The San Francisco Citizen

The Presidio Trust wanted a big turnout, and that’s what they got. How many folks showed up last night at the Presidio Trust Public Board of Directors meeting? More than 500 and less than 1000. Read a vivid account here.

These poor souls had to wait about 45 minutes before being admitted, but nobody was “turned away,” as has been alleged. Across the street you can see the “First Amendment Area” at Moraga and Monkey. That’s the nicest time, place, manner free speech area this lawyer has ever seen.

The news of the evening is that public comment period will be extended to September, so expect another big meeting like this one. A transcript will be available soon, so let’s wait on that before getting into this too much.

Is there a NIMBY backlash developing among area youth?

The Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, was booed by a good chunk of the mob after he voiced support for the CAMP museum as well as the entire Presidio Trust proposal. Only in San Francisco….

In the words of world-famous architect Richard Gluckman, “Working in San Francisco is not like anywhere else.”

Here’s what Angelo King of the Bayview Hunter’s Point Project Area Committee has to say, and here’s the official case made for the museum:

To be continued…

Well it seems like it takes forever to get anything done in this town, but we’ll be passing another milestone tonight. In the words of well-informed Marisa Lagos:

“Controversy over a series of proposed developments in the Presidio’s Main Post- most notably Gap founder Don Fisher’s 100,000-square-foot modern art museum - is heating up in advance of a meeting Monday.”

Make sure you get to the correct location: 

Presidio Herbst International Exhibition Hall, 385 Moraga Avenue (next to the Presidio Officers’ Club on the Main Post). The public is invited to offer comments on the draft Presidio Trust Management Plan Main Post Update Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (read more). If you have questions, please call the Presidio Trust Public Affairs Office at (415) 561-5418. View the board meeting agenda.”

There seems to be a lot of interest in these developments:

This is what the start of the Main Post Walking Tour looks like. Feel free to check out this guided tour before tonight’s board meeting:

“Monday, July 14, 4:30 to 6 pm. Meet Outside the Presidio Officers’ Club, 50 Moraga Avenue. On this easy-to-moderate 90-minute guided walk, Presidio Trust staff will discuss ideas for revitalizing the Main Post as the heart of an urban national park. Get answers to your questions and find out how you can make your opinions heard in this public process.”

But what about you? Where can you protest?

“A ‘First Amendment’ Area has been established on the lawn at the northwest corner of the intersection of Montgomery Street and Moraga Avenue, set back five feet from any sidewalk.”

(Yes, it’s odd that the San Francsico index of streetnames has two Moragas and two Montgomerys.)

Conveniently, this location is right next to the board meeting, the site of our new Richard Gluckman-designed CAMP museum, and the defunct movie theatre that’s scheduled to be reopened one of these days.  

But the whole idea is to get inside and participate in the process, so why not? You’ll be able to see how many NIMBYs will turn out - you know, San Francisco has more than its fair share of NIMBYs. They’ll identify themselves by telling you how many years they’ve lived in such and such neighborhood.

Then they’ll proceed with their favorite rhetorical trope, the metaphor. Which metaphor will prove most popular?

A. Monster. Includes “giant” and other words connoting size.

B. Alien. Includes any reference to otherworldliness.

C. Disease. Includes anything cancer-related, such as “spread” or “metastasize.” (This one is a long-shot)

D. Any other metaphor.

And while we’re on the topic, the drinking game watchwords tonight will be separated into two categories, adjective and adverb. Hoist a drink upon hearing any mention of the word inappropriate. That game is for professional drinkers only, so as an alternative, take a drink of your favorite intoxicant when you hear either completely or totally in the same sentence as the aforementioned inappropriate.

So there you have it. See you there!

Well, as promised, park officials over at the Presidio led a tour on Sunday describing new proposals for the area around the Main Post.

Yesterday, a good turnout of about 75 people went on a 1.5 hour tour of El Presidio and the Main Post. Tour participants inside the Presdio Officer’s Club, click to expand:

It’s your Presdio, of course, so feel free to attend other walking tours scheduled for this summer:

Come see for yourself what proposals for the Presidio are all about. On this easy-to-moderate 90-minute guided walk, Presidio Trust staff will describe the birthplace of San Francisco at the heart of the Presidio – the historic Main Post – and discuss ideas for revitalizing it as the heart of an urban national park. Learn about proposals for a heritage center, an archaeology lab, public uses in the iconic brick barracks, a park lodge, reuse of the historic theatre, and a museum of contemporary art. Get answers to your questions and find out how you can make your opinions heard in this public process.

July 14th will be the next big event in the process of Bringing Back the Heart of the Presidio, as they say.

See you there!

Well, just kidding about the San Francisco Chronicle Urban Design Writer John King wanting to move La Pyramide du Louvre, but wouldn’t that big old museum in Paris be so much nicer if this modern glass pyramid were moved, say, just 150 yards to the south?

If you agree (or even if you don’t), head on over to Curbed SF and get your vote on about the siting of the soon-to-be fabulous Contemporary Art Museum of the Presidio.

