Posts Tagged ‘Crissy Field’

7th Annual San Francisco Avon Walk for Breast Cancer a Huge Success

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

More than 2700 walkers raised more than $6 million this weekend in the 7th Annual San Francisco Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.

Sign up by tonight for the 2010 walk and save $20 off the registration fee.

Here’s a team in Golden Gate Park. Click to expand:

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And here’s the finish line at Speedway Meadow, the place where the 2009 Golden Gate Renaissance Faire won’t happen this year. Check the photos.

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Each walker raised at least $1800 in donations from friends. If they didn’t come up with all the dough, then they committed to pay the remainder from their own credit cards. Thusly:

“If you have not yet met your donation minimum you may choose the deferred commitment option to guarantee the minimum donation amount.  A deferred commitment is your promise to fundraise for two months after the event in order to meet your minimum of $1,800.”

(That’s a lot of commitment.)

Speaking of which, check out the Yelp ratings – five stars each from the eleven committed alpha females of course, but only three stars from the sole dude, who points out a little history of the event involving Dan Pallotta and Pallotta Teamworks:

“Litigation lasted until 2005, w/ Avon being awarded $19,525,639.00 of it’s $20 million counterclaim. The court determined that Pollatta had lost money running some of the AIDS Rides & used the profitable Breast Cancer Walk money to pay for losses. A few days after the news the company abruptly laid off its entire staff nationwide & closed the doors.”

Hmmm. Rumors, accusations, and finger-pointing abounded when people found out how much of the money raised was being used to pay Pallotta Teamworks for organizing events all over the country. Of course, Mr. Pallotta defended his thesis about how ya gotta spend money to make money, or something like that. Regardless, there was a backlash against Pallotta and his Lexus and his large HQ, and so, Pallotta Teamworks ain’t putting on the show no mo. Anyway…

Congratulations to all the walkers! See you next year!

More deets after the jump. 

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Photos of 2009 Fourth of July Fireworks in San Francisco – Legal and Illegal

Saturday, July 4th, 2009

Tonight’s Fourth of July fireworks show had a fairly high fog ceiling, so it would have to rate as better than average. Better than last year anyway, but not as good as 2007.

Here’s an excellent eight-second exposure of the northern waterfront show from Lafayette Park in Specific Whites Pacific Heights. Click to expand:

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via bendjsf

And here’s a real-time shot of the same show from Twin Peaks:

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Everything is done double – that’s the way they do it. Here’s a double double:

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But this is what happens when the fireworks get too high – you can only see the bottom halves sometimes due to the fog:

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Let’s look across the Bay over at Sausalito. That’s USF in the foreground:

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Now here are some illegal explosions in San Francisco. This was an impressive burst above the northern Mission district:

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And here’s Mission Bay / Dogpatch with Alameda / Oakland in the background – very nice:

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The Mission and points south all had lots of illegal fireworks booming:

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Oh noes, it’s a flare, shooting high above Twin Peaks…

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…and then landing somewhere in the Castro District:

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And there you have it.

Tips on Enjoying Fog-Free Fourth of July Fireworks in San Francisco

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

When they tell you “Fog could shroud S.F. fireworks“ up in Fishermans Wharf at 9:30 PM on the Fourth of July 2009, what they really mean is Fog WILL shroud S.F. fireworks, barring some Act of God, or Gaia, or Whomever.

Sometimes the weather is good, sometimes not. This year, not.

Check it out from 2008. Click to expand:

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Eliya via Flickr

This is by no means the worst case scenario. So when they talk about special low-level fireworks and let’s cross our fingers, they’re spinning. And spinning is just the polite term for lying. So, what do you do? Head on over to the Mission District, where they’ll have oodles of Yelp-rated, illegal, illicit, MUY PRO HI BI DA DO (now I say that in Spanish because that’s how exotic and not allowed it is) fireworks, fog-free, for free. Just check out this screen saver album from 2007.

