Fun with the Catherals and Streets of San Francisco

I have recently been watching re runs of The Streets of San Francisco. I watched in the seventies, but the show stands up pretty well today. There are occasional holes in plots and at times the endings are tacky. It seems they run out of time and have to wind it up. Since this is a local show for me, one of the pleasures are scenes of the city as our heroes drive through. Much of San Francisco looks the same, although over the past 35 to 40 years some things have changed. Although irritating, I get a sanctimonious pleasure from spotting some of the mistakes in the show. In one episode the cops turn on to Battery Street from The Embarcadero and Karl Malden announces on the radio that they are pursuing suspects on Monterey Boulevard. Another time they are proceeding down a one way street, probably Howard, and we are told it is Mission, which runs both ways.

During another episode, Requiem for a Murder, Richard Basehart plays the Catholic bishop who is wounded and later killed in the cathedral. The characters are shown going into a grand, older looking church. I know this is not The Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption and think that it may be Grace Cathedral, the Episcopal headquarters. Following an image search I learn that is Saint Paul's Church in the Outer Mission District.

Some local wags call St. Mary's “Our Lady of Maytag,” because it resembles a washing machine agitator. The archdiocese website says, “The design of the new cathedral had to reflect San Francisco's prestige, and also had to incorporate the new liturgical reforms of the (Second Vatican) Council.” The new liturgical reforms apparently mean incomprehensible modern art. This is carried to the extreme with The Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland. This all glass monstrosity looks like a bishop's mitre and is dominated by nearby office buildings, the temples of Mammon. The producers of The Streets of San Francisco know how a cathedral is supposed to look.