Post #145383 by spy-tiki on Tue, Mar 8, 2005 10:21 AM

Back in the good old days (late 70s, early 80's) there wasn't much down there. Industrial spaces and offices. Some artist studios .( the starving type ) and performance spaces. Worth your life to take the wrong turn. At night it was a counter-culture no man's land and Hamburger Mary's was a kind of starting point for your exciting evening activities. Very gay, but not to the exclusion of everyone else. You could even get a parking place down there back then (if you had a car which no one did). While strolling the area in the wee hours you would see home made S&M parlors and secret bath houses and lots of guys with big mustaches wearing black leather biker attire. Then the yuppie infestation started. Old warehouses became "showplaces" and everyone trying to "buy" cool moved their offices there so of course it no longer was. Later the tech thing happened and people were suddenly millionaires. the atmosphere died

There were a few hold outs, but they didn't really make it either. First the artsy community got pushed to the east bay, but people who didn't grab hold of something soon scattered to Sacramento, Los Angeles, Seattle and who knows where.

Just my take on things, but probably pretty right on. Not that some of the millionaires don't have the right stuff, but it just ain't the same.

Still, a new tiki bar is always a beautiful thing.

[ Edited by: spy-tiki on 2005-03-08 10:32 ]