Located a few steps from Muni’s 20th and Third Street T-Line stop, the Sea Star is a contemporary bar with a long history. The establishment’s décor – a canoe hangs above the pool table, there’s seaweed-esque wallpaper, a diving helmet sits behind the bar – pays homage to its name and Bay proximity. Its extensive…
There are roughly 1,600 species of native bees in California. The insects are active when their favored flowers – those that provide nectar and pollen to support reproduction – are available. When those florae aren’t present, neither are the bees. Although some bees are active during the rainy season, most are either still developing or…
PlayGround, a resident company and founder of Potrero Stage, located on 18th Street, is in its twenty-fifth season. The theater group started 2020 with its third annual PlayGround Solo Performance Festival, presented through February 9. “Showcasing eleven creator-performers, including eight Bay Area premieres, this festival pairs two one-act solo performances together into full double-bill evenings…
Decathlon, one of the world’s largest sporting goods retailers, opened an outlet at Potrero Center last fall. It’s the French merchants’ third Bay Area location, joining a large Emeryville store and a small space at 735 Market Street. The 40-year-old company fancies itself as the Trader Joe’s of sporting goods, integrating in-house design, production…
Over the past decade and a half Potrero Hill has become denser and more lux. The latest development wave may have started in 2007, when Whole Foods moved into a 165-unit complex at 450 Rhode Island Street. In 2016, Martin Building Company started constructing 177 apartments at 88 Arkansas Street, across the street from Jackson…
Dogpatch, once thought of as Potrero Hill’s ugly stepsister, not long ago emerged as San Francisco’s up-and-coming neighborhood. The area is in the midst of a growth spurt the likes of which it’s never before seen in its one hundred-plus year history. Cranes dominate the landscape, multi-unit buildings sprout from long-empty lots and cinderblock warehouses,…
A family that’s owned land for four generations at the southern tip of San Bruno Avenue wants to build a seven-story housing development utilizing the state Density Bonus Law to gain exemption from City height limitations. Early indications are that neighborhood opposition to the project will be fierce. San Francisco’s zoning restricts structure heights on…
Pera, a Mediterranean restaurant, is celebrating ten years on 18th Street. Irfan Yalcin and his younger brother, Metin, have been ‘serving the Hill with love since 2009.’ To celebrate the milestone, last month the restaurant expanded from offering wine and beer to purveying an extensive array of beverages. Yalcin recently acquired a full liquor…
A cannabis retailer plans to open at 667 Mississippi Street by next spring. Stay Gold is owned by Nguey Lay, Angel Davis, and Mike Hall, all of whom “have deep roots in San Francisco going back generations” according to Lay. Walton Chang, Lay’s uncle – who for several years provided delivery services to the View…
Starr King Open Space, a neighborhood park located at 1215 Carolina Street with sweeping vistas, has a new addition to the view. The majestic sights from the public space haven’t been altered due to real estate development, but by the addition of a new mural, intended to reflect and extend the beauty of the natural…
Assembly Bill 362 – which’d allow San Francisco to operate a trial facility in which drug users can inject themselves – was reintroduced in the State Legislature last February by State Senator Scott Wiener and Assembly-member Susan Eggman after being vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown in 2018. The measure is a response, in part, to…
The San Francisco Planning Department is studying how best to redesign roads, public transit and open space in ways that smooth connections between Showplace Square, Western and Central South-of-Market, and Mission Bay. The Showplace/SoMa Neighborhood Analysis and Coordination Study (SNACS) will also identify possible sites for additional market-rate and affordable housing, and evaluate demand for…
A black bird is loudly, rapidly, caw-cawing in the tree outside your window. Others are flying in groups riding the air currents. Numerous black birds are eating on the ground. Are they Ravens or Crows? Sometimes they’re both or neither. Ravens and Crows, which are abundant throughout the Bay Area, are scavengers, part of the…
In August, San Francisco Recreation and Parks completed extensive renovations to the Potrero Hill Recreation Center’s basketball and tennis courts, resurfacing roughly 7,100 square feet of space. New basketball backboards and hoops were mounted, with fresh fencing around the tennis courts. “We installed new tennis nets and new black-painted posts in the tennis courts as…
This year’s Point-In-Time (PIT) census identified 8,011 individuals without permanent shelter in San Francisco, a 17 percent jump from the 2017 PIT, the last time the survey was conducted. The 2019 PIT count found 1,889 people experiencing homelessness in District 10, the City’s second highest level of rootlessness, after District 6. Just 455 shelter beds…
A long-time Goat Hill Pizza employee recently saved the restaurant’s iconic goat hoofprints from destruction. In early August, a San Francisco Department of Public Works crew began jackhammering the sidewalk outside Goat Hill Pizza on 18th and Connecticut streets to prepare to put in a new path. Embedded in the walkway were goat hoofprints…
Bayview community members hooked a fish too big to throw back. “The Red Fish” was installed in Bayview Gateway Park, located at Third Street and Cargo Way, from 2007 to 2014. The sculpture was removed to make room for the Blue Greenway Project, a 13-mile landscape expansion sponsored by the Port of San Francisco, which…
After a 2017 announcement by the Chinese government that it’d no longer accept shipments of recycled materials from foreign countries that contain more than one percent impurities, the world lost its largest market for recycled paper and plastic, driving prices down and turning trash back into garbage. Some cities, like Philadelphia and Memphis, have reduced…
Texas Street resident, Katrina Krimsky, is a pianist who has engaged in San Francisco’s classical, jazz, and experimental music scenes for decades. Today, Krimsky can often be found practicing and composing at home on her grand piano, occasionally inviting fellow musicians to jam with her. “The neighborhood knows me pretty well because I’m always walking…
Well-being in San Francisco is all too often tied to race and income, according to the 2019 Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA), a report produced every three years with input from hospitals, the Department of Public Health (DPH) and an assortment of health and human services providers. The 2019 CHNA identifies a number of healthy…
More than 18,000 fans will attend each of ten concerts taking place in September at Chase Center, the gleaming new sports and entertainment complex located near the Bay’s edge. Given limited parking, City officials hope that patrons streaming in from around the San Francisco Bay Area will mostly rely on public transportation to get to…
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…