A walk through the Hayes

For my reporting class everybody had to pick a district in San Francisco to write on. With the restriction of picking an area of the city you are familiar with I ended up picking Hayes Valley. I've been living in the city for three years now and I had no idea where the hell Hayes Valley was located. So I went online found the district lines and headed to my default favorite area of the city. I rode the 14 from my house on Brazil and Mission all the way to 11th and Mission. I hate riding the 14 with a passion due to its consistent two stops between cross stops. It took me around forty minutes to travel four miles, so my first trip to Hayes Valley was off to a bad start.

After one of the longest bus rides of my life I headed towards my final destination. I'm not a huge fan of the downtown area due to the vast amounts of homeless/not homeless people, so I wasn't too hot on the idea of Hayes Valley, but as soon I crossed Van Ness the world seemed to change for the best. The dark wet feeling of Market Street turned into a warm dry feeling. The sun felt warmer and the sky looked clearer. Sure there were people walking around, and sure there were still homeless people, but there wasn't a constant smell of piss in the air. As I walked around everybody was super friendly. It was as if I had walked into bizarro downtown. I patrolled the outer lines of my area and then the heart of it. When walking past the African Outlet I saw people dancing on the sidewalks with smiles on their faces. This was something I have never witnessed in the city outside of Haight St. Even the homeless people were great. Out of the five I saw the only thing that they asked for was a cup of coffee. So my first impression of Hayes Valley would be comparable of seeing a smoking hot woman. She looks good, but you don't know if she's really messed up in the head.