Embarcadero (San Francisco)

Street in San Francisco, United States.

At a glance

Source	Author	Role	In one line
How to Do Nothing — Reader’s Companion	Jenny Odell	setting	The author’s lunchtime refuge turns out to be the site of the 1934 longshoremen’s strike, where thousands picketed along the Embarcadero, strikers queued for free lunches in block-long lines, and poli

How to Do Nothing — Jenny Odell (2019)

Source: How to Do Nothing — Reader’s Companion · How to Do Nothing · Readwise highlight

I used to take long lunch breaks as a small, selfish act of resistance. I’d sit on the Embarcadero waterfront, looking plaintively out at the Bay Bridge and the diving ducks.

• Role: setting
• In the book: The author’s lunchtime refuge turns out to be the site of the 1934 longshoremen’s strike, where thousands picketed along the Embarcadero, strikers queued for free lunches in block-long lines, and police rode picketers off the sidewalk with horses.
• Why it matters: The place links her small private refusal to a massive collective one, and grounds the chapter’s account of discipline and the ‘third space’ in a specific waterfront.