeonspikes » alignment 2008September» Arch Rock |
benched
surprisingly comfortable. I hope they get reclaimed when this placed goes down in rubble.
Waiting Room
TransBay Terminal - this is where they want you to wait. A lot of people are sort of waiting here permanently. It’s so cheerful they never want to leave sometimes. Or, you know, they missed their bus. A couple years ago. Anyway, they’ve got to find a new waiting room. It’ll be tough to match this ambiance.
mainline u-turn
a reprint from 2004, and a nice image of the TransBay Terminal that most of us will remember. Probably insulin, right? I especially like the atmospherics - rust and dust. When they had the big photo event for people looking for heartwarming memories of the old pile, this was no longer in evidence.
dark hallway
TransBay Terminal, and I do mean ‘terminal.’ This cheerful sight greets visitors to San Francisco from Oakland. Or from San Francisco to Hell. Your choice, I guess.
Up and Down
at the soon-to-be-torn-down TransBay Terminal - these are the modern kind of stairs, they go both ways
elevator panorama
at one time escalators made everything classier. See how well they work here? For a place with so little foot traffic, they sure move a lot of stairs up and down automatically all the time… TransBay Terminal, intertwixt the floors
telephone sign
once upon a time you needed to find a phone to use a phone, and I don’t just mean which of your pockets it was hiding in. This kind of signage was apparently once helpful for that purpose. This cool old sign was lately turned back on at the TransBay Terminal, but I don’t think it’s pointing to a place where there are any phones anymore. It’s just booths with the electronics torn out. Soon, it won’t even be that. Good thing we’ve got a photo of it, for how much longer it’ll last and all.
nameless diner nasty-ass stools
at the TransBay Terminal - who knew a diner once lay hidden behind the walls of the cavernous Mission Street entry? And who doesn’t know that it’s destined to be demolished soon? These are the stools they expected patrons to sit on. No wonder they had to close the damn place. No wonder bus travel has lost its luster.
Cuddles - tight view
at the TransBay Terminal, Cuddles Bar (or was it Cuddle’s - the possessive or the plural? or plural-possessive, for that which belongs to multi-cuddles?), as seen from the pass-through to the diner that no one knew existed - seductive curves and staged shotglasses, it’s where Sam Spade would have gotten tanked for the trip to Oakland. I like this one.
Cuddles - long view
at the TransBay Terminal, I had no idea this place ever existed - a boite for the busborne, long-since shuttered and left to the dustmites, and uncovered for a day just so we could marvel at what we are about to lose when they tear the damn place down. It was called “Cuddles.” The name gives me shivers, of the unpleasant sort. I hope the plastic sheeting wasn’t part of the original decor....
3
at the TransBay Terminal, I guess they wanted to let you know how many bannisters you had to choose from. Or maybe that’s the number of this ramp to the bus deck. It’s such a tricky building in some ways.
slot
reprinted from 2004 and 2007 - please don’t dump your smoking papers here, okay buddy?
dirtiest job in town
they took down a wall to reveal this long-hidden feature of the TransBay Terminal - looks more like a mass-execution electric chair to me; I can’t imagine sitting here to get tidied up, but once upon a time I bet things looked different
Shoeshine Sign
recently uncovered signage at the TransBay Terminal - no one there lately has seemed much interested in such matters
Welcome Mat
on the busramps outside the TransBay Terminal - as if anyone needed to be told not to enter there, but still, a nice moderne exterior
No Barking
maybe it said “no backing” but I can’t really tell anymore - posted on the granite walls of the outside busramps of the TransBay Terminal
Pigeonspikes
above the busdeck of the TransBay Terminal - even pigeons apparently don’t visit very often and the spikes that repel them show the extent to which they’ve been forsaken
alignment
republished from 2004 - the alignment of aligners at the TransBay Terminal, heading up to the bus deck
Arch Rock
coming out from 4 miles in the tugly woods, finding this viewpoint is really an eyeopener.
Solarized Laurels
the laurel trees are cool enough, but when you hit that “solarize” button, kazowie! also noteworthy - if you crumple up the leaves of this tree and whiff them, it’ll be among the most painful experiences of your life. No joke.
shore stacks
looking upshore, you can see why california is ultimately doomed.
stump shrooms
on a felled log, these cheerful fungi show us all that high ain’t necessarily dry
surf
surf isn’t always crashing. These waves lapped the shore in languorous foamy embraces and it seemed the sort of thing I’d like to remember somehow.
meadowbench
in the meadow, this hunk of tree is now a petal-strewn bench. I liked it.
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