Death of 17 Reasons

A dark day in San Francisco Mission District culture: The "17 Reasons" sign is coming down.

High atop a four-story former department store located at 17th and Mission Streets in the heart of the "New Bohemian" Mission, the large, enigmatic sign has been a landmark for several generations of San Franciscan bohemians. When I first moved to S.F. in 1979, the sign read "17 Reasons Why" and advertised a brand of Scotch whiskey. Sometime in the late 80s, the "Why" was removed and replaced by a sign advertising space in the building. Now the whole thing is being torn down, according to the S.F. Chronicle's Lauren Wellman, because it's finally gotten too dangerous.

There's no telling exactly why, but the sign is much-beloved by Mission District residents -- for example, here's a story titled "17 Reasons Why" that has a character saying "I love that sign," this short film is also presumably named after it, and there's a rock band of the same name. Another local landmark, the gigantic Thrift Town store, takes up the bottom two floors of the building and people sometimes call the store "17 Reasons" because of the sign on the top of the building.