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…
Over the last 20 years psychedelics – lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), psilocybin mushrooms, 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA), among others – have shifted from underground and counter-culture club drugs to medicines that are increasingly taken seriously by scientists. A 2006 John Hopkins University study determined that “magic mushrooms” can create lasting “personal meaning and spiritual significance.” A steady…
San Francisco art galleries are offering by-appointment viewing of exhibitions originally scheduled to open last spring. Seven Rivers – which was supposed to start accepting visitors in March at Euqinom Gallery on Alabama Street – is an expansive journey in experimental landscape pictures from Idaho photographer Ansley West Rivers. In 2013, West Rivers set out…
Earlier this summer, Lowell High School (LHS) posted a statement on Instagram. “The Lowell Community Equity Committee (CEC) is disturbed by the recent reports of sexual violence and verbal abuse allegations by students and teachers on campus. The acts described in the allegations are reprehensible. We want to uplift the voices of the courageous students…
The stretch of 16th Street along Potrero Hill’s northern edge is being transformed from a desolate thoroughfare into a revitalized intertidal pool of three growing neighborhoods: South-of-Market to the north, the Hill to the south, and Mission Bay to the east. Change was sparked by the 2015 opening of Potrero1010, a two-building, mixed-use complex at…
Affordable housing complex, 626 Mission Bay Boulevard North, sports a gleaming S-shaped facade, the curves a counterpoint to the nearby Chase Center. With bright white shiny chrome stylings, the building matches with other structures sprouting up in newly upscale and futuristic-looking Mission Bay. Yet according to some reports, the polished exterior masks incompetent and mean-spirited…
Last spring, Mayor London Breed signed legislation approving construction of The Power Station, a 29-acre mixed-use complex located along 23rd Street. The development will have approximately 2,400 residences, six acres of publicly accessible parks and recreational areas, and 1.2 to 1.9 million square feet of office, lab, and retail space. It’ll also open access to…
More than a year after planning efforts began, municipal officials and advocates have determined that the Islais Creek Adaption Strategy should include a comprehensive vision for how the watershed can best serve nearby residents, workers and businesses, as well as address ways to manage increasing flood risks. Bayview and the Southern Waterfront are especially vulnerable…
When the Bay Area shelter-in-place mandate went into effect in mid-March in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, galleries in the DoReMi arts district shuttered. New exhibitions were postponed; current shows extended indefinitely. Galleries initially invited visitors to view exhibits by appointment, but most have since transitioned to online-only viewing spaces. Online observation generally consists of…
Is it presently possible to take SAT or ACT tests? The College Board cancelled June SAT test dates. Students who have credit/no credit report cards or want to attend a “select” university should plan to take the SAT and/or ACT this fall, if possible. Though most colleges are test optional for the Class of 2021,…