Photo Diary: Mother and Daughter
Photo by DavidTakesPictures
Need a little cheerful pick-me-up? Here you go.
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Category: diaries
From Inside Transbay Terminal (updates)
Photo by Telstar Logistics
Update (August 4, 7:36 a.m.): Chris Roberts has a nice gallery and story up about the Transbay Terminal over at SF Appeal.
Update (August 3, 12:20 p.m.): California Beat has a great article detailing the history of the terminal, along with more awesome photos.
Original post:
The building will soon be demolished to make room for a high rise and high-speed rail station. In the mean time, you’ve got to check out the photos from the last official tour of the Transbay Terminal.
Check out those antique Corn Flakes, all those goddam payphones, the bar set with Martini glasses and a shaker or two, a drunk tank (no comment), all from the set taken by the talented Telstar Logistics, who also took the photograph above.
Best Song to Serenade Your Muni Sweetie
Photo by James Vonbaron
I was on Muni headed to Church one afternoon. It was packed, but not like sardines (as it is sometimes). There was a girl next to me who seemed so sweet and a short old man comes on with his MJ t-shirt and dark thick sunglasses. He can’t find a seat so he stands next to the girl and begins to sing into her ear, “I’m only going to break,break…your heart”(obnoxiously!).
I felt bad for the girl. A man offered a seat for him to sit in (probably in hopes that he would stop singing), but the old man sat down and stopped singing. I got off my exit and a few steps back I heard the old man shouting out the song again. I picked up the pace and exited the station.
If you’ve been living under a rock or listening to some other over-played song on the radio, here’s Taio Cruz’s Break Your Heart, just for good measure. – Eugenia
Rejected by Muni. Twice
Photo by shandopics
This diary teeters on the edge between tragic and comic. This driver is Tara’s Newman. The Muni system in the far northeast corner of San Francisco is her white whale. Read on …
Thursday after work, I saw the 47 idling at a red light before turning left at the corner of Beach and Powell. Great: I’m a few steps from the route’s origin, and the light’s still totally red. Surely, if I knock on the door (the bus was technically still touching its stop), I’ll be let on with plenty of time for everyone to be on schedule.
Nope.
The driver acknowledged my knock with a step-back motion, confusing me a bit, then continued to sit there for a few seconds until the light turned green.
And then she left.
I’ve booked it to the second stop before with good results (knowing that the bus has two more lefts to make before it gets there), so I indignantly jogged as best I could with a full gym bag, a yoga mat, and a purse. I was the horse and this bus was my carrot. Surprisingly, I made it to the outside back of the bus at that second stop. A guy stood on the stairs for a second before boarding, then I watched the doors close and the bus roll along.
There is no goddamn way she didn’t see me the second time, which made it even worse. I fumed via voicemail at the stop; yeah, I was that girl screaming obscenities into a phone while toting a peppy pink yoga mat. Welcome, tourists!
It got me thinking of what a driver once said to late arrivals; you can either get on the bus as it leaves a stop, or you can have the bus stay on schedule, but you can’t have both. Is it really one or the other? I’d hope it would be more case-by-case than that, personally.
Tara is saddened, almost to the point of tears on some days, that her only transit options away from Fisherman’s Wharf elude her so regularly.
Photo diary: Mutual Slump
Love this. Photo by Justin Beck.
N-Judah with an aversion to westward travel
9:09 p.m.: commotion in the N outbound.Door is stuck and power is out. Greaaaat!
9:16 p.m.: after rolling backwards for a sec the door has finally opened.
I’ve been on an M-Ocean View whose steps got stuck as they were being lowered (coming out of SF State and into Ingleside). We sat there, and sat there, and sat there, steps mid-retracted, doors flinging open and closed. Half of me wanted that Muni Metro car to go all Transformers, with me in it.
It’s never fun when Muni breaks. But sometimes we just have to make the most of our half-functional transit system.
Let us hear some of your more unusual breakdown stories in the comments.