I am out of town for the next couple of days, so I wanted to touch on an older article featured here on LiveSOMA in the past. This piece is still very relevant to the neighborhood.
Last July, I asked the question which is better, Zipcar or City Car Share? I don’t personally own a car because we live within walking distance of everything we need. Owning a car in San Francisco is a pretty expensive venture. Between the monthly payments, insurance and gas, owning a car is already costly; but here in the City, you have to also incorporate parking costs, or suffer the possibility of the Smash and Grab! Therefore, depending on what you own, you could pay close to $1,000 a month!
I’ve been a member of Zipcar for years, but when I moved to San Francisco, I discovered City Car Share as a possible alternate. I see both company’s cars driving around all over the city, but there must ultimately be one winner.
Original Article from July, 2009:
I’ve had a recurring conversation, with many people, about the two Community Car Share companies in South of Market. Which one is better? Which one is cooler? Which one should I use?
Everyone seems to have their own opinion, but I’ve been wondering which of the two is better based solely on facts about each. I’ve spent this morning compiling all of the necessary data, and the results are in…
This evening, the good people at the South of Market Business Association would like to invite you to their monthly Community Exchange Event. This month’s event will take place at Mainline Security, Inc., over on Seventh Street between Brannan and Townsend Streets.
Stop in between 6 pm – 8 pm to learn more about closed circuit video surveillance (a good thing to have on the graffiti-stricken streets of SOMA!), and to meet and greet a number of the local business owners in the South of Market community. Plus, light refreshments will be served!
The event is open to SOMBA members and non-members alike. For more information, contact SOMBA at 415-553-4433, ext. 115, or email them at info@sfsomba.org.
A few months ago, I was perusing my Netflix On-Demand box, looking for something to watch, when it recommended a documentary called “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill“.
This remarkable movie is the true story of a Bohemian St. Francis and his remarkable relationship with a flock of wild red-and-green parrots. Mark Bittner, a dharma bum*, former street musician in San Francisco, falls in with the flock as he searches for meaning in his life, unaware that the wild parrots will bring him everything he needs.
I was reminded of this film the other day when I was walking down Harrison Street around 7th. I heard a noise and looked up to a window to find these exotic caged birds staring back at me.
I’m no bird expert, so I won’t even attempt to name them, but it made me think about documentaries they could make about South of Market. We all know it wouldn’t feature wild birds because the only wild birds we have around here are seagulls and pigeons. Perhaps they could create a documentary about the squatters under Route 80? Although now they’ve been relocated somewhere bythe Central T Subway construction.
Do you have an interesting photo taken in and around South of Market? If so, send it to LiveSOMA@gmail.com and we’ll post it for the community to see.
This weekend marks the beginning of the 2010 Sunday Streets season. Between March and October, the City chooses an area each month and closes the streets to traffic.
Sunday Streets creates safe, fun, car-free space on City streets to give San Francisco residents and visitors an opportunity to get out and get active. Temporarily closing some streets to automobile traffic opens them up to people for walking, cycling, skating and recreation, creating a stronger sense of community in neighborhoods throughout the City.
This first Sunday Street event of 2010 will be all along the Embarcadero, from the Fisherman’s Wharf all the way past AT&T Park and into Mission Bay. Each mark on the map to the left indicates a specific area of interest. Here’s the breakdown from top to bottom:
• Fisherman’s Wharf - Family Fun Fair - Cyclecide (pedal powered amusement park rides), Jump house and/or inflatable slide, Rock climbing wall, Kid’s activities (hula hoops, etc.)
• East Park at PIER 39 - Dance Lessons, Bike racks, Porta Potties
• Ferry Plaza – Main Information Center, Roller Skating, Team Sports, Bike Rental, Bike Valet Parking, Bike Repair
• Rincon Park – Yoga Lessons
• South Park – Fitness and Yoga
• China Basin – Bike Rentals
• Pier 52 – Boat tours by Embarcadero Rowing Club, Bayview Boat Club, Mariposa Hunter’s Point Yacht Club
This year they’ve extended the Sunday Streets event by two hours, from 10 am – 3 pm. Check out the official website for more information.
If you’re looking to help out, the YMCA Embarcadero is looking for volunteers to help out during the event, from 9 am – 1 pm. If you’re interested in helping out, they’ll be at South Beach Park (next to AT&T Park). For more information, please contact Anna Foletta at 415-615-1314 or afoletta@ymcasf.org.
The Central Subway System continues its construction along Fourth Street, despite a blatant lack of funding (here’s their side of the story). I’ve noticed over the past week or three that the project has now started to involve local traffic patterns and disrupt the Fourth Street area between Harrison and Brannan Streets. However, today, the construction crossed the Route 80 line and has entered into the realm of Fourth between Harrison and Folsom.
According to the construction notice linked above, the service drilling between Harrison and Folsom will be conducted between Wednesday, March 10th (they started closing off the walkways today) and Monday, March 15th. There will also be a lane of traffic, in addition to the left-side parking lane, closed during drilling, which means that of the 5 lanes that enter onto route 101/80, two lanes will be closed (2 of the lanes are for parking, so in reality, 2 lanes will be open). I wonder how that will impact traffic. It has its busy moments to begin with, from what I’ve seen, and now the Duck Boat Tour will have no choice but to add a second song to the mix while they wait at the light.
