San Francisco: The GOOD, The BAD, The UGLY (California Documentary)

foreign [Music] I Left My Heart in San Francisco [Music] a city is so beautiful it's hard to believe it's real yet this is the same San Francisco gritty dystopian it's underbelly fully exposed for the world to see so what are we to make of this place for dual realities this extreme exists side by side this is San Francisco The Good The Bad and The Ugly San Francisco was founded on a Gamble the population exploded in the 1850s during the Gold Rush when people from all corners of the world came in search of its fortunes the city was built on a narrow Peninsula with the San Francisco Bay to the East and the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean to the West Ameris seven by seven square miles packs in a dense cityscape built on and around steep Rolling Hills foreign [Music] Francisco's geography is really unique and is characterized by its many many many Hills there's something like 40 plus Hills in the city and as you can see we are on one right now you really gotta work your your legs your hamstrings your butt to make it up them but it's really common here and it's just something that makes San Francisco uniquely San Francisco [Music] getting up the hills requires a lot of work but the really cool thing is once you make it up them you get rewarded with views like this right now we're at Ina coolbuth Park there's amazing panoramic views all over the city from here you can see really famous San Francisco landmarks all of downtown the Salesforce Tower the Transamerica Pyramid the Bay Bridge and Coit Tower it's a really nice place to stop and relax and Ponder the meaning of life while observing a beautiful view in front of you you can see the famous Alcatraz prison over there and it's really crazy to think about isn't it it's a prison on an island in the middle of the ocean across from a beautiful dense hilly City it it doesn't seem real the Painted Ladies of San Francisco dolled up in Greens pinks Blues every color of the rainbow and all the fashionable frills minimalism isn't a word that exists in your world you are the special sauce of San Francisco what gives the streets of this city its character and charm you're full of secrets carrying the stories of people who have called you home their paths their indulgences their sin layered together these memories reveal the complex past of an ever-changing City [Music] we're in the hate Ashbury Neighborhood in San Francisco where there's a high concentration of Victorian architecture and a lot of famous artists and musicians have lived in this neighborhood and called these colorful victorians home Janice Joplin lived here the Grateful Dead lived here and Jimi Hendrix also lived here so a lot of greats from the hippie era [Music] between 1850 and 1910 there were an estimated 40 to 50 000 victorians built right here in San Francisco and many of them were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake that is the biggest earthquake in U.S history but a lot of them also survived and now San Francisco has the highest concentration of Victorian houses anywhere in the world [Music] these victorians behind me are some of our favorites in the entire city they're called The Four Season victorians and there's a couple characteristics that make victorians so special including ornate details both in and outside so on the ones behind me you'll see a lot of flower trimmings for example there's also gingerbread trimmings a lot of stained glass windows beautiful bay windows that create space and give a lot of beautiful light inside the houses as well as turrets or these towers that you see on some of the houses fact is it okay before I was doing tours I worked as a handyman and been a lot done a lot of work in these houses and it's amazing the level of craftsmanship on the inside and when you look at a hardwood floor that's nailed every six inches with finishing nails done by hand it's kind of amazing it was all done with no power tool virtually no power tools [Music] we are now in Alamo Square sitting across from perhaps the most famous victorians in all of San Francisco the colorful painted ladies that were featured in the opening of the Full House series [Music] every single Victorian in San Francisco has its own unique stories and this one behind me is particularly interesting you can see that it looks like a Gothic fairy tale mansion thank you Charles Manson didn't live here but he did come visit yeah our host Kelly has lived in the house for over 20 years Russians used to operate a bar out of what is now his bedroom and this is great the the piano is tuned [Music] all right that's the only thing I have up my sleeves the Westerfield House was built in the late 1800s by wealthy German immigrants it's seen many people come in and out at stores the founder of the Church of Satan made films here has a Charles Manson tie obviously and it has been home to many many communes its most recent owner made it a life dream to purchase the house planned his course of action during an acid trip and has since lovingly restored it staying true to its historical charm [Music] original work yeah I call I don't know I call this Neptune but it is the original Woodwork in the house and it's crazy to think they probably did all this by hand oh yeah yeah yeah this was Joe definitely handcrafted this is the only room that we know that uh somebody was shot and killed in no way yeah under what circumstances so this is uh the breakfast room would have been the original breakfast room the breakfast murder room yeah yeah yeah that's before breakfast yeah laughs [Music] every major city in the world has one the neighborhood that's a little rough around the edges the one the guidebooks tell you to skip in San Francisco that place is the tenderloin so a lot of first-time visitors to San Francisco don't realize that it's actually a really gritty town and this is kind of Ground Zero of that we are in the tenderloin neighborhood which is where a lot of the city's homeless crisis is there's a lot of open drug use and drug dealing and there's a lot of crime here and people who come here don't really know what to make of it and it's located right in the heart of the city right next to downtown in the major shopping districts but there's really a lot of different sides to San Francisco there's the quirky architecture there's all the history and the culture the beautiful landscapes and then there's this side which is a very real part of the city as well during the late 1800s the tenderloin flourished as the raucous entertainment Hub of the city the party was abruptly halted by the 1906 earthquake which reduced vast sections of San Francisco to Rubble the tenderloin no exception the neighborhood was quickly rebuilt and among the Reconstruction came affordable housing in the form of single