SAN FRANCISCO — The hotel where Duke has stayed here for the NCAA Tournament is filled with marble and gold accents, a place of distinction. Its website tells tales of high society and perseverance, of rebuilding after the earthquake of 1906 and the Great Depression, when a prominent interior designer "redesigned the space to reflect the ambiance of a Venetian palace."
It carries the look of it, still. The Fairmont has been a place to see and be seen, where San Francisco's first bar opened after Prohibition, where Nat King Cole and Tony Bennett sang and Joe Montana and U.S. Presidents visited, and where earlier this week one of the bellmen out front warned of not venturing too far, given the perils now inherent throughout parts of San Francisco.
There are two diametrically contrasting versions of this city, and while one of them this week hosted Duke and three other teams in the tournament, the other staggers along in plain sight, home to thousands for whom daily survival is something of an accomplishment. The juxtaposition can be striking: Walk a block or two in one direction from the NCAA Tournament media hotel, a Hilton off O'Farrell, and the sidewalks quickly begin to fill with scenes from a different world.
