This month artist and art gallery owner Paolo Mejia will re-open his namesake gallery on Grant Street, after operating it for two years in Hunters Point. Mejia first launched his gallery in 2013, and has already represented 20 fine Bay Area artists. When asked if there was a common theme amongst the artists he works…
A resolution by the San Francisco Board of Education to work with an Arab and a Vietnamese group to help develop new language programs sparked a two-month controversy that was resolved, at least temporarily, over the summer. The Board decision to encourage the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) to work with the Arab Resource…
Calling long-time Potrero Hill resident Karen Larsen a publicist is “both accurate and absurdly insufficient,” wrote film critic Michael Fox, in a 2011 online profile. Fox’s sketch of Larsen, prompted by her receipt of the San Francisco Film Society’s Essential SF Award, described her as “…the most steadfast evangelist of independent films, filmmakers and festivals,…
The idea of starting a print newspaper today would be seen as quaint. The ease of communicating in the Internet age is sharply different than the challenge faced 45 years ago by five Potrero Hill residents who wanted to keep their neighbors informed about important goings-on. Bill and Jodie Dawson, together with Lenny Anderson –…
With 453 residential units, a striking design and an acre of public space, Equity Residential (EQR) developers announced last month that they’ll begin preleasing apartments at Potrero1010 this October, with move-ins scheduled for December. The project won’t be entirely finished until spring of 2016. A little more than a year ago the lot on…
In late-June, the San Francisco Giants submitted more than 16,000 signatures from San Francisco voters to the Department of Elections to place approval of their proposed Mission Rock development, under the Mission Rock Initiative, on the November 2015 ballot. The measure needed 9,702 signatures from San Francisco voters before July 6 to qualify. Under the…
An extraordinary amount of real estate development is occurring in the Southside neighborhoods, with nearly 5,000 units in the pipeline. These projects are transforming Dogpatch and Potrero Hill. What follows are profiles of some of the most active Southside developers. Trumark Urban Last May, Trumark Urban broke ground on a 91-unit mixed-use residential development on…
“I’m here because I’m thinking about a career change,” said a woman holding a plastic cup of wine. She and roughly 20 others were gathered in a brightly-lit building that itself had gone through a career change. Known as the Standard Oil Building, it was designed for John D. Rockefeller to house his California headquarters.…
A new residential building is planned for a vacant lot located directly across the street from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Benioff Children’s Hospital, on the southeast corner of Tennessee and Mariposa streets. The building is being designed by San Francisco architect Riyad Ghannam, of RG-Architecture. The proposed development, which is undergoing an…
SF Cheese Fest, a fundraiser for the California Artisan Cheese Guild, will take place on September 19 at Dogpatch WineWorks. Billed as a celebration of cheese and cheesemakers, the event will feature live and DJ’d music, small bites and, of course, beer and cheese tasting. Beer and cheese? Shouldn’t it be wine and cheese? …
Four foot beat officers, dispatched from the San Francisco Police Department’s Bayview Station, are working to improve the quality life in Potrero Hill and Dogpatch. Officer Eric Lau walks and rides a bicycle in the two neighborhoods from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. Officers Matt Reiter, Sher Khan and Leo Bernstein monitor Third Street by…
Dozens of San Francisco residents, advocacy groups, and community organizations packed a late-June special meeting of the San Francisco Commission on Community Investment and Infrastructure to voice their opinions about the proposed Golden State Warriors Mission Bay arena. Attendees included the San Francisco Labor Council, which represents more than 100 unions in the City; Real…
The Potrero Hill and Dogpatch communities wouldn’t be what they are today without the help of extraordinary women. A few of whom – though certainly not all – are featured below. Janet Carpinelli, president of the Dogpatch Neighborhood Association (DNA) and chair of GreenTrustSF, has lived in Dogpatch since 1981, before the neighborhood was called…
What if there was a group of San Franciscans who wanted to send their kids to a neighborhood school, rather than placing them in a private academy or public school that might be miles away? What if they were savvy enough – as educated professionals – to deftly navigate school district politics and bureaucracy to…
Recent media has spotlighted the health care risks facing nail salon workers, as well as their customers. Earlier this year, a series of New York Times articles uncovered poor working conditions in East Coast salons, and a reluctance from the cosmetics industry to label beauty supplies that may contain harmful chemicals. Dubbed the toxic…
For 14 years the Wohlford Family Clinic, located within the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center on Potrero Avenue, has been offering San Franciscans reproductive health services, provided in a friendly environment. According to Jacquelyn Marcoux-Mansfield, the Clinic’s director, staff at this satellite site of Planned Parenthood Northern California believe that “it’s very important to serve…
According to New Generation Health Center manager Beth Brown, learning how to manage reproductive health is no different than understanding the correct ways of “walking down the street.” Parents of young children have to hold their hand and provide guidance before they can trust the child to do it alone, she said. But when it…
Dogpatch Technology co-founders Jean Miller Truelson and Palmer Truelson formed a business partnership before they fashioned a more intimate one: marriage. The two former Second Life employees came together when Jean left the San Francisco-based Linden Lab startup that created the once hugely popular online virtual world to develop a product to help with her…
On an unseasonably warm June day in San Francisco the Women’s Community Clinic was quiet. It’s a tidy place, with walls painted bright muted colors. The space sends a message that regardless of a person’s income or insurance status, everyone deserves great healthcare in an environment where they feel safe and respected. The clinic has…
Earlier this year Potrero Hill resident Heidi Zak moved her company’s headquarters from a South-of-Market location closer to home. Zak, along with her husband, Dave Spector, has lived on De Haro Street for almost three years. They have a 21-month-old daughter, Sloane. ThirdLove, which sells lingerie, is now located in the America Industrial Center (AIC)…
South of Market resident Lorrae Rominger, who serves as deputy director of the Goldman Environmental Prize, recently purchased the farmhouse she grew up on, which her family had sold decades ago. She plans to retire there eventually. In 1948 Rominger’s grandparents built the house in Winters, California, a small town in Yolo County. Her father…
Lyon-Martin Health Services, located in Hayes Valley, has long been known as the go-to clinic for the lesbian community. Founder Patty Robertson and a tight-knit crew of volunteers started the clinic at a time when health centers were springing up to fight against the AIDS epidemic, catering specifically to gay men. “It came about from…
On June 12 ballots were sent to property owners in Dogpatch and the northwest corner of Potrero Hill asking them if they’d be willing to pay an annual assessment, the revenues from which would go towards building, improving and maintaining public green spaces in the area. If the measure passes, the state’s first ever Green…
Almost seven years after it was adopted by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan has emerged as a perennial source of controversy for community groups. The Potrero Boosters, Save the Hill, and other advocates are concerned that insufficient municipal attention is being paid to ensuring that infrastructure – transit, parking, schools,…
Raj Vaswani, Bayview Station captain, is a soft-spoken man who believes that patrol officers are the backbone of the San Francisco Police Department. Vaswani took over as captain in April, after Robert O’Sullivan was promoted to lead the department’s Golden Gate Patrol Division. Now a few months into his new assignment, Vaswani is working to…