Float
A floating home in Mission Creek, a long throw away from Oracle Park, is on the market for $1.25 million. The houseboat, which is registered with the Department of Motor Vehicles, is located at the end of a dock of 20 other such boat-homes, only five of which have ever gone up for sale, according to real estate agent Michelle Hunter. To land the quasi-vessel at berth 56, 300 Channel Street, a potential buyer must pass an interview with the Homeowner’s Association, which Hunter likened to a “co-op” made up of friends. The property is only available to people who intend to live there full-time; it can’t be financed and must be purchased entirely in cash since it isn’t technically a property.
No View
Last October a popular View news rack located at 317 Connecticut Street, near Po’Boys Kitchen, was stolen. The Department of Public Works, which regularly tickets the paper’s distribution boxes for graffiti, claims it didn’t take it, though it has seized news racks in the past. Given the near collapse of print publications, with associated degradation in supply chain links like printers and boxes, replacing it would be expensive. Copies of the View remain available nearby, at Farley’s Coffee, 1315 18th Street, Thinkers Café, 1631 20th Street, and the paper’s main distribution node, The Good Life Grocery, 1524 20th Street…Speaking of which, according to Axios, the decline of local newspapers accelerated so rapidly in 2023 that one-third of the publications in the United States that existed less than 20 years ago have gone extinct. There are roughly 6,000 papers left in America, down from 8,891 in 2005, primarily weeklies or monthlies, leaving 204 U.S. counties, or 6.4 percent, without any local news outlet.Most communities that lose a homegrown paper don’t get a replacement, even online. Perhaps this helps explain the rapid rise of a deeply misinformed citizenry on a variety of critical topics. Advertise! Donate! Before it’s too late!
No Perspective
Driven by a near religious sense of purpose, hounded away from their previous countries by poverty and persecution, the settlers raced to secure land all the way to the sea. To safeguard their new home they chased away, slaughtered, and ultimately penned into dissected lands the former inhabitants. Sound familiar? It should, it’s American history. Whatever’s going on the Middle East, perhaps we should have a bit of
humility and consciousness about our own wrought history… Along these lines, with the emergence of scary divisions between “red” and “blue” states that threaten democracy and human rights, perhaps a “two-state solution” might be aptly applied to the United States. The two coasts, with a narrow corridor to Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota, could form one new nation-state. Did it turn out that other than abolishing slavery — no small thing — Lincoln was wrong about a house divided…?
Ownership
Contrary to what was stated in last month’s “Neighborhood Leaders Essential to Civic Life,” Keith Goldstein sold his company, Everest Waterproofing & Restoration, Inc., to another Potrero Hill resident, Seth Acharya, and Peter Vorhees in 2016.