A View of Potrero Point by Damon Guthrie
San Francisco artist, Elaine Badgley Arnoux, had a vision after coming across a pile of toilets in her apartment building’s basement; she saw our 45th president sitting on top. Fourteen artists have transformed toilets into pieces reflecting on the state of democracy as part of FLUSH: a Protest Project, exhibiting at the Swedish American Hall,… Keep Reading
Wildlife Found Throughout Southside San Francisco
It’s just past noon on a Tuesday in April, and I’m bottle-feeding a seven-day-old black-tailed deer fawn on top of Potrero Hill. Energetic young squirrels perform gymnastics in a cage; a 60-year-old tortoise slowly makes his way through the backyard of a small house on 25th Street, where animal babies are kept until they can… Keep Reading
Community Calendar: July 2018
7/4 Wednesday – Independence Day: Safe and Sane Fireworks Show This annual tradition is a community favorite not to be missed. Free. About 8:30 p.m. Farley’s, 1315 18th Street. 7/4 Wednesday – Independence Day: Watch Fireworks from World War II Liberty Ship Celebrate Independence Day and enjoy the Bay Area’s finest fireworks showcase aboard the… Keep Reading
Sonic Disrupts Potrero Hill
Last spring, Sonic, a Santa Rosa-based internet service provider, launched service in several San Francisco neighborhoods, including Potrero Hill, advancing an internet access alternative for residents and businesses. The growing company offers Gigabit Fiber Internet, which transmits data at a rate of 1,000 megabits a second, with download speeds 50 times the national average. Unlimited… Keep Reading
Families Continue to Struggle to Stay in the City
Growing up in San Francisco can provide wider opportunities and exposure to culture, but it’s not without challenges to parents, particularly when it comes to navigating housing, child care and schools. The trend over the past 40 years has been for families to leave San Francisco when children reach school age. A mere 18 percent… Keep Reading
Publisher’s View: Housing
1970. I’m 10 years-old, waiting for a haircut at what’d now be called an old-fashioned barber shop in West Covina. The chairs are filled with men, most likely in their 30s and 40s, but to my adolescent eyes they seemed Biblically ancient. I desperately wanted to grab one of the Playboys strewn around the side… Keep Reading
Short Cuts
Out-of-State Politics Potrero Hill residents Steve Phillips and Susan Sandler are leading efforts to invest $10 million to support Stacey Abrams’ quest to become Georgia’s first African-American woman governor. Phillips is a former San Francisco Unified School District board member and author of Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a… Keep Reading
San Francisco Police Department Wants Parking Restrictions Around 17th Street Facility
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) is considering a proposal by San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) Deputy Chief Mikail Ali to permanently designate three blocks of red curbs and “police vehicles only” signs around a SFPD-leased 17th Street building. The facility, home to specialized equipment, and which hosts constabulary trainings, is located between 1700… Keep Reading
10 Townsend Temporarily Rerouted
While the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency doesn’t plan to permanently alter the Muni bus route, 10 Townsend, riders may be impacted by a temporary redirecting due to construction underway on 25th Street between Dakota and Connecticut streets related to HOPE SF. The project, approved in 2017, is steadily redeveloping the Potrero Annex-Terrace housing complex,… Keep Reading
Community Amenities Shrunk at New Islais Creek Bus Facility
The San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency (SFMTA) opened its Islais Creek bus facility last month and, if promises are kept, neighborhood groups hope that the long-neglected area will soon have a landscaped promenade featuring displays honoring the creek’s waterfront labor history. “Going forward a maintenance plan will be executed to ensure this space is welcomed… Keep Reading
Construction of Crane Cove Park May Begin Next Month
Amidst a chaos of construction that includes the University of California, San Francisco Child, Teen and Family Center/Department of Psychiatry Building to the west, the Chase Center to the north and apartment buildings in between, there’s a 9.8-acre parcel along the waterfront that was supposed to have been turned into a park by 2017. Last… Keep Reading
Seniors Clinging to San Francisco, Despite Challenges
Rapid economic growth, which has attracted more residents and commuters, congesting streets, has changed, yet again, the nature of City life. San Francisco’s homeless population remains stubbornly high, with a sense that erratic street behavior has become ubiquitous. Among the many demographics impacted by these vicissitudes are senior citizens, who struggle with age-related health and… Keep Reading