Juxtaposition! Sacrebleu! Quelle horreur! Caio Basillio via Flickr 

And while you’re at it, you might as well mark your calenders for the walking tour of the Main Post of the Presidio scheduled for 2:00 PM on Sunday, June 15th: 

Come see for yourself what proposals for the Presidio are all about. On this easy-to-moderate 90-minute guided walk, Presidio Trust staff will describe the birthplace of San Francisco at the heart of the Presidio – the historic Main Post – and discuss ideas for revitalizing it as the heart of an urban national park. Learn about proposals for a heritage center, an archaeology lab, public uses in the iconic brick barracks, a park lodge, reuse of the historic theatre, and a museum of contemporary art. Get answers to your questions and find out how you can make your opinions heard in this public process. Layered clothing and comfortable shoes are recommended.

Of course, comfortable shoes are always recommended. See you there, mon frère!

Here’s what they want you to believe: the route of the Bay to Breakers footrace is all downhill after topping the Hayes Street Hill. From the website:

ING Bay to Breakers is a 12K (7.46 miles) course. From sea level at the Embarcadero the course rises steeply along Hayes Street Hill. Around the 2.5-mile mark runners climb an 11.15% grade between Fillmore and Steiner, bringing them to the highest point in the race, approximately 215 feet above sea level. The remainder of the course gradually flows downhill alongside the Panhandle and through Golden Gate Park.

But that’s simply not true. Take a look at this elevation profile. See? After dipping down a bit the course continues to rise and reaches its highest point in Golden Gate Park. So there’s a reason why it feels you’re going uphill after conquering the Hayes Street Hill - you are going uphill.

Thousands of runners are in Golden Gate Park today preparing for tomorrow’s race. Going to the west uphill in the Panhandle:

Why does the mainstream media repeat a falsehood year after year? Laziness, mostly.

But check for yourself, if you want. Mike did last year and came to this conclusion:

According to the Garmin GPS I was using, the highest point is indeed in GG Park, not the top of Hayes Street Hill.

So plan your racing strategy accordingly.

Have fun tomorrow!

Local writer Anne Herbert, famous for coining the phrase “practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty,” recently announced on her blog:

The closer I live to Sutro Tower, the more I think it isn’t dangerous.

O.K. then. But who says Sutro Tower is dangerous? Well, for starters, the people who live around it in the Twin Peaks area, in small neighborhoods like Clarendon Heights and Midtown Terrace. Among other things, they worry about EMF radiation. They worry that the tower might fall down.

Sutro Tower at night under a shooting star. Looks safe enough:

But there’s not much they can do about it. The time to do something would have been back in the 1960’s when it was being planned.  

So, let’s take a trip down Memory Lane and check out this 35-year-old piece from Stephen R. Barnett. He alleged:

…the project was cloaked from public view by a media blackout, a conspiracy of silence hatched by the TV stations that own the tower and joined by the Chronicle and Examiner.

Them’s fighting words, don’t you think? You might not agree with his conspiratorial tone, but we all can appreciate little nuggets such as:

“It is ridiculous to assume the FCC will require the entire tower to be painted with alternate stripes of white and orange.” Wheat declared. It “will doubtless be painted a neutral color consistent with the surroundings,” he assured the Supervisors. 

As you can see, it’s white and orange to keep the FAA happy. Note the newish 125-foot-long, 10-ton auxiliary antenna mounted vertically

More recently,  a movement was afoot to prevent the tower from going digital, but that didn’t work out.

There are updates for the digital future slated and there’s a lot of life left in this structure, so it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

The sun always shines on TV.

To find out, let’s hear from Jordan Kobert, former Strategic Operations Manager of the San Francisco Chronicle. After getting numerous phone calls to get him to sign up for six months of home delivery, he talked with a salesperson and then rejected the idea:

“Less than a dime a day and I said no.

Did I mention I used to work at the Chronicle…”

That’s got to hurt. Apparently, the folks selling subscriptions are wheeling and dealing, so you can get it for less than a dollar a week. They might even let you name your own price and they might even throw you a $10 Target gift card.

It’s quite obvious the Chronicle, like the free San Francisco Examiner, gets a great deal of value from your eyeballs reading their ads reliably on a daily or almost daily basis. Maybe this is a good deal  for you?

Which job is lonelier - shilling for the New York Times or the San Francisco Chronicle? Tough call.  

News comes from Dave Eggers in the New York Times.

“In 418,000 copies of the April 4 edition of The San Francisco Chronicle, subscribers will get a placard that on one side explains the connections between China and the genocide in Sudan, and on the other side says, “China: Extinguish the Flames of Genocide in Darfur.” How’s that for an early morning jolt?”

These placards are going to look a little something like this:

Will people need to register in advance in order to hold up these signs along the torch route? Will people need to be herded into “free speech zones,” like these pens used in Boston a while back, before they are allowed to hold up these signs?

Only time will tell.