SF MOMA is, like most of the features in that part of the city, relatively new. Also like many San Francisco institutions, its strong features are its appearance rather than its mediocre premanent collection. The building itself looks like a CD player on the outside. Inside, it is light, airy, and quite beautiful.

Since it was the first Tuesday in the month, admission was free and the place was pretty crowded, but not unreaasonably so. Once we were let in, we filed slowly past the exhibits, from Magritte’s rather murky early work to the brilliantly colored canvasses of the ’50s and ’60s. Afterwards, we walked across the street to Yerba Buena Park.

Like MOMA, it’s new. When I first moved to San Francisco in 1988, that whole section of blocks was little more than a hole in the ground. Yerba Buena is now a nice little patch of green, with a fine, man-made waterfall dedicated to Martin Luther King. It was a pretty day, and the park was filled with people. We found a spot on the grass, and I went up a flight of stairs to a Starbucks on a terrace at the top of the waterfall, got some iced lattes for our guests and a frappucino for myself.

SFMOMA is much improved now. I’m afraid back then, my opinion about its permanent collection was formed by the prominent display of the polished , colorfully painted ceramic piece by Jeff Koons of Michael Jackson cuddling his pet chimp, Bubbles.