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A Day in Dogpatch, Potrero Hill, and Environs – April 2017

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Besides its good coffee, Piccino Coffee Bar’s essential charm is that within the converted horse stables of Dogpatch’s iconic Yellow Building it occupies an alcove separate from its parent establishment – the upscale trattoria at 1001 Minnesota Street, with an around-the-corner entrance facing 22nd Street – which makes the tiny café, with seating for about…

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Youth Clinic Seeks Safe Harbor at Homeless Prenatal Program

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Facing a $400,000-plus budget deficit, the New Generation Health Center, located at 625 Potrero Avenue, had been slated to close last summer. The Center, founded and operated by the University of California, San Francisco more than 20 years ago, provides reproductive health services to mainly low-income young adults in a confidential environment.  It’s significantly reliant…

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UCSF Proceeds with Child, Teen and Family Center

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Public comments on a draft environmental impact report for the University of California San Francisco’s proposed Child, Teen and Family Center, at 2130 Third Street, have included strong opposition to the facility’s design and location. The project, currently in the design phase, is slated to go before the University of California Regents this May for…

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Enola Maxwell Likely to Continue as School Site

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Low enrollment resulted in closure of Potrero Hill’s only comprehensive high school, International Studies Academy (ISA), which had been located at 655 De Haro Street, at the end of the last academic year. The campus had experienced declining registrations for several years. Once serving grades sixth through 12, a phase-out of middle school grades began…

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Products Locked Up at Potrero Center Safeway, as City Battles Property Crime

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Numerous items are caged behind glass doors at the Potrero Center Safeway, dissuading some would-be shoppers from patronizing the store. “My family has stopped shopping there,” commented J.R. Eppler, Potrero Boosters president. “Too many of the items, including infant formula, that we went specifically to Safeway for, are now behind lock and key.” Around 4…

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City’s Budget Reaches Almost $10 Billion

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In fiscal year (FY) 2016, the City and County of San Francisco’s budget increased by $650 million, to $9.6 billion.  In FY 2017, expenditures will rise by another $135 million, to roughly $9.7 billion. The budget reflects approximately $35 million in San Francisco Board of Supervisor cuts from Mayor Edwin Lee’s proposed spending.  The Board…

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New Principals at Daniel Webster and Starr King Elementary Schools

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Daniel Webster and Starr King elementary schools started the 2016 school year with new principals and freshly renovated campuses.    As reported in the October 2015 issue of the View, 10 percent of Webster’s student body left the school last year, reflecting parents’ lack of confidence in school leadership, as well as concerns about what…

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Arrest Rate Falls by Half between 2010 and 2015

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San Francisco Police Department data indicate that there were 26,758 more serious felony crimes – murder, arson and motor vehicle theft – reported in 2015 than in 2010.  All told, in 2015 there were 53,291 property offenses and 6,776 violent crimes.  However, while felonies were up, arrests were down over the period. The arrest rate…

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Bottom of the Hill Celebrates 25th Anniversary

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On September 6, 1991, Potrero Hill nightclub Bottom of the Hill hosted its first rock show, headlined by a now-forgotten band, the Bird Killers. Over the following quarter-century, the unassuming, out-of-the-way venue introduced alternative-rock fans to a multitude of names they’d never forget, including Oasis, Alanis Morissette, Marilyn Manson, Pavement, Modest Mouse, the White Stripes,…

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Sex Workers Want Funds for East Bay Rape Crisis Centers Cut

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Erotic Service Providers Legal, Education and Research Project (ESPLERP), a San Francisco-based nonprofit that advocates for the rights of sex workers, wants to reduce the amount of public sector and philanthropic dollars that flow to rape crisis centers, domestic violence shelters, and anti- prostitution and sex trafficking organizations.  “They’re just providing anti-prostitution counseling,” said Maxine…

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Still No Consistent Government Response to Homeless Camps

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The City and County estimates that there are roughly 100 encampments – two or more people living without a structured home, typically in tents – and 700 campers at any one time in San Francisco.  However, based on a survey of state and local government officials, including with the California Department of Transportation, Caltrain, and…

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Still No Consistent Government Response to Homeless Camps

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The City and County estimates that there are roughly 100 encampments – two or more people living without a structured home, typically in tents – and 700 campers at any one time in San Francisco.  However, based on a survey of state and local government officials, including with the California Department of Transportation, Caltrain, and…

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Maintaining History, Shade, the Birds and the Bees: Trees in Potrero Hill and Dogpatch

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Potrero Hill and Dogpatch are home to a number of “Landmark Trees,” so designated for their size, historical value, or beauty by the City. These include the Acer rubrum, “red maple,” at 862 Kansas Street; the Callistemon citrinus, “lemon bottlebrush,” on the east side of the 400 block of Arkansas Street; the Carpinus betulus ‘Fastigiata,’…

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Twists and Turns Lead Former Hill Resident to the U.S. Navy

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Over the past decade and a half former Alabama Street resident Kieron Sinnette experienced all the elements of a rags-to-riches-to-rags story. Sinnette, an immigrant from Trinidad, arrived in San Francisco in 2001, less than a month after 9/11. He was an 18 year-old high school graduate, gay, homeless and unemployed. After securing assistance from Larkin…

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Devoted Activist Retires After 25 Years with UCSF

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After a quarter of a century as director of community relations at the University of California, San Francisco, Barbara Bagot-Lopez retires this month. She hopes to use her free time to reconnect with her neighborhood, Bernal Heights, and rededicate herself to her activist roots. “Hitting 25 years was like ZING!” laughed Bagot-Lopez. “Wow, 25 years.…

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Twenty-Third and Hampshire Street Garden Something to Behold

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Gardening is often praised for the beauty it creates, as well as the benefits it provides the gardener in terms of mental clarity and stress relief. Mission Creek resident Maria Suarez, 75, is a great-grandmother who takes recreational gardening seriously, using the pastime to achieve personal tranquility and to give her neighbors an eyeful. Suarez’s…

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Hill Resident Judy Baston Expert at Tracing Family History

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Longtime Potrero Hill resident Judy Baston’s passionate commitment to Jewish genealogy earned her the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, awarded at the Association’s annual conference in Jerusalem last summer. Baston was born in Oakland to parents who encouraged her to pursue a professional career. Her father suggested that she…

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Cork Marcheschi and the Fifty Foot Hose

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The electronic rock band Fifty Foot Hose emerged from San Francisco’s iconic 1960s music scene. Its music, including its sole album, Cauldron, issued in 1967, was influenced by a mixture of jazz, rhythm and blues, rock, and electronic music. The latter genre’s current popularity was sparked by pioneers such as Cork Marcheschi, a Bay Area…

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Bell and Trunk Flowers, a Business Planted in Potrero Hill

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It’s been seven years since Vanessa Marlin took over Bell and Trunk Flowers, located on 18th Street. When asked to be interviewed by the View, Marlin accepted, with an invitation to dinner with her family. Her house, close to her business, is home to her teenage daughter, Elise Marlin, and Marlin’s fiancée, Krista Gaeta. Two…

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