Underground History
History buried for more than a century is regularly discovered during construction projects in San Francisco. Earlier this spring, foreman Mike Handyside led a team removing tons of old bricks to make way for the foundation of a development underway at 16th and Carolina streets. One brick caught Handyside’s eye. Crisply imprinted on it was… Keep Reading
E-Cigarette Maker JUUL, Popular with High School Students, Subleases Space at Pier 70
Over the past decade use of e-cigarettes, known as “vaping,” has increased, with 3.2 percent of American adults using such products in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. E-cigarettes are electronic devices that simulate cigarette smoking by releasing nicotine, the active component in tobacco, via a vaporizer that users inhale. The… Keep Reading
Mission Bay is Sinking
Hidden below San Francisco’s dense patchwork of homes, stores, and skyscrapers lies millions of years of geological history. Various physical processes over the past two million years have created diverse strata of Bay Mud, consisting of soft, granulated, clay, that lurks underneath much of the region’s shoreline areas. During the last Ice Age, more than… Keep Reading
Sixteenth Street Improvement Project to Continue this Fall
Construction will be returning to 16th Street this fall. The work, at the behest of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), will involve widening sidewalks at bus stops and installing boarding islands to make public transportation faster and increase pedestrian safety. Driving the changes, and of keen interest to Potrero Hill residents, is SFMTA’s… Keep Reading
Publisher’s View: Africa
When I first started working in Africa, as a U.S. Peace Corp volunteer more than 30 years ago, John F. Kennedy remained a warming American glow. In West Africa, where I was deployed, Senegalese would praise the long dead President, alluding to his charisma and grace. Kennedy’s popularity was no doubt burnished by his late… Keep Reading
Short Cuts
Nabbed Last month, the San Francisco Police Department arrested a prolific automobile burglar near the Potrero Annex-Terrace Housing Complex. According to Officer Patrick McNichol, the suspect was nabbed as a result of solid constabulary work and luck…Prompted by an increase in pedestrian activity, an all-way stop has been installed at 18th and Minnesota streets. Walk… Keep Reading
Letters to the Editor – June 2018
Editor, Thanks for “Citizen Involvement Embedded in San Francisco’s Planning Process” in last month’s View. Note that there’s another approval process that wasn’t covered in the article: Large Project Authorization (LPA), which is required in the Eastern Neighborhoods for bigger developments. It was a LPA for 88 Arkansas that the Potrero Boosters took to the San Francisco… Keep Reading
Transit-Only Lane Citations Spike in First Quarter
Initiated by former State Assembly member Fiona Ma – who is now running for State Treasurer – in 2007 San Francisco embarked on a pilot program to examine how to reduce the number of private and commercial vehicles parked or stopped in lanes reserved for Muni buses. The Transit Only Lane Enforcement program was one… Keep Reading
Interstate-280 to Stay Intact, With No Mission Bay Caltrain Station
Proposals to demolish the final 1.2-mile northern stretch of Interstate-280 as part of the development of a new Caltrain station at Mission Bay have been nixed, at least for the moment. The suggestions were floated two years ago as municipal planners studied ways to get trains to the new Transbay Transit Center at Mission and… Keep Reading
Planning Continues for Redevelopment of Potrero Power Plant Site
Plans for the site that used to host the Potrero Power Plant continue to be fleshed-out, with the owners, Associate Capital, soliciting suggestions on how to best develop the parcel. Last spring, Associate Capital principals helped judge the Architectural Foundation of San Francisco’s 49th Annual High School Design Competition, which featured the plant location as… Keep Reading
Food Bank, Rather than Recreational Space, Slated to Occupy Dogpatch Parcel
Add hunger to the list of things that’re booming in the Bay Area. The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, which just purchased a 38,000-square foot facility in San Rafael and plans to expand its 65,000-square foot warehouse on Pennsylvania Avenue, estimates that 29 million meals are missed annually in the City alone. “When we first moved… Keep Reading
Small Grocery Store Planned for Dogpatch
A corner market space is available for lease at 602 Minnesota Street, on the ground floor of a University of California, San Francisco student and trainee affordable housing complex that’s slated to open in a year. UCSF wants the 5,140 square foot space – four times the size of The Good Life Grocery on… Keep Reading