room occupancies over the years a proliferation of brothels porn theaters and a legal gambling establishments transformed the tenderloin into a caricature of Vice fast forward to today and this reputation remains so embedded in the neighborhood's ethos that it is even reflected in its name and Legend has it that the tenderloin was coined back in 1876 by a corrupt police chief named Alexander Williams now Chief Williams was transferred from a more affluent part of the city into the tenderloin and would take bribes from the local businesses mostly brothels in exchange for police protection and he said something along the lines of I used to only be able to afford chuck steak with my salary now with the bribes I'll be able to afford chores deer cuts of meat like the tenderloin and that's how the myth goes and the name has stuck foreign [Music] this is one of my first times walking through the streets of the tenderloin we usually just drive through and it's really crazy I mean we get a little desensitized to it in San Francisco but you definitely don't see stuff like this everywhere the national media fixates on the tenderloin and their claims are not wrong residents here sidestep encampments open drug use and filth on the streets on their way to work or school and running a business here comes with its own struggles this is a really nice local market you don't see a lot of full grocery stores in the tenderloin it's usually a lot of corner stores and there's kind of a food desert here and establishments like this provide fresh produce and fresh meat for the neighborhood so what is it like to work here just day to day our business is slow down right the people camping in front of our store right so there's a lot of theft going on yeah and then also just all the stuff on the street prevents people from actually coming in the store so it really impacts businesses they feel no step when they do this this way they go to another another store do you feel safe working here uh no no no because you know when they come to steal we have um fighting with them right yeah yeah it's terrible and do you think the local government helps at all like do you see any government action so try to help your business no no even I call the police they don't want to come we just call every day but no one to come yeah and then on that there's no business yeah well I'm really sorry to hear that it's too bad yeah and do you live in the tenderloin I have the little the I have to move out of this area right now let my daughter see every day that I did please help us to yeah bring our customers here [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] in the 1970s an influx of immigrants from Southeast Asia arrived in the tenderloin many of them were from Vietnam Cambodian and Laos and they were escaping the violence of warfare as well as communist regimes so many of them made their way to this neighborhood because it was affordable there were a lot of single room occupancies in the neighborhood as well as low-cost housing this wave of immigration brought us tenderloins Little Saigon district and restaurants like this one fall 2000 an unassuming hole in the wall where anti-serva Vietnamese Classics like thaw and rice dishes when these immigrants arrived in the tenderloin in the 70s the neighborhood was essentially a concrete jungle there were no playgrounds there were no schools there weren't a lot of grocery stores selling fresh produce so these newcomers came and they built businesses and restaurants that's one example of how these communities have made their Mark here on the menu fresh spring rolls with shrimp and sliced pork and Pho with sliced beef tripe and other fun bits perhaps the best bowl of fall you can find in the city this is a really beautiful bowl of classic Vietnamese faux it's perfect for this cold foggy day in San Francisco [Music] tenderloin is a neighborhood with big problems that's undeniable but multiple truths can co-exist and there are parts that are full of life and there's a community here actively dedicated to making it a better place so the tenderloin is home to a lot of families and a lot of children and we're standing outside of a playground and it's a weekend day it's very bustly and active there's a lot of people in there and we were just talking to some members of tenderloin safe passage and essentially what they do is they hang out outside the playground they're familiar with their surroundings the community people in the playground and they just hang out and make sure that everything is safe and that the residents of the tenderloin are able to enjoy a nice day at the playground so that's very cool at a program like that exists here so how long have you lived in the tenderloin I've been down here and seen the change of everything my whole life and it's gotten better and worse to just depending on Dynamics yeah you know the homeless and the street value it's gotten worse to a point but it just it's it's still everybody's still out here and still moving and still walking and still trying yeah and what do you think a lot of people in the media understand like actually watching how everything is moving we're actually getting in touch and knowing people outside they just judge a book by its cover right you know and that's the worst thing because a lot of these people there's a lot of people that are in a messed up situation and when you really talk to them they'll tell you I have an apartment I have I get checks but their mindset their rather be where they're at not under government's eyes paying taxes and doing all that what do you wish people knew about the tenderloin I wish people knew that there was more in the tenderloin than just homelessness within just poverty and and drugs you know I wish people would actually see the light [Music] San Francisco is a city with a lot of problems there's a lot of poverty and blatant inequality at the same time it is really naturally beautiful and full of culture and history and a community that's really invested in making it a better place so I would say San Francisco is a city like any other it has its good it's bad it's uglies it's just a little bit more extreme than most places you would find [Music] [Music]

Channel: Dots on a Map

Views: 216,163

Keywords: San Francisco, California, documentary, tourism in san francisco, san francisco california, tenderloin, bay area, victorian, painted ladies, san francisco now, san francisco 2023, san francisco homeless, homeless, united states, california travel, san francisco travel, san francisco downtown, architecture, san francisco food, san francisco painted ladies, san francisco tour, san francisco hills, tenderloin san francisco, dots on a map, san francisco streets, tenderloin walk

Id: r3vx5Xz37Zc

Length: 18min 18sec (1098 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 18 2023