The War of the Roses: The City's Future May Erase Its Past. In Which Case: Send Flowers. 

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That's complicated. Peskin aims to keep things simple.

If he is unsatisfied with the positions taken by the city and Kilroy, he'll work to bring the issue to the voters with a campaign pitting the fate of salt-of-the-earth blue-collar workers against conquering tech interlopers.

Peskin promises the unsubtly titled "Flower Mart Protection Act of 2015" — which would lock in low height limits on the site — will be placed on the ballot if the flower vendors are made to relocate or otherwise complain that their livelihoods are being imperiled during construction. Period. Early polling indicates nearly eight out of 10 San Francisco voters could be inclined to vote for such a measure (people love flowers, remember) — saddling the proposed tech fortress of tomorrow with the height limits of today's warehouse.

The Flower Mart is a big place. And, in its way, it serves as all things to all people. For the growers and wholesalers hanging on in this business, it's the irreplaceable heart of the entire West Coast market. For the city and Kilroy, it's a lucrative scrap of ideally located and wholly underutilized land and, potentially, the opportunity to marry the city's past with its future.

And, for the familiar critics who've mobilized, it's a potent symbol of a complex, larger trend easily marketed to voters, a wedge issue (in 2015's mayoral re-election year no less), and a means with which to leverage themselves into this deal — and, the next one and the next one and the next one after that.

The Flower Mart, then, is a nexus of the conflicting forces at play in shaping this city. Change is coming to the city around it — but maybe not here. What distinguishes the Mart from all the other future sites of watercolor skyscrapers speckling San Francisco is its emotional tug. Like a cute and fuzzy species facing extinction, attention will be paid to the plight of this place, more so than a nondescript one.

In the abstract, the Flower Mart can be all things to all people. But, in the concrete, it cannot. Someone's vision for this site stands to conquer everyone else's; attempts to please everyone may end up pleasing no one.

The flower business, remarks one beleaguered florist within this warehouse, is hard, wet, and dirty. So much in this city is.

The sun rises at about 6:30 and David Repetto pauses for a moment and chuckles. Perhaps he knows he only has 10 and a half more hours work to do here before he goes home.

A thirtysomething female florist wanders up to place a major order. Like all of his early morning customers, Repetto knows her by first name; without breaking eye contact or slowing his banter, he reaches to his left and unearths her pile of receipts.

"So, what's your husband up to in Africa?"

"He's doing something in a copper mine. He'll be back in seven days. Maybe 10."

"Huh. Guess you miss him."

"Nah. Not really."

And everyone laughs. A bit uneasily. The real laughs require flora-related punchlines such as "This amaranthus — it looks like a tree!"

Well, that joke killed. Just as it would have a generation ago.

Other things, however, have changed. It's a different business run by different businesspeople and, to an extent, catering to different customers with different expectations. A man strides up to Repetto wielding a smartphone. This happens a lot now. He summons a photograph of a bouquet of deep burgundy flowers and inquires if Repetto can sell him some. But the farmer shakes his head. Those are chocolate cosmos. And they're out of season. Repetto offers a wan grin and glances up and around the vast warehouse. He pauses for a moment. And it's not entirely clear if his next words are meant to describe a flower, the Flower Mart writ large, or, perhaps, a bit of both:

"Some things," he says, "are just better-suited to exist in their own time."