At the end of June, I retired from Architectural practice. It has been 40 years since I started my first job as an intern in Colorado. I moved to San Francisco in 1989, and the time since has been split equally between San Francisco and Berkeley/Oakland. But San Francisco was why I came to the … More 35 Years In San Francisco
On the north end of Palm Springs, before one exits the vast Coachella Valley and heads east towards Los Angeles, one passes beneath mighty Mount San Jacinto. At 10,834 feet , it towers over Palm Springs, and along with Mount San Gorgonio, forms a formidable pass , one that spawns the winds that power the … More Life On The Rocks
I moved to the Bay Area in 1988, securing a job with an Architectural firm in San Francisco. The firm of 50 was probably 90% Asian, and for the first time in my life, I was the minority. Every Friday, a large group of co-workers would head to lunch in nearby Chinatown, and seemed to … More We Are All From Somewhere Else- A Walk Through West Berkeley
Growing up in Upstate New York meant enduring hard, tough winters. Initially, it didn’t bother me. Well, maybe my hair freezing on my walk home after swim practice did, but it was all I knew. My grandmother lived with us back then. At some point, she announced she was going to spend part of the … More Snowbirds
They sit quietly on tree-lined neighborhood streets. Often surrounded by single family homes , small apartment buildings and bits of retail, the branch library tucks itself gently into these neighborhoods, elegant public buildings at home in these more modest settings. San Francisco and The Bay Area are blessed with many fine examples, many of which … More Collections – A Salute to the Branch Library
Downtown San Francisco, we are told, is in a “doom loop”. You probably have heard. Everyday, the San Francisco Chronicle, publishes the latest report on employers leaving downtown, retailers closing their doors, wasted public money on poorly managed programs (2 million dollar toilets!), the latest staggering statistics on homelessness, and so on. And if you … More “The Doom Loop “- Walking Through Downtown San Francisco
At some point every day, I go for a walk in my neighborhood in Berkeley. It is a modest neighborhood of mostly one-story bungalows , an occasional apartment building, and a scrappy commercial district . But every few blocks, there is a larger house or building that isn’t part of the pattern. And I am … More Neighborhood Stories- 3 Houses
One of the conundrums of life during the pandemic has been getting meaningful exercise, something more than a neighborhood walk. Fortunately, in Berkeley, there are some very steep hills, and these walks have provided the necessary heart rate elevation. In fact, one in particular, at Claremont Canyon, is so steep that on several occasions I … More 100 Years of Houses- Walking Panoramic Hill
Back in the late 80s, I was living in Colorado, having just received my Master’s Degree in Architecture. Colorado was in the grips of a terrible energy related recession , and it really couldn’t have been a worse time to hit the job market. My first job ended after 6 months when the firm … More Welcome to The Dollhouse- In Praise of the Bungalow Court
As an Architecture student way back in the 80s in Buffalo, one’s introduction to contemporary Architecture had two threads. First, the late 19th and early 20th century’s seminal works, many of which were in our back yard thanks to Buffalo’s incredible treasures of Wright, Richardson, Sullivan, and Burnham. The second thread covered the next generation … More Two Modernists In Connecticut.
At the end of last year, the pull of the wide open spaces of the American West was too great, and I once again undertook what has become an every 2 year ritual, a road trip through part of the American West. North of Palm Springs, and home, the tiny dot on the map that is … More Travelogue – 10 Stops Through The American West
From the Series- “Misadventures of a Working Stiff” Having recently retired, I am temporarily, staying near where I grew up. And I find myself reflecting on the early days of my working life, and in particular, the dreaded summer job. My favorite year of college was my sophomore year. The freshman year, spent in a … More Roadkill-Ode To The Summer Job
If one were to draw a cross section through the cities east of San Francisco Bay it might look like this. First of course, there would be the Bay itself. Then to the east, the gradual rise of the “flats”, peppered with modest bungalows and apartments, then the sharp climb of the East Bay Hills, … More The Green Seam- My Pandemic Therapist
urban ambles 