Blocker: 200 Capp

But since we’re not looking for that kind of a good time around here - and since we make most of our Blocker visits in daylight, irrespective of the neighborhood – we see the block of Capp between 17th and 18th Sts. differently than anyone who reads the crime blotters from afar. There’s still a twinge of danger late on a weekday afternoon, but more than anything, it seems to be a block with an identity crisis of sorts.

Multiple stars and stripes poke out from the stately white apartment building with blue trim that hogs the southeast end of the block. Back north and across the street, the Leandro Soto building makes a nice enough impression with its four floors of apartment residences and one really beige coat of paint. And the yogurt-eating woman further raises Capp’s reading on our Firm Handshake / Good Dancer meter. So far, so well-behaved.

Then the inevitable urban grit takes root, with a welcome side of funk. First, the grit.

The grimy entryways of the apartment-flats a few doors up from corner dive Uptown look less than sanitary – far less, frankly. For every two Mission hipsters or Latinos (rarely, if ever, are Mission hipsters Latino), there’s a down-and-outer shuffling along the Capp sidewalk clearly hoping for that next edible/drinkable/injectible analgesic. And the creeping stench of sewage at the corner of 17th is nearly enough to knock us into the Uptown for a belt at the bar.

The funk is a good deal more entertaining. We become instant fans of the design sense of 237 1/2 Capp’s Chief of Décor - front porch begonias, a black Iron Maiden tapestry, and a street address incorporating a mathematical fraction have that sort of effect, we reckon. (The sliding chain link gate at the foot of the front steps is a bit of a downer, however.) Directly across the street, a spray paint mural depicting a father, son, and x-eyed teddy bear in one big embrace proves that even if you can’t learn much from graffiti, you can still have a good time trying to decode it: “Poo Bear heart Big Bird,” “Hot Tanya,” “Daddy’s pussy,” and, because this is graffiti after all, “Fuck you.” Again, not Presidio Heights.

And who knew this block was an auto shop mecca? We sure didn’t. We’re unsure what sort of experiments go on at Auto Lab, right next to TRB Auto Specialties, which itself it right next to the more straightforward-sounding Shan Auto Service. Creative Auto Works, over on the sunny side of the street, across the way, also deals heavily in car culture.

On a block such as this stretch of Capp, there’s no all-encompassing wrap-up, no sharply defined conclusion. There are too many forces at play for that. But there’s a guy coming our way down the sidewalk, and he’s kicking a take-out menu that flew off an apartment security gate somewhere along the block. Now, that’s something you don’t see everywhere.