After a contentious years-long debate over how best to renovate Esprit Park, the Dogpatch Neighborhood Association, supported by the Potrero Boosters, among others compromised on Plan W, selecting it from six redesign plans offered for the 1.8-acre open space. Plan W calls for two meadows, the south designated “family” – dog-free – the north an…
Struggling San Francisco businesses were allowed to partially reopen in late-January after nearly two months of being largely banned from operating, bringing a cautious optimism to fitness companies and restaurants plagued by more than a year of restrictions and associated lost income. Shortly after the state lifted a regional stay-at-home order implemented in early December, Mayor…
James Colgan was about to open his third James Colgan Hair Salon in Cow Hollow last March when the pandemic struck. A year later, he’s pared his business to just two chairs on 18th Street, a location above which he’s lived for the past 13 years. He was forced to close a 25-chair salon in…
Long-time Potrero Hill resident, Eugene Dickey, opened Third Rail Ebikes on Third and 24th streets last November. He’d first started mulling over the idea of launching a bicycle shop after experiencing firsthand the challenging nature of negotiating San Francisco’s steep slopes and confronting high price tags and poor customer service from existing electric bike vendors.…
In December, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) identified three possible developers to rebuild the Potrero Bus Yard: Potrero Mission Community Partners, Potrero Neighborhood Collective, and Potrero Yard Community Partners. The three competitors will submit their final proposals in July, with a winner chosen by the end of summer. The selected developer will construct…
Before COVID-19 hit, Alex Pavloff, a fourth generation Potrero Hill resident, threw large cookouts with his family on Connecticut Street, hosting upwards of 100 people. That stopped due to the pandemic, but Pavloff continued to feel the urge to feed his friends and family. Pavloff’s Farm to City Meat Service was born from that impulse.…
Proposition A, a bond measure passed by voters in November, includes $10 million to renovate Jackson Park. It’ll be the first time since 1947 that the commons will receive bond monies from the City, according to Friends of Jackson Park Executive Director Jude Deckenbach. According to Deckenbach, to remake one of the City’s oldest parks…
Community Housing Partnerships (CHP) and Bridge Housing Corporation broke ground last fall at Mission Bay South Block 9, also known as 410 China Basin. The 92,000 square foot, four-story structure featuring 141 modular affordable rental studios for formerly homeless individuals, along with on-site supportive services, is expected to welcome inhabitants as early as January 2022.…
As the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) prepares for the return of T-Third Street Muni Metro service, the agency plans to implement temporary emergency transit lanes in both directions over the Fourth Street Bridge this month. The idea, which drew a barrage of public comment from an estimated 60 attendees of a virtual community…
The excavator’s articulated yellow boom-arm rose slowly, hoisting the six-foot tall letter ‘n’ off the flatbed trailer into the air, a thick strap shackled to a threaded steel eyelet. The hole had been bored into the top of the concrete letter more than 40 years ago; it could no longer bear its own weight for…
The M.H. de Young Museum is likely to open to the public later this month, with a limited number of visitors able to tour the institution by purchasing tickets in advance for timed entry. In addition to the permanent collection, three special exhibitions are on view. Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving, originally slated for…
Last fall Bridge Housing released 2020 Rebuild Potrero Impact Report, which reviews progress redeveloping the Potrero Annex-Terrace housing complex on Potrero Hill’s southside. The “Rebuild Potrero” project was launched in 2008 by the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development and Bridge Housing Corporation, a nonprofit headquartered in San Francisco. Bridge Housing operates twenty-one properties…
Last month’s election attracted the highest participation level in three-quarters of a century, with 86 percent of those eligible voting, compared to 87 percent in 1944. While San Francisco was a sea of blue, Potrero Hill, Dogpatch, and Mission Bay residents voted for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and approved City measures by especially wide…
With roughly 13 million people, Rwanda has experienced just three COVID-19 deaths for every million persons, compared to 742 per million in the United States. The small East African country’s success in dampening novel coronavirus demise has principally been due to a compliant population’s willingness to submit to a comprehensive lockdown. Last April, at the…
San Francisco rents have dropped faster than any other major city in the country. According to Zumper’s October rent report, which analyzed data from more than one million listings nationwide, rents in the City have declined by 20 percent since last year. Zumper, which vends apartments and houses online, found that an average South-of-Market studio…
A group of volunteers is cultivating a garden that consists of plants native to the area, adapted to the soil above Serpentinite bedrock that’s prevalent along Vermont and 17th streets. The plot is being nurtured through a collaboration between the Potrero Gateway Project (PGP), California Native Plant Society – Yerba Buena Chapter, landscape architecture firm…
During normal times Potrero Hill resident, Paul Kleyman, could often be found sipping coffee at Farley’s, contemplating what to post next on his aging-focused blog, Generations Beat Online. A 40-year Hill resident, after Kleyman graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in journalism he was certain of one thing: he wasn’t going…
The Embarcadero Shelter Access for Everyone (SAFE) Navigation Center has operated as a COVID-negative congregate shelter since June. San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) had considered converting it to “post-COVID” accommodation last spring but pivoted to the more urgent need to offer refuge for people experiencing homelessness who tested COVID negative. Last…
Last month kindergarten through twelfth grade students started the academic year online, with San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) campuses off-limits until the Department of Public Health (DPH) deems in-person learning safe. After a summer of near house arrest, students are now entering their sixth month of distance learning, which started last March, when schools…
Last month Anchor Brewing Company appointed Thomas Riley as Brewmaster. Riley, who has worked with the 124-year-old company for 36 years, is its fourth Brewmaster since 1965. Riley is now responsible for beer production and brewhouse management. Riley grew up in Potrero Hill, where Anchor’s brewhouse has been operating for more than 40 years.…
In June, Minnesota Street Project galleries opened Invincible Summer, a group exhibition unlike anything they’d offered before. Each gallery has installed a piece in the building’s atrium or upstairs catwalk, effectively turning the viewing rooms inside out. The result is an exhibition that can be visited safely in a well-ventilated communal space, while many of…
When the Internet was young, Rudy Rucker and Alex Menendez liked to meet for coffee at Farley’s, on 18th Street. There, the aspiring technology entrepreneurs laid the groundwork for Monkeybrains, the Internet service provider (ISP) Rucker founded in 1998. Menendez joined a year later as co-owner. Monkeybrains is now the largest independent ISP based in…