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Books San Francisco/California

Remembering Stacey’s – San Francisco’s Downtown Bookstore

During my college years and after, I worked in the downtown San Francisco financial district. It was a busy place with lots of folks commuting into town.

One of my favorite places during those years (1970-1974) was Stacey’s Bookstore on Market Street. It was such a wonderful bookstore – deep in technical books, an upstairs and a downstairs area, and a great staff who was welcoming and helpful.

Unfortunately, Stacey’s eventually closed – wrapping things up in 2009. Stacey’s was independent, not part of any of the larger bookstore chains. It became one of many independent bookstores that closed during that era – a combination of the effects of Amazon and the larger chains with their bookstores located in suburban shopping malls. It seems like we may be through that “bookstore winter” as we’ve got a couple of thriving local independent bookstores and there seem to me many more now around the country.

I’m not sure what brought Stacey’s into my mind this morning – one of those fleeting thoughts that managed to stick. But those are good memories – a place where I enjoyed endless browsing and made many purchases of business and technical/computer-related books over the years.

Here’s a good article on the final chapter for Stacey’s.

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Fujifilm X-E2 Lighthouse Photography Photography - Fujifilm X-E2 Photoshop CC Street Photography VSCO Film

A Look Down San Francisco’s Market Street

Market Street - San Francisco - 2014

Doug Kaye and I were photowalking in downtown San Francisco on Friday – exploring some old familiar areas as well as a few new ones. At one point we crossed Market Street and I snapped this view heading to the Ferry Building. I was shooting on this particular day with my Fujifilm X-E2 with the 55-200mm Fujinon zoom lens.

This image was processed in Lightroom and VSCO Film before being touched a bit in Photoshop CC with the oil paint filter. I like how the oil paint filter (as well as Topaz Simplify) help remove some detail – decluttering the image just a bit.