In the face of sky-high construction costs and ongoing housing shortages, the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency (SFMTA) wants to partner with a private developer to build upwards of 800 homes at its Potrero Yard when the bus facility is reconstructed over the next ten years. The 104-year old facility, which spans a 4.4-acre block…
In April, the Port of San Francisco unanimously approved Mayor London Breed’s proposal to build a temporary 200-bed Shelter Access for Everyone (SAFE) Navigation Center at Seawall Lot 330, despite a request from the Central Waterfront Advisory Group to postpone the vote. The Embarcadero facility is a step towards fulfilling Breed’s promise to add 1,000…
Under its Court Watch program Stop Crime SF (SCSF) fields volunteers to attend burglary trials to support victims and demonstrate to judges and prosecutors that residents are concerned about wrongdoings, with the goal of making them less inclined to drop charges or reduce sentences. It also maintains a blog that advocates for more stringent approaches…
Could dashcams be the answer to San Francisco’s car break-in epidemic? In an age of security cameras and smartphones, it was only a matter of time until the two were combined to protect one of people’s most valuable assets: their car. Last year, Owlcam, a Palo Alto firm, unveiled a dashcam that can stream interior…
Former Rhode Island Street resident, Joan Jeanrenaud, fondly remembers her days practicing and recording cello in what she called the “Darth Vader” house. “It was an all-black house covered with black asphalt shingles…a black metal fireplace exposed in the front…two studios in the back. I rehearsed there for hours,” said Jeanrenaud. Jeanrenaud, who lived in…
For more than a half-century, Jon Greenberg, former Potrero Hill Recreation Center recreation director, has helped children, teenagers, and young adults grow. “Working on the Hill became a joyful experience in my life. I started in 1966 and it became something I wrapped my life around. Leading sports, activities, and the Center gave me self-worth…allowed…
Best read out loud with a British accent; think David Attenborough. We’re on location in Tomales Bay tonight to experience one of Nature’s greatest wonders. Camera pans across the Bay. After arriving at a musty rustic cabin run by a disgruntled caretaker, we drove to the Bay, which separates the Point Reyes peninsula…
The sidewalk in front of the Strata at Mission Bay has dropped roughly six inches below the base of the mixed-use, market rate apartment building since it was erected in 2009. Work to repair the damage at 1201 Fourth Street was initiated last spring; a new sidewalk is being installed along the entire block. During…
This spring, work will begin on the Third Street Transit and Safety Project, a Muni Forward initiative to improve bus service from Townsend to Mission streets. The goal is to speed up five of Muni’s busiest bus lines: the 30 Stockton, 45 Union-Stockton, and 8 Bayshore, 8AX and 8BX Bayshore Express. These routes serve 70,000 riders…
Potrero Hill entrepreneur, Meghan Litchfield, launched RedThread, a women’s apparel company, last October. Seven months into the startup’s debut, the business, which offers four different personally-sized garments, is steadily growing, based entirely on word of mouth and free media. Many initial customers who tried RedThread’s individualized clothes prior to its rollout are Litchfield’s neighbors. RedThread’s…
Erling Wold, a composer of operas, contemporary classical works, and scores for films, plays, and dance performances, has been writing music at a piano located in his Wisconsin Street home since 2003. “My wife, Lynne Rutter, who is a painter, has been living here since 1990. I met her 16 years ago and moved into…
Author, lecturer with Stanford University’s Program in Human Biology, and longtime Arkansas Street resident, Judy Chu, is a great source of advice on how to raise boys. Chu has been teaching a course, Boys’ Psychosocial Development, at Stanford since 2003. When not teaching, she sometimes speaks to audiences of parents, educators, practitioners, and students. …
Located at 1616 20th street, the Potrero Branch library offers books, films, and music – digital and compact discs – suitable for all ages and sweeping views of San Francisco. The facility also serves as a public commons, hosting events, classes, and access to free or low-cost museum passes. “The library stands out as a…
Last month, Starr King and Daniel Webster elementary schools, The New School San Francisco, and Live Oak School collaborated with PREFund, a nonprofit that encourages Potrero Hill families from a diversity of incomes to raise their children in the community, to produce Maker Fest, one of a number of individual and collective school events held…
Potrero Hill resident and musician, Daniel Berkman, composes rhythmic, resonant songs for a multitude of instruments, which he regularly performs at Farley’s. His primary instrument is the kora, a 21-stringed West African harp-lute the size of a cello. Berkman also plays guitar, keyboards and synthesizers, string instruments – cello, viola da gamba, and ukulele –…
It’s a Saturday afternoon in late February. Art lovers and creatives are arriving for a pair of exhibit openings in the adjacent art galleries of Catharine Clark and Brian Gross, at 248 Utah Street. The spacious rooms rapidly fill with perhaps 100 guests sipping wine and conversing in small groups that mix, disperse and regroup.…
Since 2016, the Dogpatch/Northwest Potrero Hill Green Benefit District (GBD), the City’s only GBD, has focused its efforts on greening streets and improving common spaces. During that same three-year period residents of other neighborhoods – Mission Dolores, Buena Vista, and the Inner Sunset – have engaged in heated debates about whether to establish a GBD…
The newest arrival to Mission Bay is 826 Valencia, a nonprofit that works with under-resourced children and youth, ages eight to 18. The organization opened its 1310 Fourth Street location last month. It offers a three-part program: homework help, writing projects and reading support. Sessions are three hours long, from 2:45 to 6 p.m., Monday through…
When Dr. Linda Shiue became Kaiser Permanente’s first-ever director of culinary medicine at the San Francisco Medical Center three years ago, she saw an opportunity to address a gap in care that she recognized over 15 years of practicing medicine. “I realized that in my career as a primary care doctor I could only do…
In 2015, voters approved Proposition K to streamline the process of identifying surplus municipally-owned land that could be used for affordable housing. The voter guide indicated that there’d be specific reporting dates for public agencies, hearings and oversight by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (BoS). Three years later, the City has passed on the…
The San Francisco Unified School District held a briefing last fall to collect community reactions to a planned pre-kindergarten through fifth grade campus, to be built adjacent to the Owens Street traffic circle. The first of many anticipated public engagements, the meeting, held at the Mercy Housing Community Room on Fourth Street, was well attended by…
The Esprit Community Advisory Group (ECAG) was formed last year to recommend approaches to the San Francisco Parks and Recreation Department about how to best maintain and renovate Esprit Park. Members include Dogpatch resident Susan Fitch, Irma Lewis of Toes and Paws for Green Space, Green Benefit District executive director Julie Christensen, and Dogpatch Neighborhood…
Pennsylvania Garden is located at 249 Pennsylvania Avenue, underneath a John F. Foran Freeway off-ramp near 18th street. Pennsylvania Railroad Garden is on the east side of the 100 block of Pennsylvania Avenue. Collectively known as the “Pennsylvania Street Gardens” (PSG), the plots suffer from maladies that plague many San Francisco’s parks: pedestrians and dog-walkers…
Farley’s, a cozy coffee shop located at 1315 18th Street, was founded by Roger Hillyard after he was unable to find a retailer that sold a glass insert replacement for his broken French press. He decided to open a coffee and tea paraphernalia store, which he named after his grandfather, Jack Farley, who disappeared in…