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Frank Dunnigan, WNP member and columnist. -
Our old friend and long-time WNP member, the late Will Connolly, used to say that shopping in San Francisco was a highly geographic activity. Things you might need regularly, such as groceries, newspapers, and aspirin could usually be purchased very close to home mostly within walking distance while major expenditures like automobiles, furniture, and appliances generally required a trip downtown. Everything else (clothing, kitchen curtains, paint/hardware) could often be found somewhere in between. His theory held true for decades, though that is no longer the case.
Neighborhood shopping areas, such as 16th Avenue and Irving Street, 22nd and Taraval, 23rd and Clement, 24th and Noriega, 37th and Balboa, and many others, generally contained several different businesses within a couple of blocks: grocery stores, produce shops, bakeries, pharmacies, and laundries/dry cleaners. There were usually a couple of banks, barber shops/beauty salon