Mean Streets

The wild new glass-and-steel Federal building at 7th and Mission Streets is almost ready for its grand opening.



It will be interesting to see if the area, with its exquisite old buildings, will manage to stop being such mean streets.



Across Seventh Street from the Fed building, a new "mid-century modern" store has opened...



...that features gorgeous reflections on its front doors.



At the same time, most of the old-fashioned sex parlors on Market Street...



...seem to be closing down.



Maybe the blue building on Market between Sixth and Seventh, which was rehabbed during the dot-com boom and has stood empty ever since...



...will finally get some inhabitants.



Currently, there's an art gallery installed on the ground floor...



...with a mission statement attached to its front desk.



There was a group show art opening on Thursday evening...



...with most of the usual suspects in attendance.



My favorite paintings were by the beautiful Brazilian painter Sidnea d'Amico, above left.



She has a studio on 17th and Mission Streets, which is another Mean Intersection of Streets.



Across from the gallery on Market Street, a nightclub with the ironic name of "Etiquette"...



...was being readied for a grand opening next week.



Further down Market Street, we walked the two-block gauntlet of theatrical substance abusers and schizophrenics who act out on lower Taylor Street so we could eat at Original Joe's, a great Tenderloin restaurant caught in a time bubble. If you have the courage to venture through tne neighborhood, I can't recommend the place highly enough.