Of course, you can always go with the flow and follow the madding crowd northward into la niebla, le brouillard. And who knows, maybe it will be clear the way it was in 2007. Thusly:

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This is the view you had from Crissy Field on 7-4-2007 – those lights at the bottom have something to do with Fishermans Wharf.

But dude, don’t drive up there. Even if they didn’t block off the streets and you already had a parking space waiting for you, you’d still have to drive out of there in a traffic jam when the show’s over at 10:00 PM. Of course, you could always hang out at all the places that will be open up in the Wharf after the show, but maybe you’d be better off driving into the City with your bikes in tow and parking South of the 101 near the Giants’ AT&T Park. Then you could ride up the flat, flat Embarcadero (on the sidewalk – it’s legal) back and forth.

Can you dig the colors, man?

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But if that doesn’t pan out, you could follow the cable cars on Hyde (that’s the one north-south street they don’t block off, in my experience) and drop off the brood. Whatever you do, stay off of Van Ness. Or you could BART it to the Embarcadero Station and then hoof it up to Pier 39. But forget about MUNI, ’cause walking would be faster.  

And most likely it will be foggy anyway, you’ve been warned.

Dress warm. Panthers out.

Fourth of July Waterfront Celebration
Saturday, July 4, 2009
1:00 PM to 9:30 PM

“PIER 39 invites you to enjoy a fun-filled Independence Day celebration. Rock out with ‘Take 2′ from 1-4pm followed by San Francisco’s favorite 80’s cover band, ‘Tainted Love’ from 6-9:30pm. Immediately after the entertainment look to the sky as the City of San Francisco lights up the night with it’s Firework’s Spectacular, accompanied by a musical simulcast from KISS FM 98.1. PIER 39 has the best viewing area on the bay!  In addition, 39 of PIER 39’s businesses will remain open after the fireworks so that guests can miss the traffic, enjoy the PIER, have a drink, get a bite to eat, and shop.  Click here for the list of locations open after the fireworks.  Sponsored by Crystal Geyser ALPINE SPRING WATER, DeLoach Vineyards, Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, The San Francisco Examiner, Tawain Tourism and Asus.”

Nimbies Save Presidio’s Great Northern Parking Lot – Will Burger King Now Come Back?

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Boy, it was touch and go for a few years there, but news comes today that our beloved NIMBYs have managed to preserve the Great Northern Parking Lot of San Francisco.

See it? 700 spaces, free of charge. It’s historic, you know. When the U.S. Army wasn’t out there killing a million or so Filipinos it managed to create the GNPLoSF. Therefore, these parking spaces are sacrosanct:

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Now that that pesky modern art has been gotten rid of, a question remains over what to do with the upper end of the Main Post. You know the Burger King corporation had an outlet that served as an Army Mess on the Presidio for so many years, it would be only fitting to give it the right of first refusal to get a chance to replace the famous itty bitty bowling alley that’s up there now.  

An artist’s conception, avec just one installation of evil modern art thrown in to see if the NIMBYs can tolerate it.  

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You see, that old, historic Presidio BK was a place “where a simple guy serving his country could get an inexpensive meal with a stunning view.” Wouldn’t it be nice to honor those memories with the biggest Burger King in the world? Put it right where the museum was supposed to go.

Either that, or a Jollibee. Your choice.

Presidio Update: Two More Open Houses Announced – Public Comment Ends June 1

Monday, May 11th, 2009

Your Presidio Trust has just announced another two Open House sessions concerning the Main Post. Make note of the location at Building 105, that Brokedown Palace (but I can assure you that parts of it are excellent). It’s sandwiched between Lincoln (no, not THAT Lincoln), Taylor (no, not THAT Taylor) and Montgomery (no, not THAT Montgomery). Just pop open the Google Map here. See? It’s right near where the Google Maps car got busted (or not, if you believe a certain U.S. Park Police Sargeant, who, really, oughta know).

