Cities handle change in very different ways. San Francisco can be quite resistant to change for a place with a reputation for "setting the pace" in so many ways. We seem to like things as they are, at least superficially. This is especially true of the "look" of our City. Still, so much change is really beyond our control. Natural disasters and economic forces will always alter our environment. It's hard not to see the signs of economic distress in The City of late. I've come across a couple of interesting examples; this shop on Kearny took down the sign of its last tenant and has revealed its former incarnation as a hat store, and this former Washington Mutual branch on Polk and California has a new name. The hat shop will have a new tenant soon, I hope. I pray that Chase will spend a little of that bailout cash on a new permanent sign (could they have done the new sign MORE cheaply?) Other sad changes; Morrow's Nut House on Geary has gone after over 60 years in the same location, as has the See's Candies shop on Polk (the oldest outlet in the chain, it's been on Polk since 1936).
Little losses perhaps, but threads in the fabric of The City that was.
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