510 Townsend St.

There was a time when the hustle and bustle at the front of of this building was palpable. Lyft served as the primary mode of transportation for many well-heeled employees, and frequent rideshare pickups and dropoffs competed for space with a busy bikelane and a street which was rarely not in gridlock during any core hours of the day. Now, the streets and sidewalks are so empty that you can practically see tumbleweeds blowing down them, and like much of San Francisco’s SOMA district, the building is too, and won’t be occupied anytime soon. No longer with the benefit of full-time security, the whole courtyard’s been boarded over to prevent it from becoming a full scale encampment.

This was my last Stripe office, fourth (I think?) in the series after an early startup one that I never visited, Pioneer) in the Mission, and Ivy in China Basin. By the time I left it’d already been slated for closure for some time in anticipation of the upcoming campus being constructed down at Oyster Point in South San Francisco.