Ecker Alley

October 2019

Tuesday morning.

The sour scent of piss greets you as you ascend the steps of Montgomery Street Station. Cool air washes it away as you stride by the grimy beggar holding a sign at the foot of a tree. You make brief eye contact and shake your head no before you pass by. At least you looked him in the eye, one part of your brain says defensively, better than most people would do.

Your path takes you only briefly along bustling Market Street before you make a right turn past a line of people waiting for their morning fix at the Chai Cart. Into a brick courtyard with a fountain at its center, past the AWS Loft and Chipotle on your left, past Yank Sing on your right and into a tiny alley leading southeast towards Mission Street.

Around you are a band of usual suspects, young people in jeans and Patagonia fleeces and Marmot windbreakers sporting Airpods and company swag. Affluent white and Asian and Indian faces glowing in the morning sunlight.

As you stride through the rather dim, brick-lined alley, a flash of movement to the left draws your eyes to the shadowy eaves. There’s a black man sprawled with his back against a wall, head bowed over his dirty grey jeans. Scarcely noticed by the stream of your compatriots, he lines the syringe up carefully parallel to his pockmarked left forearm. As you pass him by, he shudders, collapsing back with his eyes closed— you know not whether in ecstasy, relief, or escape.

Your head swivels forward again, and you step from brick onto sidewalk as the alley widens and ends, intersecting the bustling Mission Street. Above is a translucent netted roof, through which you see the blue gleam of Salesforce Tower thrust proudly into the sky; maybe Marc Benioff is up there somewhere, sipping his morning cup of coffee.

A group of Latino men in orange walk from right to left across the mouth of the alley, carrying a jackhammer towards the Oceanwide Center construction site—the latest pearl in SoMa’s crown. Behind them, the tumult of Mission Street, car horns and trucks and pneumatics and the high-pitched whirr of trolleybuses. The siren song of this boomtown summons, and the stream of people flows out of Ecker Alley to meet its call.

Welcome to San Francisco.