Thursday, August 09, 2007
Parke and Go
Installment the last: Dang, the Place Sure Is Changing:
My neighborhood is undergoing a fair share of revitalization. Dusty old stores have been rediscovered, new shiny ones have opened or expanded to general acclaim, and quirky little taverns and cafes are now crowded with hipsters both authentic and faux. What was originally a collection of cemeteries amid the dunes, and has been a drowsy outlying ‘burb since I moved here, is now becoming the place to be - or at least, a place to be. The Richmond: SF’s Williamsburg. Or something.
I’ve enjoyed watching this transformation over the past 15 or so years, but of course it has come at a price - a price I can now see is being paid at the corner of Stanyan and Geary. The Park Walker has apparently left the building.
Geary is one of the main drags in town, rolling greyly from the FD to the pacific. It was plotted early and got its name in about 1850. Stanyan is an important cross-town route, running north from the interior greenbelt of Mt Sutro through Cole Valley, up past where Haight turns into Golden Gate Park, and all the way to the big elegant spreads near CPMC. It’s not really a commercial artery, though, and its terminus at Geary has been a fairly low key affair since before the graveyards thereabouts got dug up. All that remains of the erstwhile serenity that prevailed back when the area was mostly boneyards is the extravagant beaux arts dome of the Columbarium lofting with green peacefulness high up behind a boring stripmall featuring a Kinkos and a Pier One.
It’s there, though, back behind the streets, and I’m always surprised to re-realize how few people know that it even exists. It’s really only easily visible form the driveway out of the BevMo parking lot. It’s quite impressive from that vantage, as you pull from a buried car-hole along a steep driveway up to Stanyan; it looms before you, blocking the setting sun.... Anyway, until the BevMo moved in and made that particular view accessible to the public at large, I bet barely anybody even looked up to see the Columbarium’s exuberant supermortality. They all just saw the Pier One, the Futon Shop, the weird windowless Chinese steakhouse and the Coronet Theater (of blessed memory) - and of course, across the street, the old Park Walker liquor store.
The Park Walker went back to the main development surge in my neighborhood, back in the heart of the mid-century. It was a corner shop, a liquor store in the California mold - a few aisles, a bare sufficiency of groceries, and full options on snacks and beverages. It’s the prototype of the 7-11, but with a lot more booze and no slurpees. Sometimes, though, an Icee machine, rotating anachronistically behind a counter. Those always made me vaguely sad for some reason. But I’m not sure that’s the point I’m trying to make here.
I didn’t frequent the Park Walker - I had similar options nearer to home - but had I found myself one day out at Geary and Stanyan with a sudden urge for a Squirt and some Funyuns, I’d have gone right in there. It was dark and minimal inside; the corner facade was sparsely decorated by panels above the windows that, nonetheless, by their throwback typography and overall authenticity, managed to evoke an era very clearly in my mind. Not really near any important park, or parkway, I found its name inexplicable. I liked to add an “e” to the first word and think of it as the dude who started it some fifty years ago: Parke Walker, he would have called himself.
Ol’ Parke kept his liquor store going through the space age, the detente era, the Whipping Now of Inflation and right up to the millennium and the BevMo which it brought.
Okay, so I shop BevMo, okay? It’s nothing I’m proud of but they’ve treated me right more often than not. They’re not “my liquor store,” either - that honor’s reserved for a traditional specialist near my home. But I do shop at BevMo. They get more of my business than, say, Parke Walker ever did.
You’ve noticed by now, because you are a clever reader, that I keep referring to ol’ Parke Walker in the past tense. Honestly I didn’t even realize he was gone, but it sure looks like we’ve lost him now. Some months ago I realized that the accordion gates guarding the windows there were closed, and never being re-opened. I had been fooled for a time by the florescent beer signs glowing sleeplessly in the windows and the cumbersome one-letter-per-page windowsign advertising “FRESH SANDWICHES” so proudly, and so hollowly.... In fact, there were no fresh sandwiches; there was nothing fresh at the Park Walker whatsoever. When I took the time to look, I noticed that its signs and windows were dusty and dull; the beer posters and flickering display lamps had taken on a ghastly, undead quality, and those runcible gates that shuttered tightly over the glass door’s “welcome” sign hadn’t been touched in months.
I found myself near the ol’ Park Walker corner liquor store a few weeks ago and saw a shop frozen in time, as if someone had just left one night and never come back. Shelves were stocked, time-puckered mail had piled up tall and wide, and months-old newspapers peeled and blistered in the undisturbed dust of a store suddenly abandoned. The threshold is black now with sandy street dirt; there’s no sign on the door like the forlorn “WE ARE CLOSED FOREVER.” out at the veggie sandwich place, but the message is pretty damn clear nonetheless.
I wondered about all that as I peered in at the long-locked door, in at the shelves and their lonely contents in the murky shadows. I peered in, thinking about that, for a good ten or fifteen seconds. Then I crossed the street and dropped some cash at BevMo. I guess I really have no right to complain.
It feels good to get that off my chest, and now we can move on to more cheerful matters. For example, while some places have closed, there’s a new master baker from Ireland who’s opened shop near my boy’s favorite playground, and I’ve already turned several people on to their luscious scones. We’ve got killer authentic cheesesteaks right near my office, and they’re talking about building a 1200 foot tower downtown and a 100,000 foot art museum in the presidio. Positive progress is being made. I also finished a cool book last night, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, and I feel energized. The boy is keeping us up late, though, and waking up a lot, so it’s tough to find time to type these suckers up. Today and tomorrow I’m at a conference, so I won’t even be able to do any lunch blogging. Oh the humanity. Meantime, have a great day, or whatever you’re having. Let’s see how that works out for ya.
