Walk up San Francisco’s Grant Avenue, and you may see festive poinsettias or Nutcracker dolls in the window displays, or perhaps a mannequin gripping a couture handbag.
But there’s a different sort of ornamentation on the hundredth block at Union Square. Rows of 3,000-pound balls line the curbs, each affixed to a podium that resembles the base of a Greek column. They look like boulders made of pre-cast concrete, or those stones people lift for sport in the Scottish Highlands. An art critic would marvel at the neoclassical style, or wince at the in-your-face bulk.
The fixtures have a clear purpose. Luxury shops have in the past been vulnerable to ram-raid burglaries, in which thieves drive cars through the glass doors, ransack the shelves and then flee in seconds. Among the victims was the Dior store at Grant Ave. and Post Street, where barricades went up last year — not the boulder kind, but a set of white, table-like structures that appeared bolted to the sidewalk. They were unpermitted and have since been removed.
This summer, the city debuted the new set of round bollards on Grant Avenue and Geary Street after a ram-raid attempt shattered the front window of a Chanel store. Funded and installed by the Public Works department, the 60 spheres cost $2,000 apiece and are modeled after 232 bollards that popped up last year on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills…