Union Square Dance

Spring finally arrived in San Francisco. I left my jacket in the office, grabbed a lunch, and walked to Union Square. Shoppers and tourists watched the dancers, while others just lay in the sun, talking on their cell phones or listening to their iPods. Ads crawled across the big screen on the Powell Street end, but no one was watching, not with the live distractions of undulating dancers and halter-topped picnickers.

Lunch was consumed and the trash was carefully deposited in a covered bin, as several pigeons gazed hungrily. Not today, boys, our city is named for him but I'm not Saint Francis. I strolled past the vendor stalls in the middle of the square and headed down Stockton. Lured by the signs that promised hundreds of CD's and DVD's on sale for $10, I stopped at Virgin Records. There wasn't anything that had to be added to the collection, so after 15 minutes I exited back to Market, then on to Embarcadero Center. Just another afternoon in the hip city.

Per Jay Nordlinger, columnist for the National Review:

A visit to San Francisco last week confirmed for me that this is, indeed, the most beautiful city in America. (I have not visited them all — Seattle, for example — but most of them, I believe.) Rarely throughout the world is the eye so enchanted.