On Thursday morning, police "do not cross" tape went up once again in the neighborhood on Van Ness between Hayes and Fell Streets.
The beautiful, decrepit old Mission-style building at 135 Van Ness currently houses most of the administrative offices for the San Francisco Unified School District.
At 2AM on Thursday morning, a fire broke out on the corner of Van Ness and Hayes and seriously damaged about three floors.
The complex of seismically unfit, rotting old buildings covers an entire city block, and I wasn't even aware that people still worked in them until calling the school district today. Because the real estate is obviously extremely valuable and the school district, like every other in California, is going through some very rough financial times, I wonder what will come next.
I was having a late breakfast with a friend on the patio at Flickers on Thursday and we kept being "interrupted" by numerous fire engines going by. I wonder if they were heading for this fire. I'm glad that nobody was hurt but I'm always suspicious when there a fire in an old building on very valuable real estate.
ReplyDeleteNot that I'm suspicious or paranoid or anything.
Oh - remember that photo that you took of me holding up the large painting that I was going to title "Picnic on the Grass" or words to that effect. I finally finished it and will be posting it to my blog sometime this week but I was wondering if you could e-mail me the earlier image. I never too a photo of it and I like to compare versions of the same piece.
Thanks!
Dear Nancy: No, the fire was at 2AM so I doubt if that's what you were hearing. There's been a strange rash of fires around town in the last week, from the one at the Giants ballpark to one at the Polo Field in Golden Gate Park.
ReplyDelete