First, it was all like this, with only a solitary person to play, night after night.
But now, it’s all like this:
Click to expand
An actual late-night chess scene on the west side running way past the time when the east side chess players on the 1000 block of Market in the crime-ridden Uptown Tenderloin have packed up and gone home?
Hurray!
West si-iiiide!
Western A!
Boy, if there’s anything I hate it’s got to be all them foreigners what come to my City and County of San Francisco to empty their pockets and then leave. You know? I’m talking about the hordes from Belgium and Sicily and Marin County and the goddam East Bay coming here and just sucking up all the oxygen and walking around like they own the place.
So I was overjoyed when RPD started charging admission at the San Francisco Botanical Garden (fka Helene Strybing Arboretum, but she got old and died so nobody cares about her anymore, you know, the lady what paid for the place) cause I live here in the 415 so I can walk in just by showing my ID. I love that, it makes me feel special, I just walk past those loosers and I say something like, “Suck-eeeeers!” Or, “I’m a Neighbor, I’m a Res-I-Dent, bi-atches. Respect!” You know, something clever like that.
So imagine my shock when I first saw this GroupOn-style deal. See that? The SFBG is now half-off for auslanders!
I don’t know, but won’t this encourage visits? I mean, aren’t we trying to empty the arbo of people and starve out the squirrels and the Canada Geese in order to become “world-class” ‘n stuff?
And won’t this cut into revenue? Aren’t there some days already when the total gross doesn’t even cover expenses to charge people to get in? You know, talking about those $11-an-hour-no-benefits toll-takers. (Hey, shouldn’t the people who sell tickets in those boxes be in a union too? Couldn’t they have a vote, you know, get the NLRB in here to monitor a little election? Why not?)
On It Goes…
The New York Times, The Bay Citizen – you pick ‘em:
Charging Fees to See Trees at Golden Gate Park’s Arboretum Doesn’t Even Pay the Bills
Arboretum Fees Don’t Even Pay the Bills
Yep and yep.
Is Phil Ginsburg the new village idiot now that the old Mayor has blown town? Does Phil Ginsburg have a “Life Coach” too, you know, someone to tell him how he’s always right and how he can See The Future better than anyone else? Tony Robbins, here we come.
Anyway, for some reason, our Strybing Arboretum needs to impress people on the East Coast, people in Boston, New York, and D.C. You know, an “Our arbo is better than your arbo” kind of deal. That’s what drives the Great Fencing Off of Strybing. And you taxpayers, you visitors, you foreigners, you auslanders, well you can just go to Hell.
Oh well.
The Moon-Viewing Garden as it looked before the Botanical Garden Boycott of 2010 to whenever:
Click to expand
So many koi, so little time….
All right, imagine you are in charge of running the paid admissions program at San Francisco Botanical Garden in Golden Gate Park. (Now, I’m going to make things hard on you by picking December 8th, 2010 to run this exercise, so brace yourself.)
Of course, you can only charge people who can’t prove they live in San Francisco and you have two gates to worry about so it’s tough. Your Main Gate got six paid visitors on Dec 8th so you took in $42 at $7 per. And the Friend Gate (that was dude’s last name, but apparently RPD will take your name off of whatever they used your money to fund after you die (like Strybing Arboretum, the former name of the whole joint)), aka North Gate, well, three teens came in that day so that’s $15 at $5 per head.
Your gross for the day is $57. The question is how much should you pay the two ticket seller/SF resident ID checkers in your employ to make the program to charge admission to non-residents sustainable?
Maybe one dollar per hour? Check it:
Well actually, the non-unionized toll-booth collectors make $11 an hour (since the minimum is $9.92, no benefits of course) so that the Arboretum can make enough scratch to fund three (3) unionized gardeners who make a lot more and, of course, get benefits.
Here are all the deets that I have about the paid admissions program:
Click to expand.
Now, what about San Francisco residents? How is that boycott coming along? Well, you make the call:
Free Admissions- Arboretum 2010
Hey, what if we charged everybody, residents and non-residents alike, money to get in? Wouldn’t that cut down on visitors even more?
Well, sure. Its all has to do with the elasticity of demand – how many people will just forget about the arbo (as I’ve already done) when they start having to pay.
