Asked how COVID-19 was affecting Potrero Annex-Terrace residents, Bee replied, “Not much, it’s always been hard here…” Life at Annex-Terrace wasn’t getting harder. It’s always been hard. Bee knew someone who had the virus, and worried about how it was transmitted. She planned to get tested at the Potrero Hill Health Center, Wisconsin Street and… Keep Reading
Last month, Mayor London Breed floated a two-year budget in which $120 million would be shifted from the San Francisco Police and Sheriff’s departments to programs intended to benefit African Americans. Under the initiative $40 million a year would be redirected from SFPD, $20 million annually from the Sheriff’s Department. “We are listening to the… Keep Reading
A 1/8 cent sales tax to fund Caltrain will appear on San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara county ballots this November. It took the San Francisco and Santa Clara Boards of Supervisors until just before an early August deadline to be included in the fall vote to reach an agreement to strip the measure… Keep Reading
The Embarcadero Shelter Access for Everyone (SAFE) Navigation Center has operated as a COVID-negative congregate shelter since June. San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) had considered converting it to “post-COVID” accommodation last spring but pivoted to the more urgent need to offer refuge for people experiencing homelessness who tested COVID negative. Last… Keep Reading
Last month kindergarten through twelfth grade students started the academic year online, with San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) campuses off-limits until the Department of Public Health (DPH) deems in-person learning safe. After a summer of near house arrest, students are now entering their sixth month of distance learning, which started last March, when schools… Keep Reading
Last month Anchor Brewing Company appointed Thomas Riley as Brewmaster. Riley, who has worked with the 124-year-old company for 36 years, is its fourth Brewmaster since 1965. Riley is now responsible for beer production and brewhouse management. Riley grew up in Potrero Hill, where Anchor’s brewhouse has been operating for more than 40 years.… Keep Reading
In June, Minnesota Street Project galleries opened Invincible Summer, a group exhibition unlike anything they’d offered before. Each gallery has installed a piece in the building’s atrium or upstairs catwalk, effectively turning the viewing rooms inside out. The result is an exhibition that can be visited safely in a well-ventilated communal space, while many of… Keep Reading
FOOD St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal ChurchSt. Gregory’s food pantry is open Saturdays, noon to 2 p.m. for 94107 and 94110 zip code residents, identification isn’t required. For more information or to volunteer: 415.255.8100; www.thefoodpantry.St. Gregory, 500 De Haro Street, enter on Mariposa Street. Potrero Hill Neighborhood HouseProject Open Hand’s senior lunch program at the… Keep Reading
Long-time Potrero Hill resident, artist, and former San Francisco Redevelopment Agency (SFRA) graphic designer, William Wallace Reid, died July 16 from kidney failure. He was 92. Reid was born on New Year’s Eve 1927, in St. Louis, Missouri. Sketching by the Mississippi River waterfront as a boy, Reid watched riverboats paddle by, pulsing with live… Keep Reading
The commercial real estate market in Potrero Hill and Mission Bay has so far been largely immune to COVID-19’s economic disruption. Vacancies remain low, office rents are rising, and tenants are signing leases for newly constructed retail storefronts. Life science spaces with research laboratories have a waitlist. “It seems almost impossible when you look at… Keep Reading
The public health crisis, combined with economic, political, and social turbulence, has prompted a rise in anxiety and other mental health disorders. Last spring, as the number of COVID-19 infections rose, so did demand for antidepressants. “Zoloft prescriptions climbed 12 percent year-over-year to 4.9 million in March, the most ever in the U.S.,” reported Bloomberg… Keep Reading
San Francisco has been sheltering in place for almost six months. The full or partial closure of the tourism, restaurant, and retail sectors prompted the City’s unemployment rate to jump from 2.3 percent in February to 12.6 percent in June, damaging people’s ability to afford food and rent. Elderly and disabled people, among others, have… Keep Reading
Time never appears directly, but rather presents itself in an array of costumes, some invisible. The sun rises and sets, signaling the passage of day into night back into day. Coastal fog chases summer heat inland, reminding San Franciscans to don their seasonal hoodies. The clock, tracking the sun and the moon, tells us it’s… Keep Reading
Editor, I declare tinted automobile windows the scourge of pedestrians, bicyclists, and car drivers. Gone is the “excuse me” or “I see you” back and forth that eye contact engenders. Instead, many cars have become dark fortresses, their drivers anonymous, their attention and intention unknowable. Doesn’t the law prohibit tinted glass in front seats? If… Keep Reading
Jackson Park Bonded Two thousand postcards sent to Mayor London Breed calling for Jackson Park to be included in the 2020 Health and Recovery Bond that’ll appear on the November ballot resulted in the inclusion of $10 million towards park improvements in the proposed measure…one-fifth of Crowded Fire Theater’s acting ensemble has fled San Francisco,… Keep Reading
The Black Lives Matter movement may be the largest in American history. As many as 26 million people of all colors participated in marches sparked by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many others. White people who thought racism was occasional hyperbole took to the streets. It brought tears to my eyes;… Keep Reading
When the Internet was young, Rudy Rucker and Alex Menendez liked to meet for coffee at Farley’s, on 18th Street. There, the aspiring technology entrepreneurs laid the groundwork for Monkeybrains, the Internet service provider (ISP) Rucker founded in 1998. Menendez joined a year later as co-owner. Monkeybrains is now the largest independent ISP based in… Keep Reading
Over the last 20 years psychedelics – lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), psilocybin mushrooms, 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA), among others – have shifted from underground and counter-culture club drugs to medicines that are increasingly taken seriously by scientists. A 2006 John Hopkins University study determined that “magic mushrooms” can create lasting “personal meaning and spiritual significance.” A steady… Keep Reading
San Francisco art galleries are offering by-appointment viewing of exhibitions originally scheduled to open last spring. Seven Rivers – which was supposed to start accepting visitors in March at Euqinom Gallery on Alabama Street – is an expansive journey in experimental landscape pictures from Idaho photographer Ansley West Rivers. In 2013, West Rivers set out… Keep Reading
Earlier this summer, Lowell High School (LHS) posted a statement on Instagram. “The Lowell Community Equity Committee (CEC) is disturbed by the recent reports of sexual violence and verbal abuse allegations by students and teachers on campus. The acts described in the allegations are reprehensible. We want to uplift the voices of the courageous students… Keep Reading
8/1 Saturday and 8/2 SundayTheater: “A Kids’ Play About Racism”The performance explains what racism is, how to know it when you see and experience it and explores ideas for what you can do about it. Free. Streaming online. For more information: https://www.akidsplayabout.org/ 8/4 TuesdayWriting: Kids and Teen Writing Workshop What’s your story? Tell the world, in… Keep Reading
Former Potrero Hill resident, San Francisco Planning Commission president, and florist Ron Miguel died on June 28 of heart problems. He was 88-years-old. Miguel, a third-generation San Franciscan, wanted to influence the City’s future, remaining civically engaged until the end of his life. Even in the month before his death he took part via Zoom… Keep Reading
Last month, outdoor dining, curbside pickup, retail stores, and gym classes were greenlit to operate in public spaces, such as on sidewalks, parking lanes, parks, and Port of San Francisco lands. The Shared Spaces Program (SSP), which’ll run until the end of the year, was created by the City’s COVID-19 Economic Recovery Task Force, a… Keep Reading