Just get to the Building 104 Mouse House and then go downhill a skosh. There’s probably not going to be a program or anything – just drop by and yickety yack a bit… 

Main Post Open House with Presidio Trust Staff
Monday, May 18, 9 to 11 am
&
Wednesday, May 20, 6 to 8 pm
Main Post Information Center, 105 Montgomery Street

There’s always room for one more:

“Please join us for informal “open house” sessions at which Presidio Trust staff members will be available to respond to questions about proposed projects for the Main Post as well as questions about historic resources, transportation and parking, visitor use , and environmental sustainability. The public comment period for Main Post planning ends on June 1, 2009. Comments may be emailed to mainpost@presidiotrust.gov.”

Mercedes-Driving NIMBYs Pack Presidio Trust Transportation Workshop

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

As promised, the Presidio Trust Main Post Planning Transportation Workshop went off on April 22, 2009. Look here later on to see when and if two more similar meetings will occur in the very merry month of May. (The first should deal with historic resources and the other is slated to be a kind of catch-all open-mike night.) 

122 souls sat through a presentation of answers to a dozen key questions that people have been asking about concerning transportation – signalization, fees for parking, traffic loads, etc. I vowed to leave as soon as the public speakers veered off-topic – that took about ten seconds, so oh well. Regardless, this appeared to be a more-productive-than-average public yammer session. Assemblymember Tom Ammiano sent a representative (the well-informed Noriko Shinzato) as did Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier, so it appears that interest in the plans for the Main Post remains strong.

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Fully eleven Mercedes-Benzeses were out front, or in the lot up the hill, or in the overflow lot even further up the hill near the chapel. BMW was also well-repped, and there were a least three Porsches, including two expensive Porsche Cayenne minivans and one hepped-up Neunelfer.A richer group of parking-hungry NIMBYs would be hard to find. One bicycle.

All this Powerpoint stuff should be online in the near future, or maybe it already is.

Presidi-Go is already up to 300,000 trips per year.

Should the NIMBY’s, the people of means, be given more votes on this matter than tourists from Tempe? Only Time Will Tell. 

So there you have it, To Be Continued.

Presidio Update: Main Post Planning Transportation Workshop Set for April 22nd

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

The Presidio Trust has replaced the cancelled April 16 meeting with a Transportation Workshop at 6:30 PM on April 22, 2009. There will be an overview of the transit issues being analyzed through the Main Post planning process, and staff will be on hand to answer questions about transportation issues. 

Main Post Planning Workshop: Transportation
Wednesday, April 22, 6:30 p.m.
Golden Gate Club, 135 Fisher Loop

Some drivers strongly oppose losing this gigantic, historic 700-car parking lot:

Oh well.

How will the NIMBYs get to this meeting about having too many cars in the Presidio?

A short, pleasant evening stroll? No.

Or perhaps a bike ride? No.

Guess again!

Presidio Update: April 16th Main Post Public Meeting Postponed

Monday, April 13th, 2009

Here’s the news of the morn regarding developments at the Presidio.

Please be advised that the Presidio Trust is cancelling the Main Post Public Meeting that was to be held on Thursday, April 16, at 6 pm at the Golden Gate Club. There will be no meeting on that date. Future meeting dates will be announced at www.presidio.gov as soon as the information becomes available.” 

Here’s what you’ll miss:

Word from Tia Lombardi, Director of Public Affairs at the Presidio Trust, is that this meeting will be rescheduled to a date yet to be determined.

On it goes…

500 People at Presidio Trust Board Meeting – Main Post Plans, Including CAMP Museum

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

Well, there were a few surprises at last night’s Presidio Trust  Board of Directors meeting at the Palace of Fine Arts. Get up to speed on the issues here, and then take a look below to see what it was like. Here’s a take from John Upton over at the Examiner and here’s another from Curbed SF.

