November 20, 2005
FROM the rooftop patio of Medjool, a new restaurant in the Mission district of San Francisco, the entire neighborhood is laid out like a flamboyant mosaic. Ranks of painted ladies – San Francisco’s ornate wooden Victorians – rise to Twin Peaks in the west, the hills that block the city’s infamous fog and make the Mission one of the city’s warmest and sunniest neighborhoods. This terrace is the perfect spot for watching the cottony wave of evening fog roll into downtown, for the sky in the Mission remains crystalline.
At the intersection below, an animated scene of daily life unfolds: sidewalk vendors sell yucca flowers and avocados, blue-haired anarchist daddies push strollers, young men loiter at the corner, Central American housewives and vegan lesbian tattoo artists shop for fresh handmade tortillas.
“I try to get anybody coming to San Francisco to come to the Mission,” said Dave Eggers, the best-selling author who set up the first of his community writing schools here. “Not to misuse the word ‘authentic’ – I think that’s such a troubling word – but the Mission really does have all the best parts of San Francisco intersecting here.”
