After nearly five hours of public debate, the Board of Supervisors halted plans for the development of a 38-story condominium tower Tuesday night. Many of the project’s opponents were concerned with the possibility that the building would harm surrounding parks — Maritime Plaza, Sue Bierman Park and the privately owned redwood grove at the foot of the Transamerica pyramid. Specifically, they emphasized the impacts of shadows, wind and interrupted bird migration routes.
Read more…
Despite high loan requests and lower repayment rates by borrowers in the country, San Francisco nonprofit microcredit Web site, Kiva, has managed to raise $765,900 since launching its pilot program this past June in the United States. Typically, the organization distributes loans raised on its Web site to microcredit organizations in developing countries that lend it to impoverished entrepreneurs. The impact of the economic downturn on small business owners set the stage for Kiva to establish a program in the U.S. last June.
The gospel-inspired holiday musical “Black Nativity,” currently being performed by the cast of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre at the Marines Memorial Theatre through Dec. 27, was written by Langston Hughes and was one of the first performances by an African American to play on Broadway.
The defeat of the Mid-Market Street billboard plan last week was close because proponents hid the details over who would handle the funds coming from large ads, says the opposition’s key organizer.
The student paper headline read, “Debate Already Closed.” But elsewhere on the San Francisco State University campus, the debate was just beginning, about a proposed $93 million recreation center whose bottom line seems to loom over the conversation about deep curriculum cutbacks this fall.
Students gathered Thursday in the Cesar Chavez student center for a teach-in organized by the Coalition Against the Rec Center, a group of students opposing the construction of a Recreation and Wellness Center. But the proposal has divided opinion on campus, with the president of the largest student group, which strongly backs the plan, declaring, “The project will never die.”
The 59th annual San Francisco Juneteenth activities will begin this weekend with a community and media reception event Saturday at 12 p.m. Visit http://www.sfjuneteenth.org/service.htm. The San Francisco festival is the largest gathering of African-Americans in Northern California and began in the early ’50s when Wesley Johnson Sr., once owner of the Texas Playhouse on Fillmore Street, invited all Bay Area African-Americans to celebrate June 19 in his lounge.
