Treading Time in San Francisco: A Mortal in the Infinite City
Several months ago, motivated by a surfeit of unseasonably sunny weather, I decided to play tourist in my own town. Armed with Daniel Bacon’s excellent guidebook, Walking San Francisco on the Barbary Coast Trail, I set out early in the day to meander my way through the 3.8-mile hike, which began downtown at the Old Mint, a formidable structure of steel-fortified granite, sandstone, and brick that survived the 1906 earthquake and subsequent fire. The route was marked by a se