San Francisco and what to do in it

uh ... some of the central freeway came down prior to this address ... I remember my first place in SF back in August 1996 was at Hayes and Octavia (or Laguna? I forget) and there was definitely some significant parts of freeway missing that were there prior to October 17, 1989

hell yeah fuck the Blue Angels

Is there a good book about the development of SF over the decades? This part piqued my interest:

uncover our city's creeks and rivers again and open up the riparian corridors to the Bay

Would love to know more about those and how they were covered up.

SF the city or the Bay Area in general? ... a friend of mine wrote a book recently (though maybe it was just a series of essays) about creeks and rivers in the South Bay in re development and stuff. ... There's also that one book that's pretty well regarded about California and water but I think a lot of it focuses on the Central Valley and SoCal

I can tell you that creeks are a big deal in terms of development and planning and such now ... and that (at least in Oakland) you have to fill out a bunch of forms if your project is anywhere near a creek.

It's good to know where the creeks were so you don't buy property near them. Those areas tend to flood.

San Francisco has been especially fucked with over the last 150+ years - extensive landfill, ships buried, lakes filled in, creeks covered up, etc. And that continues to this day with the scraping of Rincon Hill and the like.

there were some articles in the Chronicle about efforts to uncover some of the creeks in the Tennessee Hollow watershed of the Presidio that were covered over decades ago when the army owned it (Thompson Reach, Quartermaster Reach), as well as Dragonfly Creek

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Habitat-restoration-sites-in-the-Presidio-14867941.php

The rivers, wells and spring in SF have mostly been built over but still exist underground (~15 feet below street level). Many buildings in Civic Center and parts of Hayes Valley/SOMA have pumps pushing groundwater into the sewers.

The BART tunnels through Civic Center and the Mission pump out 2.5 millions gallons of water a week.

My neighborhood park is built on top of a spring which constantly floods and has rampant irrigation problems despite being on top of a hill.

map ca. 1890

http://explore.museumca.org/creeks/SFTopoCreeks.html

The giant hole beneath the new "Sales Force" bus stop was built for trains that will probably never be extended that far, but still has to be maintained forever... water pumping, security, lighting, A/C etc.

A worker found a woolly mammoth tooth in that hole.

If you're interested in SF creeks (and the sewers that replaced them), you should definitely get this one too: https://sfwater.org/index.aspx?page=492

Annoyingly, its not online but it is free.

I got super interested in this when my street's sewer would over flow into my house in heavy rains. Fortunately they doubled the capacity a few years bakc.

Cool, thanks for the recommendations!

There's also that one book that's pretty well regarded about California and water but I think a lot of it focuses on the Central Valley and SoCal

does yr dad love the movie Chinatown, y or n? ... Like yr dad is like my mom and that is one of her very favorite movies.

there are creeks all over fucking Berkeley, Strawberry Creek in particular, which runs under my neighborhood and contributes to an excessively high water table. There have been drives to 'daylight' more of these and it's happened in a couple of places, but not where it was first proposed, which was immediately downtown at the entrance of the University. The plans were pretty cool.

As a former member of the "talent" for Kink, I can attest to the fact that a section of creek runs through one of the dungeons deep in a sub-sub-basement of that building.

Also, one of the big creeks used to run where Cesar Chavez (fka Army) Street now is, which makes sense given the geography of the area.

When XLR8R's office were on 18th and Folsom, the street used to get washed the hell out whenever it rained. It was a total disaster.

does yr dad love the movie Chinatown, y or n? ... Like yr dad is like my mom and that is one of her very favorite movies.

The segment in Los Angeles Plays Itself on Chinatown/LA's water history is p. great, too.

One interesting pandemic observation is the sheer amount of "ban cars" activists that have relocated from SF back to wherever they came from that are now quietly pro-cars.

Kind of reminds me of straight edge kids who lost the edge once they turned 18/21.

I think 18th and Folsom is still, sadly, prone to disastrous flooding on account of being a former lagoon. The main thing the PUC has done there has been to give grants for floodwater protection on entry ways.

The most fucked place though floodwise is Cayuga and 280.

