Mayor Willie Brown officially dedicated the North Beach Garage on Feb. 7, 2002. The artists received a $40,000 commission for both pieces, each taking home about one-tenth of that after costs. As far as maintenance goes, the garage is responsible for day-to-day upkeep, and the transit agency oversaw a repainting of the roof level’s fortunes in 2006. Exposed to sun and wind, they’re mostly indecipherable again.
Rubin, who travels back to San Francisco from time to time but hasn’t stopped by the garage, is zen about some of it fading into obscurity.
“I like that it’s certainly dissociated from our authorship,” he said. “That was never really that important.”
Then what is important? Depending on where you stashed your Altima, it could be this gently defiant piece of advice: “The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”
