Fashion punk tip

There are two sure ways to rile San Franciscans: Call their city "frisco," or refer to it as the world kook capital. The real kooks, they'll huff, live in Los Angeles.

San Franciscans are like that. They're sophisticated, yet provincial. They invite the offbeat, then cry foul if it's suggested that the city is a haven for eccentrics.

They carry their praise of San Francisco's charms all over the earth, then grumble when tourists come and make it hard to reserve a table or find a seat on the cable cars.

Still, it was with considerable zeal--and a $180,000 public-relations effort--that officials here lobbied to host the 1984 Democratic national convention, an event giving San Francisco's economy a 60-million-dollar boost and drawing the most media coverage the town has had since the 1945 United Nations Conference. Some 30,000 people, including 12,000 journalists, were expected for the July 16-19 event.

What can the visitors anticipate? Aside from a city sparkling from a 9-million-dollar sprucing up, world-class dining and such noted landmarks as the Golden Gate Bridge, the Coit Tower monument to San Francisco's volunteer firemen and the futuristic Transamerica Pyramid with pointed spire stretching 853 feet into the sky, there will be traffic jams, demonstrations and attentions seekers grandstanding for the assembled reporters.

Color, drama and a flair for the unusual have been a part of San Francisco since its earliest days. As Marge Booker of the Convention and Visitors Bureau puts it: "San Francisco has been called many things--cocky, capricious, permissive, narcissistic--but never commonplace."

Something for Everyone Among the Hills

Set on 46.6 square miles on the tip of a peninsula that is rippled with 40 hills, San Francisco has startling variety. Each neighborhood has its own ethnic flavor, its own distinctive topography, even its own kind of weather.

"In less than a half-hour, I can go from my fogbound house near Golden Gate Park to the warm sunshine of the Mission District," says native San Franciscan Gayle White. "On the way, I can pick up fortune cookies in Chinatown, stop for an espresso in North Beach or shop for high-fashion clothes in Union Square."

Adds Cleveland transplant Carole Woods, who lives atop Nob Hill: "Foghorns put me to sleep at night, and the cable-car bells wake me up in the morning. From my living room, I can see Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. Some days, I just sit at the window and stare."

Gold-Rush Philosophy

Discovered by accident in 1769 when an expedition led by Don Gaspar de Portola overshot its destination of Monterey, San Francisco remained just a sleepy missionary settlement until a May day in 1848 when Sam Brannan ran throug the streets holding high a bottle whose contents sparked in the sunlight. "Gold!" he shouted. "Gold from the American River!"

Almost overnight, San Francisco became a boom town.

By 1849, some 40,000 fortune hunters had stampeded through the Golden Gate, doubling the city's population every 10 days and causing beds to be rented in shifts. By 1853, the city had 537 saloons, 48 houses of ill repute and 46 gambling dens. The freewheeling philosophy born in the gold Rush has continued through the years, spawning out-of-the-ordinary lifestyles that eventually caught on elsewhere.

The beatnik and hippie movements got footholds and flourished in San francisco. So did communal living, avowed homosexuality and nightspots featuring topless entertainers.

Issues that would raise eyebrows elsewhere are discussed with great sincerity at City Hall: Whether to ban sex in homosexual bathhouses as a means of curbing the AIDS epidemic, and whether to grant health and retirement benefits to live-in partneres of unmarried city workers.

The "Moving Masquerade Ball"

Where else but in San Francisco would characters such as Sister Boom-Boom, a transvestite who dresses in a miniskirted nun's habit, and a punk rocker named Jello Biafra run for seats on the Board of Supervisors? And where else would 75,000 runners dress up like centipedes, gorillas and six-packs of beer to participate in the "moving masquerade ball," otherwise known as the Bay to Breakers Race?

As a place of festive living, this city has few equals. San Francisco has 4,200 restaurants. It has twice as many liquor licences per capita as any other major California city, and it leads all the state's municipalities in liquor sales per capita. At the same time, it has one of the highest rates of death from cirrhosis, a liver disease that is generally related to alcoholism.

The city also has a suicide rate--about 20 annually per 100,000 population--that consistently ranks it the top in the nation. The Golden Gate Bridge claims more such victims than any other structure or site in the world. There have been 776 confirmed suicides since the span opened in 1937.

"San Francisco is a great town to eat in and get drunk in," says one financial-district secretary, "but it's not so great for single women. I find all my boyfriends in the suburbs." According to data from the 1980 census, 53 percent of the city's residents are unmarried. An estimated 15 to 20 percent are homosexual.

Downs and Ups

The population of San Francisco hit a peak of 775,000 right after World war II and then went into a slow but steady decline that continued until 1980. between 1970 and 1980, it dropped to 678,974--but in recent years, some 5,000 new residents have been moving in every six months. The population, now at 705,700, is youthful and well-to-do. Median income is about $30,000 and median age is 34.1.

The varied character of the residents is shown by the city's 37 foreign-language newspapers and by the fact that 1 out of 3 residents comes from a home where a language other than English is spoken. "We have a very diverse population, no question about it," says Supervisor Louise Renee. "But the striking thing is that even though we are not all alike, we all get along."

One of the city's more pleasant statistics is a declining crime rate, down 6.8 percent in May from the same month a year ago. Homicides were the fewest since 1967, the rape total was a 20-year low, and the burglary count was the lowest since 1966.

A corporate city and financial hub, San Francisco is home to such business giants as Levi Strauss, Bank of America and the Bechtel Group. The Silicon Valley, heartland of American high techonology, and the Napa Valley, where some of the world's finest wines are produced, are nearby.

Concern that the downtown sector was losing its identity as a result of a 20-year boom in hotel and office construction led to development of a master plan said to be the toughest in the nation. The plan targets 260 building for preservation, dictates the height and bulk of new structures and requires open spaces to break the monotony of tall, stark buildings. New high-rises must not block sunlight from existing parks.

"San Francisco has an exciting skyline, but if development continues the way it has over the past 20 years, we'd look like Manhattan," says a senior planning-department official. "It's time to slow down a little."

Feinstein at the Helm

Overseeing this cautious growth is Mayor Dianne Feinstein, 51, who was catapulted into office in 1978 when Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot and killed in City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White. Her credits include unifying the city, torn apart by the murders, and keeping the budget in the black every year she has been in office. While may large cities are in states of financial woe, San Francisco enjoys a 15.2-million-dollar surplus that is expected to bring tax cuts, increased services and new jobs.

Not Everybody Is Happy

Feinstein has come under attack, though. Her opposition to a gun-control ordinance that was later overturned by a state appeals court resulted in a recall attempt. Some observers claim that Feinstein's veto of an ordinance that would have granted benefits to partners of unmarried city employes was an effort to stand up to the powerful homosexual community.

The political and economic clout of homosexuals here is considerable. A recent survey conducted by the California Voice, a newspaper oriented to the homosexual community, shows that its average reader has an annual income of $24,000. Fifty-six percent hold management positions, 87 percent have bachelor-of-arts degrees and 43 percent graduate degrees. A Municipal Court judge and a member of the Board of Supervisors are homosexual, as are some members of the police and planning commissions.