“It costs the same to build an “affordable” house as it does a market rate one,” my friend, Chris Block, presently San Francisco’s Chronic Homelessness Initiative Director, told me almost two decades ago. That’s still roundly true. Modest savings can be achieved by deploying different construction techniques, materials, and modular units, such as those manufactured…
The idea that there’s a California dream burst into popular culture in the 1960s through the music of the Beach Boys and Mamas and the Papas and continued through the collective consciousness through such movies as La La Land and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. While the dream’s exact plot morphs depending on the…
Last month, roughly 60 members of the San Francisco Southeast Alliance (SFSEA) gathered at Thee Parkside to discuss Amazon’s operations and proposal to develop 900 Seventh Street. It was SFSEA’s, also known as the SF Southeast Community Coalition, first in-person gathering in six months. SFSEA is a group of nonprofits, neighborhood associations, business organizations, environmental…
The San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) has extended its timeline to develop a Downtown congestion pricing scheme, giving Southside residents and businesses more time to consider the idea. SFCTA wants to use congestion pricing to reduce traffic levels Downtown, thereby speeding circulation and untangling gridlock. Vehicles would be charged a fee to drive on…
The Dogpatch Neighborhood Association (DNA) is set to approve an uncontested slate of candidates. DNA members who’ve paid this year’s dues can vote on November 9 at a virtual meeting. The association has roughly 800 members, who pay $25 dues for individuals, $35 for families, though fees are waved for “anyone without capacity to pay,”…
With their power to conjure longing and nostalgia, evoking home and family are the raisons d’être for three San Francisco bakeries located in Southside San Francisco. Sonya Kim was prompted to launch Whole Cakes, on 16th Street, by her desire to find food that wasn’t too sugary to feed her newborn child. After her family…
Longtime Potrero Hill resident and chief executive officer of The Good Life Grocery, Lester Zeidman, retired last summer after 40 years as co-owner of one of San Francisco’s most beloved, and successful, retail groceries. Zeidman left his home state of New Jersey when he was 17 years old. He bounced around, living in a cabin…
The United States is commonly thought of as a nation of immigrants, but it’s also a nation of colonizers. Brooklyn-based artist, Maia Cruz Palileo, explores this tension in Long Kwento, a haunting exhibition of paintings and sculptures at the California College of the Arts’ Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art. Palileo’s focus is on American colonization…
Born in 1947, in the Dorchester area of Boston, Massachusetts, Marcy Adelman grew up in a tightknit, largely Jewish, community. The multi-generational home in which she was raised taught young Adelman the importance of family supporting senior household members, with respect shown to elderly community members. That early grounding laid the foundation for Adelman to…
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…
David Maron was named captain of the Bayview Station last February, after more than 25 years with the San Francisco Police Department. His appointment was made in the wake of a year of civic unrest demanding changes to policing and public safety nationwide. Maron was previously a lieutenant at Park Station on the Westside for…
“Essential workers” have been deservedly lauded over the past almost two-year pandemic. Medical professionals, among other “frontline workers,” have had to grapple with potential exposure to the COVID-19 virus, as well as the effect of compounded, concentrated stress and anxiety. There have been other “heroes,” though, some right in our backyard. Allow me to introduce…
After about five years of doing business from a red warehouse building at 10 Carolina Street, ARCH Art Supplies is moving to a new ground floor space below Blattner Hall, on the California College of the Arts (CCA) campus. The 17th Street building, across from Jackson Playground, was constructed in 2018. “ARCH Art Supplies has…
Minnesota Street resident, Peter McCandless, 67, believes he’s contributed to the world’s body of knowledge by serving as a cinematographer for more than 13 significant documentaries, including Of Civil Wrongs and Rights: The Fred Korematsu Story (2000); The Bridge (2006), and The Great 14th: Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama in His Own Words (2019).…
Pier 24, located on the Embarcadero, is offering visitors the opportunity to see more of its collection than ever before. Exhibitions at the prominent photography museum typically revolve around one or two artists or a strong curatorial theme. Looking Back: Ten Years of Pier 24 Photography, through December 31, tosses these limitations in favor of…
Fans of Frank Herbert’s Dune have a chance to own a piece of the novel’s history: the stucco house where most of the seminal science fiction novel was written. After 35 years, owners Gayle Keck and R. Paul Herman are selling 412 Mississippi Street. Herman is in the sustainable investment space and an author of…
The temperature in the Outer Sunset is around five degrees lower than the rest of San Francisco, but it always feels much colder. There, the sun struggles to penetrate overcast skies and the wind seeps through rows of single-family townhouses, unhindered by skyscrapers or housing complexes. It’s an unattractive expanse of mid-century architecture built on…
The San Francisco Center for the Book (SFCB), located on 375 Rhode Island Street, has stood the test of time; 25 years to be exact. Jeff Thomas, executive director since 2012, attributes the nonprofit’s longevity to a strong constituency as well as the organization’s flexibility and nimbleness. “There’s a real legacy and tradition here that…
Located at 1500 Owens Street, Oda originally opened in 2014 as a coffeeshop catering to the University of California, San Francisco crowd. Today, it’s a full-service restaurant with ample indoor and outdoor dining serving a growing neighborhood. Emin Tekin took over the establishment in 2018, seeking to build a community-driven, family friendly establishment. Having trained…
McEvoy Foundation for the Arts in Dogpatch celebrates the City’s masked reopening with Next to You,an ode to in-person gatherings. The exhibition features 52 pieces from the McEvoy Family Collection, with a focus on performing arts and public spaces. The gallery positions the show as “a farewell ballad to a strange and challenging time and…
Nick Osborne and his fiancé, Monique, were workmates in the restaurant his family owns, Mission Rock Resort Oyster Bar & Grill, so naturally that’s where they tied the knot in 2017. They hosted 250 friends and relatives at their wedding ceremony and reception at the bayside establishment, among a dozen or so couples who’ve celebrated…
Peter Linenthal is a neighborhood treasure. As Potrero Hill Archives Project director, he’s educated and entertained audience members for the last twenty-one years at annual ‘Potrero Hill History Nights.’ He has a passion for collecting historic maps, artifacts, and photographs of Hill people, places and things, spending thousands of hours searching out and organizing newspaper…
“Hi neighbors. I’m John…I have lived in Dogpatch since 1959. I attended the Elementary School which is now closed at 1060 Tennessee Street. You may see me walking every day with a cane.” Several months ago, this post greeted Dogpatch and Potrero Hill residents on the social networking app Nextdoor. Neighbors chimed in: “John is…
Black Mountain College was founded in 1933 based on the belief that the study of art was central to education. Over the years notable faculty and students included textile artist and printmaker Anni Albers, experimental composer John Cage, and San Francisco sculpture superstar Ruth Asawa. Although the school closed in 1957 it had an outsized…