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Octavia Boulevard
Yvonne Daley had worked as an award-winning journalist and traveled widely, but had never lived in an inner-city neighborhood before moving to San Francisco in 2003. In Octavia Boulevard, we follow Daley as she chronicles the lives of her fellow apartment dwellers and the homeless people living in her neighborhood, the characters who hold forth at the corner coffee shop, and the events that contribute to San Francisco s reputation as the nations most enterprising and original city. Her memoir is simultaneously funny and heartbreaking as she explores the impact of the counterculture and deinstitutionalization, the conflict between progressive politics and capitalism, and her own response to people sleeping outside her door while the city spends tens of thousands to install mature palm trees and kaleidoscopes on the corner. Tag along and meet a host of quintessential San Franciscans, a Wisdom Man, a Silent Guy, a mayoral candidate running on the naked ticket, a quirky landlord, and a wise 80-year-old named Mae West.
330 pages, Paperback
First published January 27, 2011
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7 people want to read
About the author
Yvonne Daley
11 books3 followersYvonne Daly is a professor of journalism and Director of the Green Mountain Writer’s Conference.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 14, 2018
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It's hard not to be biased when reading a memoir set in a city you adore. I recognized a solid handful of the places Yvonne Daley patronized, and almost every street referenced. It was like looking through warped glass at times, because Daley moved to Octavia in 2003 and I spent two years living just a couple blocks west a decade later, long after the eponymous boulevard was built. There was still rampant homelessness in the neighborhood, and random acts of violence (an upstairs neighbor was shot in her hip in a drive-by less than a week after moving in). Octavia Boulevard gave me a glimpse at the recent past, when San Francisco was still a pricey city but far more affordable than it is now (as reference, Daley paid $1700 for a 2-bedroom in 2003; I paid $2500 for a one-bedroom just ten years later--and that was considered under the going market rate).
There's a lot to love about the stories Daley tells in this novel. San Francisco is full of quirky, unusual characters; its come-as-you-are attitude has made it a haven for society's oddballs. The cost to live in a city like this affects many, however, and Daley's journalistic instinct gives readers a glimpse at people a lot of us would rather turn away from and pretend we can't possibly become. The truth of the matter is that many in San Francisco are one job loss, one Ellis Act eviction, away from being on the streets themselves. Rent controlled apartments allow people who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford the city a means to live there--assuming they never leave their current living arrangements. It also makes it prohibitive for others to relocate, as current market rate keeps ballooning. The character of the city is being quickly lost, and there's no easy way to marry the influx of tech money with an affordable standard of living, as Daley notes.
On the whole, this is an insightful, entertaining read into the city from a perspective that's both outsider and insider. I did take issue with Daley's occasional references to "the queers" and her incorrect use of "transgendered" and "transvestite". The former is a slur, something that's fine for LGBT people themselves to reclaim, but it still struck an uncomfortable note for me to hear someone I presumed to be straight referencing LGBT men that way. "Transgendered" is just plain wrong. "Transgender" is the adjective. None of these references features prominently enough to do more than cursorily irk me, but I figured I'd bring it up in case others might feel differently and are considering reading the book.
That said, if you're at all interested in San Francisco and enjoy memoirs, this is solid choice in both respects. It's given me a mighty need for more SF-set stories, that's for darn sure.
It's hard not to be biased when reading a memoir set in a city you adore. I recognized a solid handful of the places Yvonne Daley patronized, and almost every street referenced. It was like looking through warped glass at times, because Daley moved to Octavia in 2003 and I spent two years living just a couple blocks west a decade later, long after the eponymous boulevard was built. There was still rampant homelessness in the neighborhood, and random acts of violence (an upstairs neighbor was shot in her hip in a drive-by less than a week after moving in). Octavia Boulevard gave me a glimpse at the recent past, when San Francisco was still a pricey city but far more affordable than it is now (as reference, Daley paid $1700 for a 2-bedroom in 2003; I paid $2500 for a one-bedroom just ten years later--and that was considered under the going market rate).
There's a lot to love about the stories Daley tells in this novel. San Francisco is full of quirky, unusual characters; its come-as-you-are attitude has made it a haven for society's oddballs. The cost to live in a city like this affects many, however, and Daley's journalistic instinct gives readers a glimpse at people a lot of us would rather turn away from and pretend we can't possibly become. The truth of the matter is that many in San Francisco are one job loss, one Ellis Act eviction, away from being on the streets themselves. Rent controlled apartments allow people who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford the city a means to live there--assuming they never leave their current living arrangements. It also makes it prohibitive for others to relocate, as current market rate keeps ballooning. The character of the city is being quickly lost, and there's no easy way to marry the influx of tech money with an affordable standard of living, as Daley notes.
On the whole, this is an insightful, entertaining read into the city from a perspective that's both outsider and insider. I did take issue with Daley's occasional references to "the queers" and her incorrect use of "transgendered" and "transvestite". The former is a slur, something that's fine for LGBT people themselves to reclaim, but it still struck an uncomfortable note for me to hear someone I presumed to be straight referencing LGBT men that way. "Transgendered" is just plain wrong. "Transgender" is the adjective. None of these references features prominently enough to do more than cursorily irk me, but I figured I'd bring it up in case others might feel differently and are considering reading the book.
That said, if you're at all interested in San Francisco and enjoy memoirs, this is solid choice in both respects. It's given me a mighty need for more SF-set stories, that's for darn sure.
October 21, 2017
Octavia Boulevard is a fascinating read which documents the changes that have taken place in San Francisco, once the bastion of free thinkers and eccentrics, and now home to the those enriched by the tech boom. In addition, it documents the author's own journey during the second Bush administration and the impact of our communities on our personal development.
July 27, 2015
An interesting journalistic study of a section of San Francisco and the individuals that inhabited that part of the city. the reader learns quite a bit about the author and her neighbors, landlord and street residents. We get to see some of the impact of urban renewal/gentrification. My book club took a field trip to the author's home and while gentrification has definitely affected neighboring streets, it has stopped short of her block. By choosing a journalistic style, Daley has created a less interesting book than others where the author also focused on an apartment building in SF (thinking of Armistad Maupin, for example), but the writing was good and the topic interesting enough that I finished the book.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews