APEC — Blog — Healy Chen

Castles in the sky

Hey fellow San Franciscans: are you seeing the light beam in the sky at night? Apparently that's an art installation for the APEC summit happening this week. Originating from the Ferry Building are 12 laser beams shooting down southbound Market Street. The fact this beam can be seen by me all the way on the literal opposite end of the city is kind cool. Though it's supposed to the colors of the rainbow? I can only see a beam of blue on this side.

The folks living along Market Street must hate the thing, right? A week-long light beam shining up your pricey luxury condo at night. I wonder if it's worse than the time Elon Musk put a giant illuminated 'X' logo on top of what was the twitter building.

But hey, anything for APEC, am I right? Who cares if restaurants and smalls businesses in the vicinity of the summit are struggling this week (tongue fully in cheek). I mean, did organizers think the opposite would happen? No one is voluntarily going downtown this week! The street closures, no-go zones, and transit detours signal one thing: stay away. I feel most terrible for Chinatown merchants. My own mother - who goes to Chinatown weekly - is avoiding the historic district for the duration of APEC.

Foreign travelers picking this week of all weeks to visit San Francisco also drew the short stick. At least the streets are clean and free of homeless encampments! SFPD is fully working overtime as well, so maybe your rental car won't get broken into? Condolences to the Czech TV crew who got robbed in front of City Lights Bookstore.

It'll be back to normal next week. Enjoy the light beam in the sky while it lasts.

We can have nice things

The APEC summit is happening this week in San Francisco. Honestly, I’ve never heard of APEC until I started to see news of street closures and movement restrictions a few weeks back. Of course, when world leaders representing nearly half of the world’s economic output come together, security is of utmost importance. Especially in a country - the United States of America - where the second amendment exists. If the locals who live and work here are inconvenienced, so be it. Literally the price of doing business.

I sure hope the supposed increase in local spending from all the foreign visitors is worth it!

Because I am sure San Francisco is spending a significant sum in hosting, and its various logistics (Federal government is chipping in, surely). I was surprised to read the organizers literally built a 14-foot high security fence surrounding the Moscone Center area. Access is highly controlled and monitored, no doubt. (Who says we can’t built walls here in America?) Entire subway tunnels are shut down for the duration of the event. Freeway exits near the conference area are blocked, and entire lane of the Bay Bridge is closed to normal traffic.

There’s apparently a 30-mile no-fly radius - commercial aircraft excepted. Leisure guy flying his recreational Cessna better stay away, lest he wants fighter jets for company.

Another surprising thing is seeing the city actually enforcing laws! Sidewalk homeless encampments getting cleared out, and illegal street vending stopped. I bet the tacitly-allowed drug trade in the Tenderloin is also put to a pause. The Department of Public Works must’ve worked overtime to clean the downtown area. I love how shambolic it is that San Francisco only (literally) clean its act up when cameras and eyes from the outside world are upon it. Count me as one of the locals asking: why can’t we have this year round, all the time?

I wish APEC a successful summit in this city of ours. It’s wild to think I will be in the same 7-by-7 mile piece of land as Chinese President Xi Jinping.