Merchants
The Good Life Grocery is limiting customers at its Potrero Hill store to five at a time. Raises have been given to all employees, along with bonuses and unlimited paid sick leave…San Francisco Natural Medicine is seeing chronic patients who receive injections, as well as offering telemedicine…Rickshaw Bagworks is selling masks, which can be picked up curbside…The Wine House is offering free delivery for orders over $150, or curbside pickup; business is down 40 percent.
Shelter
The American Industrial Center, on Third Street, waived April rent for all of its tenants…In 2019 the Dogpatch Neighborhood Association voted unanimously to extend the Dogpatch 25th Street Homeless Navigation Center’s lease by three years. In April conversations with Emily Cohen, the Mayor’s Office Homelessness Policy Advisor, prompted the DNA executive board to submit a letter to the Port of San Francisco endorsing a five-year extension. Kudos to a compassionate community!
Construction
Construction projects that include affordable housing were deemed “essential” by local and state officials, exempt from shelter-in-place requirements. As a result, the pounding of hammers reverberates throughout Southside…Work continues at 691 China Basin Street, a 152-unit apartment complex being developed by Mercy Housing for low-income households who earn up to 60 percent of Area Median Income. The project sprawls over the entire block of Merrimac Street, from opposite the Mission Bay Kids’ Park on China Basin Street, to across from Park Lab Community Garden on Mission Bay Boulevard North. Construction began a year ago, with a targeted opening in 2021… Site preparation continues at Mission Rock, a 28-acre former parking lot located between Third Street and Terry Francois Boulevard at Pier 48 on China Basin’s south bank, across from Oracle Park. The 12-block district will have towers topping out at 240 feet, and include 1,200 residential units, 40 percent affordable for low- to moderate-income households. Mission Rock developers reflect a partnership between the San Francisco Giants, Tishman Speyer and the Port of San Francisco. Mission Rock’s first phase is expected to open in 2023 with a five-acre waterfront park, two towers offering 540 housing units, and a pair of commercial buildings featuring 550,000 square feet of office space.
Typeface
Last month Letterform Archive, located on Mariposa Street, opened an online digital collection of thousands of years of typographical artifacts to the public. The trove of documents spans cultures and media, with an explosive range of typefaces. “This has been a dream since before the archive opened five years ago, and this launch was planned long ago,” said founder and executive director Rob Saunders. “But what a perfect moment for radical accessibility.” So far, 1,500 of the collection’s more than 60,000 pieces have been digitized. The site contains tags, posters, mailing labels, advertisements, business cards, book covers and letterhead. There’s a booklet from Sri Lanka from 1959, a Russian book from 1912, and a loose leaf from a Spanish Quran from 1150.
Mother Goose
Mission Bay neighbors have stayed connected on happenings in the ‘hood during shelter-in-place through a long-established network of email lists. In April, Jose Vega, manager of Mission Creek Senior Community at 225 Berry Street, reported that from his rear window he’d noticed that the pair of Canadian geese passerby’s had been seeing hanging out on the old Carmen’s pier by the Fourth Street Bridge were starting a family in a hollowed out cavity atop one of the wooden pilings. “Despite all this virus crisis, a pair of geese have decided to nest and create new life on the pier where the Carmen restaurant was,” Vega wrote. “You have to see pillar number eight counting from Fourth Street and in a hole in one of those pillars sits a mother goose that I noticed four days ago. You have to look very precisely to see it…Please don’t make noise…don’t disturb…where there is LOVE!!! There is LIFE. I named her “RITA LA GANSA” (gansa, goose in Spanish). Take care of yourself and each other.”
Pay
Like many other nations, Rwanda enforced a shelter-in-place order from mid-March to the end of April. Half-way through the social shutdown, as increasing numbers of people lost their livelihoods, a communique was issued: “In the context of the fight against Covid-19, and in solidarity with the most affected Rwandans, the Government of Rwanda has decided, over and above ongoing social protection initiatives, that all Cabinet Members, Permanent Secretaries, Heads of Public Institutions, and other senior officials shall forfeit one month’s salary (April). We thank all Rwandans for their continued support and adherence to the measures announced by the Government against Covid-19. Together we shall rein in this pandemic.” Now that’s leadership!
Plunge
Two women died after the vehicle they were in plunged over a 200-foot cliff at 25th and Dakota streets and landed in a parking lot last month. The crash also injured a man and killed a dog, which was ejected from the car, according to San Francisco police. The three people and dog were inside a silver Nissan SUV that drove through a fence before going over the cliff. No one yet knows what prompted the incident.
