The Giants & Bullitt

 “Just Thinking”

Well, beat the drum and hold the phone the sun came out today we’re born again, there’s new grass on the field. The 2025 Giants took the field yesterday in Cincinnati to open the new season with an exciting come from behind 6-4 victory that featured some exciting 9th inning heroics. It’s the first time that Giants won on opening day when trailing through 8 innings since they beat the Mets back on April 10, 1968.

Speaking of San Francisco, I watched Bullitt again, but having not seen it in such along time it felt like I watched it for the first time. Bullitt is remembered for its heart pounding car chase through the streets of San Francisco, but it was much more, it was a gritty action thriller that rewrote the rules of the genre with Steve McQueen at its fast-paced core. 

The movie came out in 1968 with Steve “The Cooler King” McQueen at the height of his career. McQueen plays a hard as steel police lieutenant Frank Billett, who is charged with protecting a witness against the Chicago mob. The witness is killed early in the film, gunned down in a cheap hotel room by a couple of hitmen. The hitmen then target Bullitt himself, tailing him in their 1968 Dodge Charger R/T 440 until he flips the script and pursues them in his 1968 Ford Mustang GT. What ensues is the car chase that the movie is famous for, but like I described months ago when I wrote about “Dirty Harry” the streets and neighborhoods bounce around with director taking great privileges in connecting them all. It is also amazing to see how much “The City” has transformed over the last 50 years.

The chase kicks off in Bernal Heights, near the intersection of Army and Precita Ave, just across from the Bayshore car wash under Highway 101. From there to Potrero Hill, where they race along 20th Street and Kansas Street. The chase then jumps to North Beach, where it picks up speeding along Columbus Avenue near Chestnut Street, past Bimbo’s 365 Club. Next, it’s Russian Hill where the cars perform a hill-hopping spectacle, Taylor Street is a launchpad with both cars vaulting off its steep inclines, suspensions groaning as they crash back to earth, they bounce past Vallejo, Green, and Union Streets. The Charger sheds a hubcap at Larkin and Francisco.

Next, they’re in the Marina District, where the pursuit flattens out along broader streets like Marina Boulevard with Alcatraz and the Bay in the background. Then it’s McLaren Park, cutting through Mansell Street’s curves before spilling out of San Francisco entirely. The final stretch is into Daly City, going onto Guadalupe Canyon with the Charger and Mustang trading paint as they blast past radio towers at the top of San Bruno Mountain with shots of San Francisco in the distance. It all ends in a gas station at the bottom of Guadalupe on North Hill Drive in Brisbane, the Charger’s fiery demise marking the chase’s brutal climax.

San Francisco is more than a backdrop to this dated but thrilling movie; it is more like a co-star. 

Let me know what you think.

@ChuckBarberini - #ChuckBarberiniRealEstate - @ChuckBarberiniRealEstate

@Golden_State_Guide_Service - @Citizen.Number.One