http://potreroview.net/ The Potrero View en-us Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:43:53 -0800 http://potreroview.net/news10333.html Scenic views of the City skyline and a 33 percent increase in space will greet visitors at the fully renovated Potrero Branch.  Mayor Gavin Newsom, City Librarian Luis Herrera, State Senator Mark Leno, District 10 Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, Department of Public Works Director Ed Reiskin and other City and state officials are expected to be on hand when the doors open at 2 p.m. on March 6.  Located on 20th Street, near Connecticut, the library has been closed for a $5.4 million renovation since 2008. http://potreroview.net/news10334.html Last spring a nine-member board was elected to manage Starr King Openspace, the 3.5 acres of community owned, hilltop green patch that stretches from 23rd and Carolina to 24th and De Haro streets. Many of the newly elected had been galvanized to become involved because of a proposed development at 1321 De Haro Street. For decades the property was a single family residence. When it changed hands in 2008, the new owner announced plans to demolish the existing structure, replace it with a three-unit building, and retain the right of easement allowing cars to pass through the adjacent Starr King Openspace to the units. http://potreroview.net/news10335.html After graduating from Westmont College in 1997, Teresa Goines worked for two years as a probation officer in Santa Barbara.  The experience changed her views about incarceration, having witnessed “a revolving door” in which youth were pulled into the criminal justice system with few options for finding ways out.  Young people, according to Goines, were “set up to fail.” http://potreroview.net/news10336.html Dogpatch is an eclectic mix of historically significant waterfront industrial structures, stately Victorians, humble shipyard worker cottages, and gleaming new live-work lofts and condominiums.  The neighborhood has been ground zero for locals versus developer fights for decades.   Now, with the massively-scaled University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Mission Bay research and medical complex at its doorstep, Dogpatch residents are working to address the challenges associated with living in an urban area.   http://potreroview.net/news10337.html Potrero Hill Democratic Club’s February meeting included introductions to three new candidates, who spoke in random order. http://potreroview.net/news10338.html In the nine years that they’ve been in business, San Francisco Guitarworks has earned a reputation as one of the best repair shops in the City.  Operating out of a 750 square foot space on Potrero Avenue, SF Guitarworks’ four person team is equipped to take on any type of repair job. Whether they’re fixing a beginner’s first guitar, preparing a professional musician’s instrument for a lengthy tour, or in one recent case, rebuilding the body of an acoustic guitar that a customer’s wife smashed over his head during an argument, SF Guitarworks strives for perfection. http://potreroview.net/news10339.html Sometimes you meet a person who is perfectly suited to their job. Potrero Hill resident Geoff Luttrell, the owner of SF Guitarworks on Potrero Avenue, is one of those people. When it comes to repairing guitars, Geoff has the skill of a master craftsman and the passion to match. I asked Geoff a few questions about SF Guitarworks.    http://potreroview.net/news10340.html A rundown section of Potrero Hill will soon host an art installation created by Downtown High School (DHS) students.  With the help of professional artist Daniela Steinsapir and urban designer Berta Lazaro, eight students will install a mural on Vermont Street’s retaining wall, near McKinley Square Park, and create a living gallery that will include three dimensional elements and lighting.   http://potreroview.net/news10341.html This 1930 Department of Public Works (DPW) photograph, looking from Utah Street south to 18th Street and beyond, supports my belief that Utah never ran straight-and-true across Potrero Hill’s western slope, as most nineteenth-century maps would lead one to believe.  Look at that wall of rock there! It appears that DPW’s graders and pavers elected not to cut through that impediment, but did carry on above it to 19th Street, where they threw up their hands. From there on, Utah was a stony, hillside-clinging path, traversable only by goats, before becoming a real road again at 23rd Street, south of McKinley Square and San Francisco General Hospital. In the early 1950s, the uphill stretch of Utah, to the left in the photo, the houses fronting it, as well as a chunk of 18th Street between Utah and San Bruno streets, were bulldozed to accommodate the James Lick Freeway. A short private driveway off 19th Street, overlooking the freeway, is the only reminder of the block that once was. The stairway, lower left, mimics the location of today’s pedestrian bridge that connects this bit of Utah Street to its former neighborhood, Potrero Hill. http://potreroview.net/news10342.html For those of us trying to make sound ecological choices, it’s ultimately necessary to take a hard look at our dependence on the automobile, and the society we’ve built as a result. The quality of the air we breathe, the health of the bay, and our fabric of life are impacted heavily by driving.  Some Southeast San Francisco residents have concluded that they can live more ecologically and economically – and have more fun - by relying on biking and walking rather than driving to get around. http://potreroview.net/news10343.html Venturing South-of-Market (SOMA) for a meal is challenging for some of us.  There’s parking to be negotiated.  The specialty cocktail menus often arrive in a bound leather file.  The meal tab can be intimidating, and decidedly un-family friendly.  And then there’s the whole wardrobe issue.  