Moving

Although it is not official yet, I am moving to a new neighborhood. I am waiting to hear on one place, and if it does not work out, I will keep working til I find a place in the neighborhood. There are a lot of vacancies, so it'll work, it just may take some time.

The neighborhood is sandwiched between other interesting neighborhoods and is only developing its own identity now. It is east of the Polk Gulch/Village (the old gay center of SF, now a mixture of transvestites and rich people. It is north of the Tenderloin, the notorious skid row of San Francisco. I work in this general area and regularly see people smoking crack on the street. It's a very high crime area, but it's also mostly drug-related crime. Lots of cheap food and dive bars. Open crack-smoking on the street abounds. It is west of the Theater District/Union Square. This is the true center of the city, where the tourists flock, the cable cars run, the expensive massive stores are and the best theater scene in the west is based. It is south of Nob Hill, the old-money center, where the Big Four, including Leland Stanford built their mansions after finishing the railroads to the city. I am looking for places closer to the de facto Nob Hill area than the Tenderloin and about halfway inbetween the Polk Gulch and Union Square. The place I am currently in the running for is due north of the Indian/Pakistani center of the Tenderloin, that some like to call the Tandoori-loin. People are quite imaginative.

So, the names of the area are plentiful. Some people will call it Polk Gulch, Theater District, Nob Hill or the Tenderloin. The city designates it officially as Nob Hill. Real estate developers call it Lower Nob Hill. Young people mockingly call it Tenderloin Heights, because it's on a hill, and many neighborhoods are called Heights (Dolores Heights, Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights). Nobody takes this name seriously. The most fun name, and a very common name for it, is the TenderNob. Haha. Somebody online quipped, "I thought a Tendernob is what I get after running 10k with no underwear." Sorry for the dirty joke. I like Lower Nob Hill or the TenderNob. Some people call it "The Nob", or even the "Trendyloin" (although the last more refers to the Tenderloin proper).

The district looks like my impression of New York more than of San Francisco. All buildings are 5 stories and above. It's full of cafes and bars and restaurants and hotels, but it is also fairly quiet. It's not as hectic as many other places. However, there is nowhere else in the city that I could afford, where I could walk to the Tenderloin or the Polk Gulch for cheap food, to Union Square for big city life, to Chinatown for cheap teas and food, North Beach for Cafes, all in 10 minutes. Work is less than 10 minutes away.

Lastly, I leave some impressions from the internet:

"I've lived in this area of San Francisco since 1991, in two different apartments, during two different sub-lives. It's definitely a district of its own, yet it has not yet been recognised as such on any map. Perhaps someday it shall be.
Like the Lower Haight, the TenderNob has become a district unto itself, in many senses. It is the Tenderloin and Nob Hill districts smushed together as if by a force which has blended the two very opposite neighbourhoods to the point where this blended region extends for blocks and blocks into both of the combined districts."

"Ah the TenderNob, great rent prices, and relatively safe. I get propositioned for crack, or tranny hookers from time to time, but never have I felt in danger. There's good food around, it's close to the heart of the city, and I don't have far to bike to get to school. Also, I hear the cool kids affix Tender to all of their favorite things in the area e.g. "Hey, let's go get some TenderCoffee." I don't know if that actually happens, but it should."

"I love living here. We have the best cross-section of people, i.e. prostitutes and yuppies, food, cool low key bars, and some cool South-North hills. I have one beef - I wish we were more accessible to the upper market area and the haight. Other than that we have the nicer hipsters (compared to the mission), the late night urban feel of NY, and the best locale for tourists to do what they came here for."