For any San Francisco resident (me) or Bay Area admirer (also me), Portal is a must read. Do not be discouraged, this book is not solely about a single building; albeit the Ferry Building is worthy of its own book. Interwoven into the history of the Ferry Building, King takes the reader through an array of San Francisco history—I found out that the first cable car was operated one block from my apartment at the peak of Nob Hill (sadly that cable car route no longer exists). San Francisco always has been and continues to be a beautiful experiment: to try and define San Francisco’s culture is like throwing flour on a ghost—its supposedly there, but nothing lands because in reality it’s impossible to define. King’s extensive historical writing showcases how much San Francisco has changed, and different chapters highlight the many experiments that different Board of Supervisors have attempted to plant on the Embarcadero and San Francisco’s finger piers—I am very pro abolishing the two-lane highway that used to sit upon the Embarcadero. I feel extremely privileged to live in a city that hosts so much important history, and reading books like Portal remind me how I need to look up more from my daily routine.

The last important reason to read Portal is King’s portrait he provides of Herb Caen, San Francisco Chronicle’s legendary opinion writer. As a fake San Francisco resident, I was unaware of Caen before Portal, but it quickly became apparent how much Caen’s writing affected the Bay Area—when the man spoke, the people listened. I can only hope to attain of level of writing that Caen sat upon, and thanks to Portal, I now read (i.e., study) Caen’s Chronicle pieces in hopes of improving my craft.