One feels compelled to make more of an aesthetic effort because so many others dining in the neighborhood do so. http://potreroview.net/news10344.html Hold the Sun, which screens at this month’s San Francisco International Asian-American Film Festival, was co-directed by two Potrero Hill residents.  And while filmmaker Laura Zaylea, who lives on 24th and De Haro streets, filmed her debut feature “all over San Francisco,” many prominent scenes were shot in on the Hill, Mission Bay and Dogpatch.  Co-director David Yun lived in Dogpatch while attending graduate school at San Francisco Art Institute, where the two met while studying for their master of fine art degrees, which they earned in 2008.  And Zaylea’s partner and Hold the Sun’s sound designer Jennifer Rarick works at California College of the Arts in Showplace Square.   http://potreroview.net/news10345.html Originally hailing from Seattle and celebrating its 10th year in San Francisco, the sublime Teatro ZinZanni (TZ) presents a new version of its mythical, sensual show Hearts on Fire.  The performance features disco diva and Grammy Award winner Thelma Houston, reprising her legendary role as the mistress with the mostest in the fabled spiegeltent at Pier 29.  Houston is just one of an ensemble cast of world-class virtuosos in an only-in-San Francisco circus-cabaret-dinner theater spectacle.   http://potreroview.net/news10347.html Longtime Potrero Hill community activist Eve Milton died on October 7, 2010.  She was 89.  Months after succumbing to cancer, Milton is still finding ways to contribute. Her body was donated to the University of California, San Francisco, primarily for Alzheimer’s research.  “For the last 10 years of her life, she knew Alzheimer’s was affecting her memory,” said Taliaferro “Tolliver” Milton, one of Milton’s two sons. “Mom being Mom, always interested in what she could do for others, she thought it would be beneficial to leave her body, particularly her brain, to science. She thought she might be able to pass something on this way.” http://potreroview.net/feat10162.html Growing up in Southern California – and later in the Bay Area – my sisters, brother and I would ride our bikes, walk to school, or play in the dry creek beds near our house without a second thought.  Long-time Potrero Hill residents experienced that same childhood freedom, exploring the then marshy Mission Bay, or rolling down undeveloped hillsides on what’s now called the north slope.  Youth was spent biking to friends’ houses, investigating tadpoles in meandering creeks, searching for fossils, arrowheads, or old bottles, and playing hide-and-seek in wide open fields.   http://potreroview.net/feat10163.html Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) spent $3.5 million to collect more than a million signatures to qualify what it calls the Taxpayers Right to Vote Act for California’s June ballot. The self-serving title makes it sound like motherhood and apple pie. It is neither; the opposite, in fact. http://potreroview.net/feat10164.html Dear Editor,   Unless my friends and I got our facts wrong, the high turnover building at 18th and Connecticut has been owned by Irving Zaretsky’s greedy gang since long before 1999, probably starting before I moved here in the early 1980’s.  One of the silent partners died in 1998, which may have triggered a deed change in 1999, upon which your writer Anthony Myers picked-up (“18th Street commercial Corridor Rocked by Changes,” February issue). http://potreroview.net/feat10165.html Rebuild What!?   Last month roughly a dozen Potrero Hillians responded to 20th Street resident Buck Schmitz’s call for a meeting to increase community scrutiny of proposed redevelopment of the Potrero Annex and Terrace complexes.  Schmitz is concerned that, despite an eighteen month planning process that drew in 500 people, not enough community members are aware of the project.  Meeting participants questioned Bridge Housing’s proposals to almost triple the complexes’ density, the paltry amount of open space included in current plans, and a lack of retail amenities.  In an editorial in the December View, meeting participant and publisher Steve Moss pointed to the need for considerably more financial resources to develop the necessary amenities for the project, such as significant open and retail space, transportation infrastructure, and investments in local public schools.  This one is far from over, and is likely to be a multi-year slog before shovel hits dirt.  But the time to get into the scrum is now… Power flickered throughout San Francisco last month at exactly the moment Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) was testing the new Trans Bay Cable.  PG&E is investigating whether the test caused the flicker, as well as how many people lost power for longer than a moment.  The half-billion dollar cable could convey 40 percent of the City’s power needs, and will enable the Potrero Power Plant to close. http://potreroview.net/feat10166.html Abby Bridge, Potrero Branch Librarian   Jasmin Springer, Mission Bay Branch Children’s Librarian http://potreroview.net/feat10167.html Through March 26   Art: Deric Carner’s None of the Above   Deric Carner’s work is featured in Ping Pong Gallery’s latest thought provoking exhibit. Using ink and acrylic, Carner’s poster-style paintings explore formal and conceptual narratives found in books, newspapers, urban signage and the Internet.  The gallery is open Tuesdays and Thursdays, 6 to 9 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. or by appointment. 1240 22nd Street. Information: www.pingponggallery.com. http://potreroview.net/feat10168.html The View asked Hill resident and career expert Mauri Schwartz, President / CEO of Career Insiders, www.CareerInsiders.com, to answer questions from job seekers.  Submit your questions to editor@potreroview.net. http://potreroview.net/feat10169.html Bayview Police Station Captain’s Community Meeting is held on the first Tuesday of each month in the Bayview Police Station Community Room at 201 William Street. Access can be gained by entering through the Newhall Street door. Next meeting: March 2nd, 6 p.m.