Exploring San Francisco through the lens of city blocks, Blocker is a weekly series by Charles Hodgkins. Look for it on SFist each Wednesday, around the lunching hour.

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Blocker, No. 25: Union St. in Cow Hollow

We’ll start with the token blue-collar business.

Down toward the Laguna end of this block of Union, a red banner plastered on the home of plumbing/heating/appliance specialists A. Valente & Sons defiantly announces, We’re Here 100 Years – Get Used To It. One of its signature ramshackle red Ford pickups sits across the street, and the stubborn survival of such an unsophisticated enterprise along this, the Yankee Stadium of big-league boutiquery, gets us wondering: Will women’s fashion retailers BCBG Maxazria or Pavillion de Paris still be making sales here early in the 22nd century? Can Marc Jacobs handbags and Lennox heating systems forever co-exist on Union St.?

Around the midpoint of the block, a man sits outside Jest Jewels on what must be colloquially known as the Bench for Bored Men. He waits patiently amidst several pink balloons tethered to nearby streetlamps and parking meters, a small pink rocking-horse on his right. His body language seems to say, I’d really rather be on the golf course. We pity him briefly before continuing on.

Luisa’s isn’t open on a Monday afternoon, but if it were, we could closely inspect the hundreds of squatty wine bottles dangling from the Italian restaurant’s ceiling rafters. These empty bottles of chianti live on in their thin wicker casings, and each features an inscription from the customers who collaborated in emptying it. Even from the perspective of an outsider looking in during off-hours, the visual effect of the countless bottles suspended from above is cleverly dizzying.

Reverting our attention back to the rich street scene, we turn to observe a slender blonde, her hair neatly pulled back through the little hole in her ballcap, striding purposefully down the other side of the street. Closer to us, a pair of beefy men in sunglasses each cradle Starbucks cups as they animatedly discuss football. A moment later, a young Asian woman passes, and it’s nearly impossible to miss the company’s name advertised on her sweat-pants’d fanny: bebe, Union St.’s own homegrown success story whose original store is two blocks down the way.

Clearly, a Cherokee full of mooks in backward caps and sunglasses sure notices her - the unsubtle honking and catcalling pretty much confirms this – but the attractive young woman chooses not to acknowledge her impromptu fan club. Meanwhile, we secretly hope someone will acknowledge, with a fusillade of rotten tomatoes, the red convertible creeping along and blaring a ghastly Billy Ocean ballad. Sadly, nobody does.

We finally make it over to the sunny side of the street, where the French chanson music piping out of the Susan Miller Gallery immediately kicks “Suddenly” off the private turntable in our head, thank goodness. It’s around this time when a trio of men pass by, heading east on the sidewalk. It’s not a particularly scorching fall day in San Francisco, but each man has brazenly chosen to go shirtless for this section of whatever route they’re following. They look awfully hetero. They’re all around 40 years old, if not older. And they look completely serious about it. To say it’s a surprising look on this ultra-refined San Francisco promenade is an understatement.

Our favorite spot on the block turns out to not even be on the street itself. We wander down the alley at 1850 Union, which leads to a cluster of shops, galleries, therapy offices, and design studios that flank a lovely courtyard. It’s unusually serene back here - so much so, we can hear the sound of plum tree leaves landing on the patio bricks. There’s a phone conversation echoing faintly out of the lingerie shop, Carol Doda’s Champagne and Lace Boutique. Little else is audible.

A few minutes later, a woman with golden blonde hair emerges, and it’s only after she’s closed up shop and left for the day that we realize it was Ms. Doda herself. The woman who created one hell of a cultural cacophony in the 1960s just by exposing her boobs 12 times nightly a few miles away on Broadway now enjoys quiet days in a tranquil courtyard off one of San Francisco’s most celebrated commercial corridors.

From blue-collar to no-collar, Union St. is nothing if not name brand.

(Photos by the author.)