Enough whining. The subway construction is apparently here to stay (until they run out of funds). Here are some photos that were compiled of the construction process during the month of February:
Bindlestiff Studios is a black box theater for performing arts in SOMA. This is an insightful article I received the other day from Allan Manalo, Artistic Director of Bindlestiff Studios on Sixth Street:
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Bindlestiff Studio (but were too tired to ask!): Origins of a black box theater
By A.S. Manalo
In 1989, right before the City experience the infamous ‘World Series’ earthquake, inside a street-level storefront of the two-story Plaza Hotel SRO on Sixth & Howard, a group of performing artists opened the doors to a tiny black box theater they decided to name “Bindlestiff Studio.” Ten years later and after several changes in management, I took over the theater along with my Filipino American experimental sketch comedy troupe, ‘tongue in A mood’ where we developed Bindlestiff into one of the premier epicenters for Filipino American performing artists in the United States.
By 2004, the Plaza Hotel was purchased by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency who tore down the dilapidated SRO and erected a new building, giving Bindlestiff Studio a space in its original location. Coming this Fall, twenty-one years after it was established, Bindlestiff Studio (now a non-profit arts organization) will once again open its doors, not only as a true epicenter for Filipino American performing artists, but also as an essential center of creativity to inspire community involvement through the arts for San Francisco’s diverse SOMA neighborhood.
Below is an excerpt from the book STAGE PRESENCE (edited by Dr. Theodore S. Gonzalves, Meritage Press 2007) where I wrote an account of the first time I stepped into the original Bindlestiff Studio to watch a one-woman show entitled BABAE by Lorna Aquino Chui, a young Filipina stage artist who grew up in the alleys of SOMA.
The Ferry Building Farmer’s Market is currently celebrating Spring by having a variety of food-related demo’s and book signings.
“Spring is in the air at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. Green garlic and asparagus have just appeared, soon to be followed by fava beans, peas, and more. And, while we love winter green and citrus, we can’t help but count down the days until strawberries arrive.
Food lovers all over the Bay Area can reinvigorate your menus and learn new ways to cook delicate and flavorful spring produce with popular Bay Area chefs at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. All events are free and open to the public.”
This afternoon, drop by the Ferry Building for a Market to Table Cooking Demo & Book Signing featuring Daisy Martinez, Host of PBS’s Daisy Cooks! and the Food Network’s Viva Daisy! and author of the new cookbook Daisy: Morning, Noon and Night.
*All programming takes place in the outdoor CUESA teaching kitchen under the north arcade of the FerryBuilding and all events listed are free-to-the public with recipes and samples.
If there’s anyone out there more excited than me that NBC threw in the towel with Jay Leno’s 10 pm experiment, it’s the people who work on San Francisco’s medical drama, Trauma. Back in the Fall, I followed the show from premiere to quick cancellation because it features a lot of scenes shot in and around South of Market.
Thanks to the five hours of prime-time left in the fallout of Jay Leno’s failed experiment, they’re back (click here for an article). The show has high production costs with expensive explosions and a pretty large cast, but don’t get too comfortable with it. If they don’t significantly grow their audience over the next few weeks, they’ll be off the air sooner than you can say “call 9-1-1!”
Personally, the only thing I enjoyed about the show was playing ‘name that location’ in each scene. The action sequences are decent, but there’s not enough action to make the weak (and forced) character development watch-able. Maybe they’ve used the downtime to work out the show’s dynamic. Let’s hope, at least. If they get renewed, it creates jobs and stimulates the local economy (and also closes some streets to traffic, but still!).
Trauma begins its ‘watch-or-die’ run tonight at 9 pm on NBC.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a better way to spend my Easter Sunday than by attending a cult discussion about UFO sightings and awareness. When I was growing up, I remember those UFO specials they used to run on television on Friday nights. They always spoke of alien abductions and cow slaughters. As a kid, it was scary, but now these events just feel “cult-ish”.
So, if you’re interested, drink some kool-aid and head over to the Koret Auditorium on Easter Sunday. Apparently, the people who are hosting this event believe that you are, since they’ve posted this flyer all over the neighborhood. It’s a free discussion, so I have no idea what they could be trying to gain from this except your recruitment into the tinfoil-hat religious group.
I found the link to their website for more information, but I don’t want to promote such junk on here.
Do you have an interesting photo taken in and around South of Market? If so, send it to LiveSOMA@gmail.com and we’ll post it for the community to see.
There’s a Neighborhood Association Meeting for South Beach, Rincon Hill and Mission Bay. The meeting will go from 6 pm – 7 pm at the South Beach Harbor Services Building Community Room (between Pier 40 and AT&T Park).
Jay Primus,Director of the new SFParkProgram, will walk us through the development of this innovative synthesis of new thinking and new technology related to parking management, and how the program will be implemented in our neighborhood. `Circle less, Live more’ is the promise for the future.
Preceding Jay will be Charles Higueras, DPW Project Manager, Asst. Fire Chief Jim Barden, and Police Captain John Goldberg to talk about the earthquake safety bond measure which will be on the June ballot.
In addition, they will also be holding elections for the officers and board members of the Association.
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