S.F.’s Mystique Is Still a Strong Attraction : Image: Although dealt a horrible blow, San Francisco continues to have admirers throughout the country.

New Yorker William F. Noonan was a candidate for a San Francisco-based position with his public relations firm earlier this year. He didn’t get it. “But if I was offered it tomorrow I’d still go,” he said Wednesday--with the memory of Tuesday’s earthquake still fresh.

“I wouldn’t go there next week,” said Detroit attorney Michael Sharpe. “But after this situation has blown over, I wouldn’t hesitate.”

And Michael Cowners, a Chicago arbitrageur who was reared in San Francisco and owns land there said he was “stunned,” but does not plan to sell his Bay Area real estate.

For San Francisco’s image in America--sophisticated and romantic, saucy and free thinking, beautiful and proud--the worst of times may not be so bad.

Tuesday’s earthquake clearly left a mark on the nation’s collective psyche just as it left the City by the Bay battered, bent and mourning its dead and injured. Millions watching television in anticipation of the third World Series game Tuesday lost their pictures as a frantic announcer said “I think we’re having an earth. . . . “ Tens of millions more sat up late into the night as networks abandoned their programing to focus on the disaster.

While the damage extended far beyond San Francisco, the focus was on the City by the Bay with a national mystique as unique as its rip-roaring history.

“Isn’t it ironic that this happened after all the talk about the great publicity something like the World Series would generate for the Bay Area,” said George Walters, of Baltimore. “It’s disheartening to see such scenic surroundings obliterated in a few seconds.”

For the city, for its $2.5-billion-a-year tourist industry, Tuesday’s quake was clearly a negative.

“This is such a dramatic event that people are going to have a reaction to,” said Eric Plaut, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Northwestern University in Chicago, “and associate it with some very dramatic pictures that they saw on television.

“These kinds of reactions are to the emotional impact of the event before (them),” said Plaut. “Most people don’t have long (term) impacts. Everybody knows about the 1906 earthquake and . . . still the population has grown tremendously. The impact wears off.”

“Tourists will gather themselves and discover this is the type of rare tragedy that occurs in all places,” said Leonard Pearlstein, president of keye/donna/pearlstein, the advertising firm that has the state of California tourism and economic development account.

“When you have a natural tragedy (memories) don’t linger in a negative sense because you can’t assess blame,” said John F. Budd Jr., vice chairman of Carl Byoir and Associates, a national public relations firm that is often called in to help companies with image problems in times of crises.

“I can’t see that anybody wouldn’t visit Alaska because we had an earthquake in 1964,” said Marion (Scottie) Leight, a longtime Anchorage resident. “If you were to try to do that, you’d have a heck of a time traveling.”

That feeling, of course, is not universal.

“I would never consider going out West and that’s the main reason why, the chance of an earthquake,” said Clinton Makel, who works for a Manhattan textile importing firm.

“I said to my cabbie this morning, ‘I’m glad I’m not living in San Francisco,’ and he said ‘That’s what people say about New York,’ ” said Margaret Scott, a Manhattan mortgage broker. “New York has its dangers but we’re all accustomed to the advantages and disadvantages of where we live.”

“I’ve enjoyed it both for business and personal reasons and up till (Tuesday) night I would have considered living there,” said Dean Schmidt, who left the Bay Area for his Houston home less than two hours before the quake. “But no more. It’s too risky.”

And as for William Noonan, president of International Burson-Marsteller Inc., a public relations firm, he’s moving to Tokyo “which is even more vulnerable.”