San Francisco Celebrates 225 Years of Draftiness

Residents commemorate frigid city’s Diamond Jubilee with procession to thermostat

In 1850, San Francisco made a solemn commitment to its citizens. “All Infrastructure in this Great City, whether it be a Residence, Schoolhouse or Saloon, shall be noticeably drafty; let no San Franciscan ever be fully warm.”

The city has worked hard to keep that promise ever since, using code enforcement to ensure that homes are underheated and poorly sealed. Businesses, too, are inspected, with cafes encouraged to leave their doors standing wide open and restaurants cited if customers stop shivering. The result, just as San Francisco’s founders intended, is a populace united by inescapable nippiness, with a shared dream of being somewhere balmy, or at least properly insulated.

Residents take the achievement for granted, but tourists and newcomers to the city notice San Francisco’s signature ambiance right away. “Walking through a threshold in this town is purely symbolic, as there is hardly any difference between indoors and out,” said a visitor from a region coddled by modern climate control. “Was not expecting to see this much alpine apparel in California,” he added.