Category: Neighborhoods
Posted inFood Systems, Neighborhoods

A farm blossoms in Hayes Valley where a freeway once cast a dominating shadow

by Angela Hart

Neighborhood rallies to site of collapsed freeway two decades after Loma Prieta earthquake

In 1990, Madeline Behrens-Brigham and Russell Pritchard opened art boutiques in a crime-ridden section of Hayes Valley. They called their part of the neighborhood, from Laguna Street to Market Street, the “Tenderloin of the ’90s.”

“It was only 20 years ago that you’d drive down Octavia Boulevard and on all corners it was prostitutes everywhere, like the Tenderloin is now,” Pritchard said.

The self-proclaimed neighborhood activists were barely making rent. They began attending meetings between Caltrans and city officials, petitioning to get the Central Freeway taken down. The double-deck structure had crumbled in the October 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and laid fallow for two years.

Posted inArts & Culture, Community, Neighborhoods

Fund to boost Mid-Market Street cultural district has money but few takers

by Ambika Kandasamy

Small arts groups can’t come up with capital to lease property

An $11 million city fund to create a mid-Market Street cultural district so far has yielded one government loan—to a restaurant—while dozens of small performing arts groups cannot take advantage of the program because of their limited financial resources.

Mayor Gavin Newsom announced the Central Market Cultural District Loan Fund in January as a way to support and concentrate arts groups to bring life back to the city’s long-depressed central corridor. Mid-Market stretches from Fifth to 10th streets on Market Street and from Mason to Larkin streets and up to O’Farrell Street in the Tenderloin, according to the city loan guidelines.

Posted inEducation, Muni, Neighborhoods, Transportation

Reporters’ Notebook: En route: 28-19th Avenue often off schedule

by Monica Jensen, Jerold Chinn and Sarah Fidelibus

Reporter Jerold Chinn, Multimedia Editor Monica Jensen and Social Media Editor Sarah Fidelibus rode one of the Muni bus lines that has the most trouble keeping on schedule — the 28-19th Avenue.

They documented the problems the bus faced while traveling on a recent Wednesday afternoon along the route from Fort Mason to Daly City. The bus travels for much of its route along 19th Avenue, or Highway 1, which leads to the Golden Gate Bridge to the north and Interstate 280 to the south.

Posted inElections, Land use, Neighborhoods

Choose your own Pier 70

by Matt Baume and Susie Cagle

You have 85 acres on the waterfront and two billion dollars … what would you build?

A once-bustling industrial site that has fallen into decay on San Francisco’s waterfront, Pier 70 is facing a dramatic transformation. And in the next year, the Port of San Francisco will ask the public for feedback on as-yet unwritten development plans.

The Port has been keen to redevelop the site for years. Though the agency has been consulting neighbors at every step, most San Franciscans would be hard pressed to find it on a map. (It’s just north of Warm Water Cove, at the eastern end of 20th Street.)

Posted inCity Hall, Community, Environment, Neighborhoods, Parks & Open Space

Athletes vie with birds in Golden Gate Park’s environmental turf war

by Dan Hirsch

A swath of ground at the western end of Golden Gate Park has stirred debate among soccer players, neighborhood residents, astronomers and environmentalists. The disputed turf is the Beach Chalet Soccer Fields. A plan to replace the grass surface with artificial turf has been put on hold by the Recreation and Park Commission which has ordered an environmental impact report on the project.

Posted inArts & Culture, Labor, Neighborhoods, Parks & Open Space

Restored Depression-era maritime murals recall heyday of public art

by Gianmaria Franchini

The Aquatic Park Bathhouse Building at the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park at Beach and Polk streets is emerging from a rehabilitation project with a noticeable facelift. The Bathhouse was built in 1939 by the Works Project Administration and became the park’s Maritime Museum in 1951. The building, which was designed to resemble the bridge of an ocean liner, is teeming with sea-themed art, none more striking that Hilaire Hiler’s “Undersea Life” mural, which has also been restored.

Posted inNeighborhoods, Public Safety

Stranded: One man’s fight to re-establish safe haven for Haitian street kids

by J. Malcolm Garcia

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti — I first met Michael Brewer in 2005 when I was in Port au Prince reporting on Citie Soleil, a notoriously violent ghetto at the time. Michael, a Texas native and a registered nurse turned child advocate, ran a nonprofit organization called Haitian Street Kids Inc. and spent a lot of time in Citie Soleil helping homeless children.

Posted inCity Hall, Economy & Business, Land use, Neighborhoods, News

Mid-Market mogul: How Urban Realty quietly cornered San Francisco’s troubled main drag

by Angela Hart

San Francisco-based developer Urban Realty has been sitting on valuable, mostly vacant real estate on Market Street between Fifth and Sixth for almost six years. Urban Realty principal David Rhoades is waiting for the Planning Commission to approve the proposed CityPlace this month before he unleashes all of his plans.

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Posted inCity Hall, Housing, Land use, Neighborhoods, News, Treasure Island

Through two mayors, connected island developers cultivated profitable deal

by Alison Hawkes and Bernice Yeung

In the next six months, local officials and a consortium of private developers will begin to finalize legal papers for Treasure Island’s future as a high-density eco-city. Renderings of the gleaming towers, parks and gardens suggest harmony and community. Yet the promise of an urban Treasure Island, one of the most complex and risky redevelopments in San Francisco’s recent history, has for more than a decade been wrapped up in a process driven by power and influence. The mayor got neartotal control. Political friends got plum jobs and contracts. Critics were exiled. City and state conflict-of-interest laws were waived. Independent inquiries and the will of voters were nakedly rebuffed.

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