Farewell Fisherman’s Wharf

by James V. Lacy

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San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf is now a sorry, empty shell, awaiting demolition and major changes. This video shows almost all the restaurants and retail shops at the former iconic tourist destination, including Ghirardelli Square, totally empty, even amid a working wharf. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CtYx6OeFUkc. As a native of the San Francisco Bay Area, this video sickens me.

Times surely change and so do people, businesses and consumer tastes. (I am still a little annoyed that Santa Monica Seafood recently closed its restaurant and fish market in Costa Mesa.) But the almost total wipeout of a long-established and beloved, and sometimes bedeviled institution, going the way of other policy related failures in the City by the Bay such as the retail pullouts on Market Street and Union Square, is particularly ugly and unimaginable to me, surpassed only in my mind by the death of Luciano Pavarotti (which I still find hard to accept).

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As a tourist destination, and for a first time visitor, perhaps the cheesy souvenir shops and street experiences off the Wharf, like a Wax Museum, might have felt very remotely like some of the repulsive but exciting aspects of Times Square in New York City. Natives of San Francisco surely were not the biggest cohort of visitors to the Wharf. But since the 1950s, the Wharf restaurants and experiences offered strong impressions and views of the Pacific and San Francisco Bay, and wildlife, that made memories, and those memories will not be the same anymore because of perceived need for “revitalization and redevelopment efforts,” and proposals for new attractions, which one can only hope will result in something better coming out of San Francisco’s complicated and crazy politics. I have my doubts that things will be better.

Restaurants such as Alioto’s, Tarantino’s, and Fisherman’s Grotto, have permanently closed or faced eviction due to financial difficulties, allegedly based on reduced business from the impact of the pandemic.  But failures in public safety and policing might also have been a reason for the slow and steady business downfalls. Recall Jose Inez Garcia-Zarate, an illegal migrant with a long rap sheet, was acquitted of murder in the killing of Kate Steinle, who was walking on a pier with her father when she was struck by a bullet in the back from Garcia-Zarate’s gun in July 2015. To add insult to tragedy, the liberal appeals court overturned a single conviction of Garcia-Zarate on a charge of being a felon in possession of a gun in 2019. Petty theft like pickpocketing, car break-ins, and tourist scams, were also reported at higher levels in the Wharf area than other parts of the City, along with higher reports of some violent crime. (To my mind, “revitalization” should include hiring and stationing more police in the area.)

Click here to read the full article in James Lacy’s Substack