San Francisco Follow

Having lived in San Francisco for several years, I was surprised and disappointed to read the comments Kristine McKenna so gratuitously made about a city that many people consider to be the most cosmopolitan and sophisticated in the country, if not the world (“SOMA, So Much Art, So Little Time,” Weekend Escape, June 25).

It is a pity that Ms. McKenna did not bother to gain some understanding about the city before making such comments as: “I’ve never really experienced San Francisco, having always dismissed it as too quaint and provincial,” or the new Museum of Modern Art “revitalized an area traditionally dismissed as too grungy for civilized tastes.”

It little matters what Ms. McKenna personally thinks about San Francisco. As a travel writer, however, it is her responsibility to base her writing on a degree of understanding of the subject. Instead, she tossed out spurious remarks and opinions of no benefit whatsoever to the reader.

In preparation for any future visit to the City by the Bay, I recommend Ms. McKenna do her homework about the city’s traditions, cultural offerings and diverse population. She would then be in a position to write a travel article based on knowledge and understanding of the subject. I would enjoy reading such an article.

The San Francisco article offended me mightily. However, I suppose I should be grateful that Ms. McKenna did not refer to the city as Frisco.

ELIZABETH LYMAN

San Diego

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In her otherwise well-informed article, Kristine McKenna refers to “North Beach’s legendary Italian restaurant, Tosca’s . . . formerly the hangout of the Zoetrope Studios crowd when Francis Ford Coppola was based in the Bay Area. . . .”

It is Tosca, not Tosca’s, and it is not a restaurant, Italian or otherwise, but a bar. It is still the prime hangout of our Zoetrope crowd, the Coppola clan and much of San Francisco’s literary/artistic world.

TOM LUDDY

Producer, American Zoetrope