Ever wonder who takes care of sidewalks?

A few days ago I was walking on the sidewalk in the Highland, and I noticed that in some areas there is some expensive-looking brickwork around the trees that are planted between the sidewalk and the street. I vaguely considered who would pay for this type of thing--is this where our tax dollars go? Well, in case you ever wondered anything similar, I now know the answer.

A guy from the right-of-way department (for heaven's sake, what a trumped-up title for "Sidewalk Police") came to inspect the sidewalks around our building, which happens every time someone files a change of use request with the zoning department. I was a little nervous because part of our sidewalk is buckled where it crosses over some tree roots, and our contractor had warned me that if the city got picky, we would have to pay to replace that section of the sidewalk. Let me show you what our sidewalk looks like:


So how much of that sidewalk do you think needs to be replaced? All of it. For example, here's a section that definitely needs to go:


This thing is a DEATHTRAP! It has "major cracking" and needs to be replaced immediately! Here, look closer:


That's a major crack. For the love of Pete. Most of our sidewalk sections have cracking, so they have to be replaced; or else they meet the next stone unevenly and need to be ground down. Then there are the handicap ramps that lead to the two streets: there's nothing structurally wrong with them, but they are not up to current city standards, so they've got to go too. And guess who has to pay for this? It's going to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000. That's about fifteen years worth of profits from our coffee shop.

Plus, the inspector told us that someone called in a complaint that our construction dumpster was blocking the view for people trying to make left turns off the side street (which is true, I've noticed the same thing myself, but it never in a million years would have crossed my mind to call the city about such a thing--who has time for this kind of meddling? Use your powers for good, not evil, people!). The inspector was pretty nice, and he even said that he was shocked when he started that job to find out that the city makes individual property owners pay for sidewalk repairs.

Wouldn't you think that one of the many taxes we pay would cover sidewalk repairs, or at least cover the ramps that go from the street up to the sidewalk? This clearly seems like an expense that should be amortized over many years in the form of property taxes or something (note how casually I used the word "amortized" there--six months ago I had no idea what that meant). It's absurd that nothing happens until someone buys a building, and then all of a sudden you have to fix everything. In the space of that right-of-way inspection on Friday, I became a Republican. Now I can never go back to San Francisco. It's not that I think I shouldn't pay any taxes, but apparently those taxes don't go towards any of the things I thought they did. If you had asked me a year ago whether I would support a tax for maintaining sidewalks, I would have said, "Well, what other choice do we have? Obviously we need to maintain sidewalks." I wouldn't have said, "Let's make some poor owner of a store that happens to sit near a decrepit sidewalk pay for the repairs. And if the store happens to be on a corner, then the owner has to pay for twice as many repairs!" Heck, I'm considering going to yell at my city councilman, and I don't even know what a city council is. It doesn't need to be this way.

On a less fanatical note, here's how you shore up a ceiling when you are preparing to remove a bearing wall and replace it with a post:


All those pieces of steel set at angles are holding up the roof. And here's me pretending to be working on the shoring. Actually I am just posing for this picture because I was showing off the building to my date and he wanted to take a picture of me, but I am including the photo here because I think I look really professional. Especially with my sunglasses on top of my head. And I find it astounding that I can have red-eye even when I am in complete profile.


The person who actually makes sure the roof doesn't fall down is Rick, our steel guy. Rick and I had a long conversation about the merits of canned chicken, after which I promised to bring him lunch so he doesn't die of scurvy before he finishes our job. I brought a sausage, mushroom, and egg strata, which was one experiment in my search for savory breakfast foods we can serve in the cafe. I tried a bite and immediately was reminded that I don't like savory breakfast foods, which makes this line of research less pleasant. It seems so clear to me that pain au chocolat is what the saints in heaven eat for breakfast. Then they have Vietnamese food for lunch and Indian food for dinner, and the next day they start over again with maybe a nice chocolate brioche or something.