Editor, Apropos of “View Hopes to Make it to 50, and Beyond,” in the March issue, 48 years ago two women, Babette Drefky and Emma Fleming, were instrumental in writing articles for the neighborhood paper, Hills and Dales. They asked me to join them. We made sure the articles fit on one side of one…
Friends of Jackson Park appreciates the View’s coverage of efforts to improve our neighborhood park. Our design continues to evolve as we work hard to incorporate the many needs and wishes of our diverse community. As we get closer to a final redesign, we’d like to clarify and correct points made in the April article,…
Golden State Warriors fans can claim bragging rights as supporting the “best team in the United States” for another year, after the squad’s takedown of the Cleveland Cavaliers for the 2017 National Basketball Association title. But San Franciscans who support the team’s move to the City should consider what it’ll do to their neighbor, Oakland,…
In the more than 20 years I’ve lived and worked in Dogpatch I’ve seen a lot of housing, transportation and demographic changes. Through it alls the neighborhood has had a proud, firm, and correct grip on its historic, industrial and creative character. More change will occur as a result of development at Pier 70. But…
I’m not a conspiracy theorist, nor do I know what that term means. But I’ve become increasingly aware that letters to the editor in liberal, East Coast newspapers are predominantly anti-President Donald Trump. To that, I say: sad, horrible, unfair. I also ask two key questions: Are the liberal, East Coast newspapers not receiving letters…
Last month’s The Potrero View’s coverage of Forest City’s Pier 70 “Mega Project” extolled the many benefits of the 28-acre development, with little consideration of its negative impacts. Contrary to what was reported, the Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) identified nine “significant and unavoidable” impacts. A massive increase in Dogpatch’s population, along with large numbers…
Development plans for Pier 70 call for five apartment buildings, six stories or taller, to surround the last piece of historic Irish Hill, a rocky outcrop backed by tall eucalyptus trees, easily seen from Illinois Street between 20th and 22nd streets. If those designs are realized, Irish Hill would be only partially seen through openings between the structures from Illinois, 21st – a proposed street –…
An opinion piece in last month’s The Potrero View (“Pier 70 Building Heights Would Block Bay”) and flyer distributed in the neighborhood that claimed that new buildings developed by Forest City at Pier 70 would create a “wall slightly below the middle of the smokestack” and block waterfront views prompted phone calls and emails from…
Lingering controversy over “tech buses” – shuttles conveying high technology workers here, there, and everywhere – is related to who gets to ride them and how far a would-be passenger has to walk to catch a public or private bus. The free ride and exclusive social element sets the tech buses apart, and causes animosity…
It’s 8:19 a.m. We’re hustling to get out the door. If you walk past our house around this time you’ll hear my morning battery of questions: “Where are your shoes? Do you have your backpack? Please don’t open the umbrella in the house. We need to find your jacket. Let’s GO!” Out the door we…
The City and County of San Francisco intends to grant Forest City Enterprises rights to build a wall of nine-story buildings along the Central Waterfront, from 20th to 22nd streets, which would completely obscure scenic Bay vistas for many, if not most, Potrero Hill eastern slope residents. As one travels down 20th Street from Missouri…
I moved to San Francisco after attending college at the University of California, Santa Cruz because the City was full of beloved haunts, from Aub Zam Zam to Specs. Over the years, I became more attached to all the wonderful things San Francisco offers. And it wasn’t just the bars. I started my career here,…
I choose to raise my family in San Francisco, and specifically Potrero Hill, because of the shared commitment to making the Hill better for everyone who lives here. In every part of our lives, my family has found a welcoming community. I’d heard the neighborhood legend of families coming together years ago to keep Daniel Webster…
The up swelling of post-election demonstrations – in Golden Gate and Dolores parks, and throughout the Bay Area and nation – shows how we can coalesce with one voice and that we can fight for what we want if we put our minds to it. We can’t let the election of Donald Trump be the…
The result of the presidential election brought home my reasons for wanting to raise my kids in a densely populated urban environment like San Francisco: diversity, diversity, diversity. Socio-economic, racial, ethnic, cultural and gender identity diversity. Parenting is a tough job wherever you reside. We all make decisions in attempts to make that job a…
Last April, my wife, Rhonda, and I left San Francisco, our home for fifty-two years, to become permanent residents in Mexico. “We’re driving a car looking in the rearview mirror, meaning that the environment in which you believe yourself to exist is always a past one, it isn’t the one you’re actually in,” said Alan…
On November 8, you can dramatically improve our regional transportation system by voting “yes” on the BART bond, Measure RR. A “yes” for RR will bring $3.5 billion in investment to keep BART safe and reliable. RR will allow BART to update fundamental parts of its system that are 44 years old: replace more than…
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s (SFMTA) plan for traffic was to make it disappear. That plan has failed miserably. SFMTA doesn’t appear to have a Plan B, other than to ignore the public and blame us for their failure. It’s time for them to disappear. Since SFMTA laid the thermoplastic red carpet on Mission…
I work in the East Bay. My coworkers who’ve fled over a bridge, through a tunnel, or down a freeway to raise their children frequently encourage me to move out of San Francisco. The schools in the suburbs are better, they say. The City is so inconvenient, they allege. There’s so little outdoor space, they…
With 25 local measures, 17 state initiatives, and many, many candidates, voters need a decision framework, or guiding philosophy, to render thoughtful ballot decisions. One approach is to group measures into like categories, and apply a consistent thought process throughout, deviating only when there’s compelling reasons to do so. Here’s ours, limited to local measures…
I live on Kansas Street, one block south of the 25th street footbridge bridge, and have been the Kansas Street SAFE Association captain since 2004. I believe that the bridge should remain closed, not because I have a strong opinion one way or the other; I don’t. I’ll support the final decision. I’m in favor…
This year, the long planned main building of San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s bus facility is under construction on Islais Creek’s north shore. When Muni conceived of the project, its then project manager approached Friends of Islais Creek – which for 30 years has worked with other community groups to create public activity spaces along…
Potrero Hill is like an island. Bound by Highway 101 and Interstate 280 and natural topography – hills are a great barrier for people and fog – the community is visible from adjacent streets and other peaks. But like an isle it’s hard to get to, or out of. Once there was an access point…
There’s general agreement that homelessness is one of San Francisco’s highest priority concerns, and that homeless individuals should be treated fairly, humanely, and with dignity. Few people choose to be homeless; that’s why the services San Francisco Housing Opportunity, Partnerships, and Engagement (HOPE) offers are so important. A key component of those amenities is operating…
In the late-1990s, before the dot-com bubble burst, San Francisco’s eastern neighborhoods faced many of the same issues as today: rapid gentrification and displacement. In Potrero Hill and Dogpatch real estate investors gobbled up industrial sites made valuable by 1988 Live-Work legislation that was supposed to help artists, instead displacing them, along with small businesses…