(Kink was not my thing but I remember recognizing some of the talent on local bus routes and grocery stores...sigh when that stuff paid)

Cayuga and 280~ Holy shit, I remember that area. Super fucked.

At a certain point, half the people I know either worked as talent for Kink or behind the scenes. I was an "extra" in a few films, $250 for about four hours worth of jerking off and fucking, essentially. It was great.

New: The federal stimulus package will erase the majority of San Francisco’s projected $650 million budget deficit over the next two years, saving City Hall from having to make painful service cuts and layoffs. For now. https://t.co/4uO0ig5OG0 via @sfchronicle

— Trisha Thadani (@TrishaThadani) March 9, 2021

phew.

sidebar

This story about Alameda County deputy DA is bizarre & a whole lotta wtf

https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/03/08/an-alameda-prosecutor-claimed-falsely-he-was-in-a-serious-car-wreck-as-a-rape-trial-was-starting-things-quickly-unraveled-from-there

What in the world

Alameda County: always the sidebar, never the bar

the fact that this is NOT the first article in a series is v upsetting I HAVE QUESTIONS

Good news for that small bookstore https://hoodline.com/2021/03/fidi-s-34-trinity-arts-news-gets-long-term-lease/

oh cool! i was hoping they'd be around when I get back to working in SF (assuming that happens). think ill make it a point to make a purchase there once a month.

pretty sure landlords of financial district buildings are feeling super anxious rn ... based on what my friend who works for Salesforce is saying, they are gonna be reducing their footprint in that tower ASAP.

yes my workplace is doing the same and shifting a lot of people to full time remote. however god willing I'll have quit there soon enough. also I'm sick of working at home, will be happy to be in an office, at least a few days a week

...

Good news, SF parents!

This means the school board that wasted the last year preventing the current superintendent from hiring a team to write a COVID plan last June and instead wasted months on renaming schools gets to choose your next superintendent! https://t.co/DlxFPiPndI

— Kim-Mai Cutler (@kimmaicutler) March 10, 2021

Has anyone else been getting phone calls from CVS? I've missed them all, and I don't have my voicemail password ... I assume they're all along the lines of "we have a vaccine for you if you come RIGHT NOW"

I don't think I have, but I haven't registered with them.

My coworker suggested CVS for the J&J vaccine, but when I went to the website, I didn't fall into any group that they were currently offering them to.

I haven't registered with them either! Maybe I used to pick up prescriptions there >10 years ago?

Just came upon an attack on an elderly Asian woman on Market Street San Francisco. Effort I got more details pic.twitter.com/5o8r0eeHE2

— Dennis O'Donnell (@DennisKPIX) March 17, 2021

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/03/17/elderly-asian-woman-beats-up-man-attacking-her-in-san-francisco/

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EwtdepQVoAEOvcE?format=jpg&name=900x900

the dude on the stretcher looks familiar?

Jesus christ... probably the last time he tries something like that, the bum.

was the guy on the stretcher the attacker? ... I swear, he looks super familiar

maybe it's just that he kinda looks like Ariel Pink idk

Yeah, he's in handcuffs. She whacked him good with a what looks like a piece of pallet.

But she looks pretty injured as well, and is obviously traumatized... what a low-life crud that dude is.

thread-relevant?

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/COVID-vaccine-skipping-the-line-eligible-16033771.php

I have friends who skipped the line, trying real hard not to be judgmental.

I'm pretty sure the online evaluation for qualifying health conditions that we have here is based on the honor system, and I have no doubt people are gaming it

xp - ditto - i was offered a "cheat code" by one, "just tell them you work in food service" my friend said. Like, my closest rationale for that is that occasionally I do clerical work in a restaurant that is currently closed. ... I could say I work in "emergency services" in re housing habitability, but honestly, I am really just a courier and occasionally take pictures of things, and am there for like 15 minutes at a time and can easily be masked up ... I will wait for my 1c, essential worker, healthy adult under 50 tier.

I'm getting jealous, I won't lie. But not cutting the line.

honestly, I fear that I will be one of the people that gets sick for a couple days after the vaccine and I currently can't afford to take those sick days, so ... idk