7th St, Civic Center

7th Street in South Market is one of those hodgepodge commercial streets. I came here a while back to meet up with a friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in a while. He was staying at one of the unremarkable hotels that you will find on this street—I think it was the Best Western. I remember that there was some kind of an upholstery store, a strange looking club, and a ballet place.

The most memorable thing about the street is the architecture. It has buildings with bay windows, but they are not Victorians. Rather, they are like a modernist conception of the Victorian. They are unusual looking but I would not really call them beautiful or even aesthetically pleasing. Perhaps if I lived in the area they might grow on me, but I’m not so sure.

And I’m not so sure I would want to live in the area, either. By nine at night the streets were a little bit barren for my sense of safety. There were some sketchy homeless types loafing around and I didn’t really feel wholly safe. We went around the corner to a pizza deli which had an okay sub but left a lot to be wanted from its pizza. It made me think that the owners should have stuck to being just a deli instead of trying to please everyone.

The main draw of the street, however, is the new Federal Building. I don’t know what was there before but I had heard of this building. I didn’t get the chance to step inside but from the outside, it is really a strange looking monstrosity of a building, made all in this metallic chrome. Supposedly it is really environmentally sophisticated, but I remember reading about it when it came out and apparently people didn’t like it because the elevators forced them to go up stairs and they were getting glare on their work stations—so lot’s of the workers were unhappy with their new digs. I’m not sure I would like working in one of these postmodern building. They have one at UC Davis and I used to get lost every time I went on. It is the sort of building where you have to go up and down stares to get to other offices and classrooms that are on the same floor. Very confusing!