After Presidio Trust Director Craig Middleton gave the crowd an update, everyone got to see more-detailed plans on the controversial CAMP museum proposal via a Powerpoint slideshow. The architect from San Francisco-based WRNS Studio received sustained applause when he finished his presentation. That was a surprise, certainly.

In fact, the audience seemed just about evenly split, with half supporting the Main Post plans and the other “flamethrowing” half opposing. That was a surprise as well.

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What’s this? Pro-museum protesters or supporters, or whatever you want to call them? Never before have I seen this:

For those of you who like to see issues simplified into dramaturgical dyads, a portion of the happy CAMPers are on the left and a portion of the opposing NIMBY and preservationist groups are on the right, the site of the anti-CAMPers’ putative news conference. 

The mise-en-scene. Were more people here than at the last board meeting on December 9th? Yes. The Palace of Fine Arts Theatre (made famous by the appearance last Fall of ukulele-playing Jake Shimabukuro - 3 million astounded YouTube viewers can’t be wrong) was half-full or half-empty, depending on your point of view. So that’s about 500 souls motivated enough to show up:

This chart actually makes sense to me now. It shows how far we’re progressing to the end of the process and the beginning of the inevitable lawsuit designed to chuck all these plans out the window.

And here we are, the proposed Contemporary Art Museum of the Presidio 2.0. (Learn about CAMP 1.0 here, via the New York Times.) The Gallery Building dominates but don’t forget about the quasi-subteranean Art Handling Building on the left and Building 101 in the upper right hand corner. There’s your ”B”-as-in-boy, billion-dollar CAMP museum:

Here’s a 3D view:

The Pavillion level is up top…

…and the Courtyard Level is down below:

Sections, just like my grandmother’s MRI!

The Future is Now:

All of the Gallery Building is below the altitude of the eaves of the Presdio Theatre, seen in foreground:

Subteranean by design/ I wonder what I would find if I met you:

The Gallery is three buildings, three buildings in one. Historic Building 100 and the defunct Presidio Theatre rise above:

Oh no! It’s the kids from UC Berkeley Law School. They practically hijacked the meeting. And that was the final surprise of the evening, before I had to get home to some Java curry. Now it’s one thing to be a millionaire homeowner NIMBY living in the Marina or Cow Hollow, but there’s literally millions of millionaires out there. On the other hand there are only so many folks able to get into Berkeley Law. The nine or ten speakers from the law school contingent displayed far more intellectual candlepower than typical speakers at these kinds of public meetings. 

This didn’t make for good theater, because the college kids were basically speed-reading their ideas into the record, but diverse and novel viewpoints were expressed, and that’s a Good Thing, right? It will be interesting to see the transcript when it comes out, certainly.

Here’s how I left it:

Oh, and about that crowd size estimate. The Examiner is saying just 250 people? So if four times as many people showed up, almost everybody would have had a seat in the venue (one that can handle 1000 if you include the small number of people who prefer to stand on the sidelines)? No way, Jose. The proper count is about 500.

To Be Continued…

The Shiny Shiny Top of San Francisco’s TransAmerica Pyramid

Friday, December 19th, 2008

Well, lookie here at the shiny, shiny top of the Transamerica Pyramid. Now, of course, at night during some special times (your November-December-New Year’s holiday mish-mash plus the Fourth of July) you can see an electric light up there, (as seen here on the far left). 

But this shot wasn’t taken at nightime. That’s the noonday sun shining off of the westward face of the four-yard-tall mini-pyramid that tops the whole shebang.

Click to expand:. A seen from the brand spanking new Crissy Field Overlook in the Presidio:   

Here’s a better look in black and white from the same angle just a few minutes later:

Of course, you can still see the reflected light but the intensity is about a hundred times less than the direct reflection seen in the colour photo.

It’s probably a polished metal panel up there, possibly aluminum.

Look for the Star of the Pyramid - you just might see it someday, if the sun lines up just right.