Most of you know what hopeless romantics Lindsay and I are, well here we are, or rather there we were, checked in to the same hotel we stayed at 24 years ago on our first visit to San Francisco - Aida Plaza on Market c.1912. Nothing has changed including the 7am breakfast dash for donuts and coffee in the lobby and the pay phone in the foyer of each floor (those phones introduced us to the concept of phone cards back then). Oh dear we really were babes in the wood!
The hotel is 2 Star with no coffee making facilities or fridge in the rooms, but we have a bath! It’s rather like what most of us were used to growing up - simple and affordable before we all got ‘luxed up’. We’re happy! And it’s central with easy transport options.
Once ‘unpacked’ we wandered thru SoMa to find lunch. Once a rather scary place, it’s now a mix of street people and associated ‘stuff’, building works and trendy food spots. Give it 5 years and it will be ultra trendy. Many businesses on Market have closed to make way for trendy hotels and other establishments - the local feel is changing rapidly.
Here are some pix of a collection of jute boxes and other memorabilia in the hotel lobby for you kids. All of you!
Weird list of free direct dials!
I remember looking out this window and seeing that steep street stretching up the hill. So reminiscent of numerous movie car chases where cars became airborne as they crashing through those intersections.
A fruit machine - out of order.
A famous name in music production.
Ah the salad days of youth. Many wonderful summer days at the beach with the mandatory visit to the milk bar. I remember these and the mini ones at milk bar tables. We hung out at Nude Nuts (not its real name but one we made up) at Point Lonsdale listening to the jute box - Telstar by The Tornadoes was a favourite.
In 1918 Hobart C Niblack patented an apparatus that automatically changed records, leading to one of the first selective jukeboxes being introduced in 1927 by the Automated Musical Instrument Company, later known as AMI.
In a world now dependent on Mr Google, I can imagine this would have been an absolute wonder in its day.
Beautiful
The hotel is a little down at the heel but it is bursting with nostalgia.
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