Over more than three decades Homeless Prenatal Program (HPP) has helped thousands of unhoused pregnant women and families, offering health, job training and child development services. The nonprofit may soon expand its assistance to include affordable housing. In May, the San Francisco Planning Commission recommended approval of the 18th Street Affordable Housing Special Use District…
Live music is returning to Potrero Hill, with Thee Parkside and Bottom of the Hill planning shows for this summer. Thee Parkside doesn’t have an official “welcome back to live music” event scheduled but is preparing for performances for a yet determined August date. Who the players will be isn’t known. The bar and grill…
Starting last month, visitors to Sextant Coffee, located on Folsom and 10th streets, had their beverage of choice prepared by someone other than owner Kinani Ahmed. After performing every task himself for the previous year and a half, Ahmed is rebuilding the team he lost at the beginning of the public health crisis. An energetic…
Four local pizzerias not only survived, but thrived, during the ebbing COVID-19 crisis, adapting their businesses to shifting consumer habits. Launched more than 45 years ago, Goat Hill Pizza, located on the corner of 18th and Connecticut streets, has a storied presence on Potrero Hill. It’s one of the community’s longest continuously operating restaurants, co-founded…
The windows above Christopher’s Books at Missouri and 18th streets come alive from 8:30 to 10 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through July 18. Family photographs taken between 1880 and 1960 appear from a selection of hundreds found recently in a Potrero Hill basement. Also shown is a 1932 film of a festive procession…
At least one corner of Potrero Hill blossomed during the pandemic: the permaculture agriculture plot at Rhode Island and 18th streets. Founded in 2008, the holistic garden had fallen into disorder. When shelter-in-place began, Travers Flynn, who lives across the street, saw an opportunity to put his surplus time and energy to use. “I was…
KADIST, an arts organization founded in Paris, France, that promotes interdisciplinary work, is exhibiting Seeing Sound, a blend of sound and video art, at its 20th Street gallery. Curated by Barbara London, an advocate of sound art since the 1970s, the show debuts in San Francisco before travelling internationally. Three distinct modes of contemporary sound…
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, commuters used to park on Vermont Street to avoid steep garage prices in Showplace Square and elsewhere nearby. Assuming these travelers ultimately return, residents will no longer have to compete with them for spots; the 500 block of Vermont Street now requires a parking permit for extended stays. Prior to the…
A proposal to demolish a Victorian and replace it with a larger modern home at 249 Texas Street has drawn the ire of neighbors. Kerry Shapiro and Joanne Siu purchased the Texas Street property in 2019 for $1.6 million. They’re planning to live in the newly customized home with their daughter and Siu’s 81-year-old mother.…
Broadcasting through the end of the month, Radio Coyote features experimental music, archival recordings, interviews, and improvisational content. The standalone project, available at 88.1 FM or online at radiocoyote.org, is orchestrated by 2020-2021 Capp Street Artist-in-Residence Raven Chacon, a composer, performer, and installation artist from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation in Arizona, under the sponsorship of…
Award-winning contemporary artist Raymond Saunders has chosen two San Francisco galleries as sites for his first solo exhibition in more than a decade. A major figure in contemporary art, Saunders graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from the California College of the Arts in 1961, where he went on to teach, and has been…
Most of the roughtly 100 participants at last month’s virtual meeting about a proposed development at 1458 San Bruno Avenue vehemently opposed the project. “For the people in the neighborhood, it seems like an alien spaceship is landing and completely gentrifying the neighborhood,” said one attendee, who didn’t disclose his name. The Goode family has…
Condominiums offered at below-market-rates (BMR) to moderate-income buyers are being developed at 350 China Basin Street, where an eight-story building on Mission Bay South Block 9A (MB9A) is in the design process. The edifice will ultimately feature 148 BMR condos available to first-time homebuyers who earn 80 to 110 percent of San Francisco’s Area Median…
Whenever Catherine Rathsam sinks her fingers into a ball of clay the monotony and stress of the pandemic momentarily dissolves, replaced by a calm focus familiar to creatives everywhere. Rathsam engages in her art at Clayroom SoMa, the latest addition to San Francisco’s growing roster of ceramic studios. “It has been a lifesaver, because otherwise…
During the public health crisis, long-time Dogpatch resident Adam Zolot rededicated himself to standup paddle boarding. Living across the street from the newly opened Crane Cove Park, he no longer had to lug his board to Pier 52, instead accessing the Central Waterfront with ease. Zolot saw the park as an opportunity to share his…
Potrero Hill artist, Anahid Aslanyan, described her style as “modern mysticism, art that comes from the spirit and explores the dream universe of the soul…intuitive, a magical process translating my emotional truths into color and form.” Aslanyan works with acrylics, aqua oils, mixed media, collage, and found objects. Nature often inspires her, with music and…
Two exhibitions are on view at the Museum of Craft and Design in Dogpatch, with clocked entries, adherence to public health guidelines, and 3D tours available online. The shows explore a common theme: the passage of time. Encoded Holidays is a retrospective look at a 30-year collaboration between Bay Area designers Gary Hutton and Tom…
A year ago, Chris and I got up late, watched the news and contemplated what to do about Farley’s Oakland and San Francisco. We’d worked furiously to adjust to a “to go” model in the face of a pandemic that was fast approaching like an ominous storm. We went to work on March 16 and…
The Central Waterfront Navigation Center (CWNC), located at the east end of 25th Street, closed for the past year, may reopen soon as COVID-19 vaccinations become more widespread. Last month, Mayor London Breed announced the availability of vaccines to those experiencing homelessness or living in congregate care facilities, such as homeless shelters. When the facility…
On April 12th, the San Francisco Unified School District will resume in-person instruction for students at facilities that’re in Phase 2a of the Return Safely Together Plan. Pupils and their families will have just six weeks of near normality before summer vacation. For many Phase 2a students it’ll be the first time they or their…
The warehouses on Cesar Chavez Street by Pier 80 aren’t much of a travel magnet in their current state, serving as Penske rental truck storage facilities, but if autonomous vehicle company Cruise has its way, they’ll be the site of a high-capacity electric vehicle (EV) charging facility by 2022. Earlier this year Cruise announced its…
Action Auto Care has offered car repair services on 17th and Vermont streets for 20 years. Owned by Robert Kim, who has worked in the neighborhood for a quarter-century, previously at another shop, Action boasts more than 400 five-star reviews on Yelp. Described by commentators as “thoughtful,” “friendly,” and “honest,” Kim is often an unexpected…
Last month, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art welcomed visitors with a free admission day to celebrate its second reopening since a shelter-in-place mandate was imposed a year previously. The first reopening, in October, required masks and physical distancing, but only lasted until December, when case-numbers spiked. This attempt is more cautious, with reduced…
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…