The sixth and last stop on my photographical tour of San Francisco: the Mission District. This was the first neighbourhood that we came to, Hanna and me, when we first arrived in San Francisco – and it went straight into our hearts. This is where all the murals are, the odd stores, the rough and the cool. Traditionally, it’s the Mexican neighbourhood, but now you meet everything from Mexicans to hipsters and other oddly dressed people. On the streets of the Mission, you never get bored.
The Mission is centered along two streets: Mission street and Valencia street. These two are fundamentally different, like two different worlds, but still so much the Mission. I’ll start by showing you Mission street:
An old theater turned into a parking garage. This is something pretty typical for Mission street – the houses are really beautiful, but pretty run down and rough.
Along Mission street, you can find almost anything: money lenders, Chinese restaurants, Mexican karaoke bars, vegetable stores, knock-off clothes shops and liquor stores.
In parts, this is street is really dingy, but there’s a charm in that. This stretch of Mission street is not a place where a young girl like myself should be walking alone at night, but in broad daylight I find it fascinating.
And so the much cleaner (and pretty much gentrified) Valencia street:
Here, you find all the odd boutiques with herbs, books and maps.
The houses are well kept after, unlike the houses of Mission street. Here a taste of the Mission murals.
Beretta, the bar and restaurant where Eric worked. As it happens, a couple of weeks after I left Eric and some of his collegues from the bar went to New Orleans to take part in a bar competition – and won. So, the bartenders at Beretta know what they’re doing. I tried two coctails there: one with elder flower and one with basil. Both were delicious.
Another bar front.
The dinosaur to the left is part of a parking lot park – a thing they have in San Francisco. The owner of the beautiful blue townhouse had chosen to remake the parking lot in front of the building into a tiny park. Just one of those wonderful, inspiring things you come across in San Francisco. More parks and less cars!
The store front to Dog Eared Books, the best bookstore in the Mission.
Vintage cars and bikes on 19th street.
Mission Dolores, on Dolores street. The oldest remaining structure in the earthquake ridden San Francisco. This is what has given the Mission it’s name, a church built in the old Spanish style in 1791 as part of the California chain of missions.
The sun going down over Dolores Park.
Katja Malmborg 