In 2016 San Francisco hosted Super Bowl 50. Then Mayor Ed Lee ordered the San Francisco Police Department to move those living on the streets from places they might be seen by tourists. Many were told to go to 13th Street — Division Street — a place of perpetual half-darkness roofed by the Central Freeway. …
Criminal sentencing policies swing one way and then the other, but demand for entry into the Delancey Street residential training center for drug abusers, ex-convicts, and the unhoused remains the same, according to Dr. Mimi Silbert, the program’s president and chief executive office. Started in 1971 by Silbert and John Maher, the San Francisco center…
Shortly before the start of the pandemic, Smuin Contemporary Ballet and the Smuin Center for Dance relocated to 1830 17th Street, between Rhode Island and De Haro. The Ballet was founded in 1994 by Michael Smuin, former choreographer and co-artistic director of San Francisco Ballet; the Smuin Center for Dance was established two years ago…
Opened in October 2020, Crane Cove Park – located at 18th and Illinois streets – has quickly become a beloved neighborhood asset. But community members are concerned that the seven-acre regional park is being maltreated, with poor landscape maintenance and a lack of enforcement to keep dogs leashed. “The Port thinks this park is their…
Six new and two returning members were empaneled on the Dogpatch & NW Potrero Hill Green Benefit District’s board last month. The eight – representing more than half the 15 board seats – were chosen by property owners within the district, according to executive director Julie Christiansen. “Every year typically five seats are up for…
Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s undergrounding of two miles of new distribution lines in Potrero Hill has prompted concerns from residents about short-term parking shortages while the work is being done, a lack of construction competency, implications of the costly investment to future utility rates and a lack of transparency. Hill residents are also…
As the April 15 deadline for redistricting supervisorial districts approaches, many District 10 residents are adamant that Potrero Hill, Dogpatch, and Bayview should remain together. To separate them would be counter to historical ties between the communities, demographic patterns, and interests advocates insist. Yet, one proposed map, released last month, puts areas west of Kansas…
At the beginning of 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital broke ground on a $290 million, 175,000-square foot research and office facility, funded by the University of California. Construction of the Research and Academic Building (RAB) is expected to be completed this year, with occupancy by early-2023. RAB will…
San Franciscans are accustomed to ever-higher real estate prices and scant amounts of housing offered for sale. Two years into the pandemic cum endemic, sellers’ motivations, buyers’ demands, and open house experiences continue to evolve. Between 2020 and 2021, the City’s population dropped by roughly 1.8 percent, 15,435 people, according to California Department of Finance…
According to Jim Cunha, who was born, raised, educated, and lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for most of his 72 years, he and his wife, Maureen, didn’t leave California; California left them. Despite the presence of multiple siblings, children, and grandchildren the Cunhas found it difficult to downsize from their home in Orinda…
Despite the pandemic, Potrero Kids, with campuses in Dogpatch and Potrero Hill, had mostly returned to a normal routine last fall. That changed in January with the Omicron coronavirus variant, which pushed half the staff of about 20 teachers into quarantine. “It’s really the first time that we saw a large number of cases,” said…
It’s no secret that the City has become prohibitively expensive for emerging artists, largely due to its proximity to Silicon Valley and the tech, now biotech, boom of the last twenty-some years. Previously bohemian neighborhoods, such as the Fillmore, North Beach, and Potrero Hill, are no longer affordable. In recent years even established galleries with…
In July 2020 Mayor London Breed announced a goal of getting 6,000 people off the streets within two years as part of her Homelessness Recovery Plan. With roughly six months left on the Mayor’s self-determined objective, just 2,662 housing placements, 44 percent, have been made, though the number may be higher because it doesn’t account…
In December, California College of the Arts’ unionized staff voted to authorize a strike, accusing the administration of unfair labor practices. Jennie Smith-Camejo, of Service Employees International Union Local 1021, told the View that “as of now, there’s not a date set” for a labor action. “Things are still kind of to be determined right…
Mission Bay sidewalks continue to sink, a challenge that could point to greater problems than twisted ankles and scraped knees. “People fall a lot,” said Brian L. who has worked at Cafe Reveille for the past three years. The café, located at 610 Long Bridge Street, is moated by a separated sidewalk edged with a…
Potrero Annex-Terrace residents are concerned that Bridge Housing and the San Francisco Housing Authority (SFHA) aren’t responding to problems plaguing the public housing complex. Among the identified issues are empty units being invaded by trespassers without City response; common areas of recently built Block X, a 70-unit apartment building located at 1101 Connecticut Street, that’re…
The San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department’s (RPD’s) renovation of 1.8-acre Esprit Park, located at 19th and Minnesota streets, includes controversial plans to create a partially fenced, partly artificially turfed, dog-friendly zone on the park’s north side. More popular modifications include installation of exercise stations, construction of protection platforms for large trees and planting of…
Potrero Hill residents met over Zoom in October to discuss new designs, public art opportunities, and potentially renaming Jackson Park. Participants generally wanted a greater amount of open space and an American Disabilities Act-compliant community center with interior and exterior bathrooms. There was also support to add a dedicated off-leash dog play area, a larger,…
Mission Bay’s population almost doubled over the past decade. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the neighborhood grew from 9,000 residents in 2010 to more than 17,400 two years ago. What wasn’t long ago a marshy area with few built amenities has emerged as a mixed-income community with parks, open space, multiple dining opportunities, 6,060…
Dogpatch Hub faces an uncertain future after the San Francisco Port Commission rejected a proposal to site the hoped-for community center adjacent to Crane Cove Park at an October meeting. In response to Commission request-for-proposals (RFP) to repurpose the historic Kneass building at 651 Illinois Street, Friends of Dogpatch Hub, a nonprofit whose seven-member committee…
California hosts a largely hidden and fast growing grid of dispersed diesel generators; those low buzzing big boxes located at internet server farms, hospitals, police stations, and, during Outside Lands, Golden Gate Park. In 2018, roughly 6,500 back-up generators, known as “BUGs,” were littered across the San Francisco Bay Area, able to power up a…
San Franciscans have a once in a decade opportunity to influence the political boundaries of their supervisorial regions; what neighborhoods will be clumped together for representation on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. “A board of supervisor will advocate on behalf of their District for resources to be put into their ‘thing,’ whether it be…
Last fall schools welcomed back students for in-person learning five days a week, many for the first time in a year and a half. Potrero Hill parents and their students have largely greeted the return to normalcy with relief. “People are so excited to be back. You feel it from teachers, the principal, parents,” said…
Samuel Thomas is angry. During the public health crisis, the 10-Townsend – a bus line he and other Potrero Annex-Terrace residents relied on to go shopping, travel to medical appointments and get to work – stopped running. “I’m old and sick, I use a walker,” Thomas said. “A lot of us are sick, old. We…
In August, Jude Deckenbach, Friends of Jackson Park (FoJP) executive director, introduced the idea of renaming Jackson Playground at an online meeting of the Potrero Boosters, a neighborhood group consisting of Potrero Hill, Dogpatch, and Showplace Square residents. “We are in touch with Jude and have shared our park renaming policy,” said Tamara Aparton, San…