In the Wind

Market Street Dunes

mixed media photo collage on board, 14”x11”

It might be hard to imagine massive dunes at the corner of Van Ness and Market in San Francisco.  But, before the City was laid out and spread westwards from Yerba Buena Cove, that is exactly what you have found.  The wind whips across San Francisco as it has done for millennia.  Blowing through what is now Golden Gate Park, funneling between Lone Mountain and Buena Vista and pouring down the Panhandle just like the traffic on Oak Street.  The dunes are gone, but the intersection remains a very windy spot.  The tall buildings only amplify the wind tunnel. The humble donut shop building that looks like it was plucked out of a non-descript Tokyo neighborhood is slated to go.  It will be replaced by another skyscraper.  If we ever make San Francisco car free, we might consider bringing back the sand and letting the dunes pile back up.