Annex-Terrace Redevelopment Problems Persist
Mark Steensland The plan to rebuild the Potrero Annex and Terrace houseing complex began in 2005, as part of HOPE-SF, a collaboration between the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD)…
Mark Steensland
More than $20 Million Spent Annually to Maintain Street Trees, Fix Sidewalks
Prior to 2016, property owners shouldered most of the responsibility for caring for San Francisco’s 125,000 street trees; plants growing in “basins” cut-out from the sidewalk. That changed with passage…
Highways Increase Air Pollution-Related Health Risks in Dogpatch, Potrero Hill
Dogpatch and Potrero Hill are sandwiched between two freeways: Highway 101 and Interstate 280. These roadways not only define local geography but create the conditions for a constant hum of…
Tattoo Museum Would Make Ink Truly Permanent
San Francisco is home to lots of museums. The de Young and Legion of Honor feature “high” art. Ripley’s Believe It Or Not is kitschy. The Museum of Craft and…
“Grizzly” Goings-On at Mission Creek Park
In 2021, the San Francisco Arts Commission invited proposals to create pieces for the Mission Creek Park Extension Public Art Project. The idea was to suggest a focal sculpture, or…
Property Leased by Caltrans Subject to More Scrutiny, Higher Insurance Coverage
Shortly after midnight on November 11, 2023, a fire broke out under the Interstate-10 freeway in downtown Los Angeles. The ensuing inferno damaged more than 100 support columns; at least…
Still Sinking, But Not Sunk
Before the Gold Rush began in 1849, Mission Bay was a water body that carved into the coastline like a capital “C,” fed by Mission Creek from the west, surrounded…
Dogpatch Business Reaches for the Stars
Science fiction stories have frequently inspired real-life inventions. Martin Cooper, for example, the Motorola employee considered the father of the modern cell-phone, was stirred to innovate by the communicators used…
Critics Unhappy with Short Term Rentals at Project Artaud
When Project Artaud was founded in 1971 with the purchase of a 100,000 square foot building at 499 Alabama Street, it was envisioned as a community, a physical space where…
For The Love of Letters
Graphic designer Rob Saunders founded the Letterform Archive ten years ago as a place to share his personal collection of graphic arts ephemera with the public and preserve the history…
Potrero Terrace-Annex Beset by Challenges
Construction of the Potrero Terrace and Annex housing complex was catalyzed in 1937, when the U.S. Congress passed the Housing Act as part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal,…
Food for Thought
Jenny Phreab, owner of Thinkers Café, located at 1631 20th Street, across from the Potrero Hill branch of the San Francisco Public Library, has realized the American Dream. Though not…
Delivering Opportunities
“Pregnant” and “homeless” were two words Martha Ryan was shocked to see together, especially in 1980s America, when President Ronald Reagan’s economic boom fueled the conspicuous consumption lifestyles of the…
Building Resources Under New Management
For more than a decade, Building Resources, located at 701 Amador Street, has been the only place in San Francisco to acquire used residential and commercial building and landscaping materials.…
Bayview Police Station Gets New Leadership
Captain Michael Koniaris didn’t grow up wanting to be a police officer. “My father discouraged it for a long time,” he said. The elder Koniaris — George, affectionately known as…
High-Tech Solution to Reducing Noise Pollution
The term “noise pollution” first appeared in a 1966 New England Journal of Medicine article about the negative health effects of unwanted sound. Six years later the federal Noise Control…
Potrero Hill Resident Interested in Sounds
Andrew Roth fell in love with sound more than four decades ago, when he was eight years old. His doctor dad would drive him from their North-of-Market neighborhood to Tower…
Parking Reduced to Improve Pedestrian Safety
As a result of Assembly Bill (AB) 413, as of January 1, 2024 drivers are no longer allowed to park within 20 feet of a crosswalk, marked or unmarked, on…