Keep in mind that you taxpayers are still giving a ton of money each year to the San Francisco Botanical Gardens. Maybe they should just go private? You know, could just raise money to buy the land and then the new owners could run the place as they see fit? Why not? It would save San Franciscans a lot of money every year, right?
Now, Supervisor John Avalos has a solution to all this – he has an idea to take down the pay gates.
We should all listen to him.
But guess what, the Arbo is working on newer, betterer toll gates to replace the temporary boxes on wheels they use now.
This should be quite a fight…
[UPDATE: The Tenderloin Geographic Society takes note - dude's still at it...]
This guy sets his table up out there some knights. Not sure if he’s doing street chess the likes of which you’ll learn about in this bit from Chris Roberts.
You ought to head over to Garden Alley (the driver’s friend, seriously) some evening and see if he’s up for a match.
Never seen him actually playing anyone else tho….
Reminds me of Omega Man, playing chess and looking out for the zombies…
[UPDATE: I can now say that I've seen somebody playing with him, once anyway.]
Here it is, it’s the Tenderloin People’s Garden at McAllister and Larkin in the Civic Center / Little Saigon / Tenderloin / “Uptown” Tenderloin area.
Check out the basil and tomatoes. It’s like Automatic For The People.
Get all the deets from the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation.
Click to expand
Once again, it’s on, the annual Garden Railway exhibit at our Conservatory of Flowers is on.
Check it out from November 19th, 2010 through March 13th, 2011.
Click to expand
And here’s a fresh shot from Nina Sazevich:
All the deets, after the jump
See you there!
I remember our former Strybing Arboretum (home to red foxes, pink berries, orange hummingbirds, yellow poppies, green beer cans, or rather, green herons, blue herons, indigo blue jays, and violet flowers – I think that’s pretty close to Roy G. Biv, that rainbow mnemonic I learned in junior high school back in the 80′s, back before you were born).
I remember Strybing, currently known as the “world-class” San Francisco Botanical Garden, back before the boycott started a couple months ago. It was a colorful place.
I remember thinking that if people temporarily stopped going to Strybing during the 12 month trial period, then the workers getting paid $11 an hour to collect your $7 admission / scrutinize your photo ID would have the chance to find new jobs instead huddling in a wooden pillbox on caster wheels all the live long day. And then, once again, anyone could enter, just the way it was for the past 65 years.
I remember.
I think these trees are the ones atop Heidelberg Hill – they’re whichever ones you can see looking south from the Waterfowl (Wildfowl?) Pond. (300mm lens plus a lot of digital zoom.) Click to expand
Well, the former Goodman’s Lumber finally has a new occupant and it’s up and running.
Finally.
Get all the deets of this morning’s grand opening celebration, below.
MAYOR NEWSOM JOINS BAYVIEW HUNTERS POINT LEADERS AND NEW EMPLOYEES FROM COMMUNITY TO OPEN LOWE’S HOME IMPROVEMENT ON BAYSHORE BOULEVARD
New Lowe’s Home Improvement & Company’s Commitment to Local Employment Boosts Bayview Hunters Point Economic Development and Anchors New Bayshore Boulevard Home Improvement District
San Francisco, CA—Mayor Gavin Newsom today joined Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, Bayview Hunters Point community leaders and new employees from the community for a grand opening celebration of Lowe’s Home Improvement at its first San Francisco location at 491 Bayshore Boulevard. The brand new store, the former site of Goodman Lumber, has 80,000 square feet of retail space, 11,000 of which is a garden center tailored to the California climate, and will stock over 32,000 products. Mayor Newsom and community leaders also praised the company for its commitment to hiring local members of the community, boosting the economic revitalization of the new Bayshore Boulevard Home Improvement District and creating new local jobs.
“Today we celebrate not just the opening of a new store, but new hope and a new commitment to the economic development and jobs for the people of the Bayview Hunters Point community,” said Mayor Newsom. “Bayshore Boulevard has served as a vital home improvement commercial corridor in San Francisco for decades, and this new Lowe’s will foster the growth and revitalization of the neighborhood and boost our local economy.”
Lowe’s has been committed to supporting the community, both through their corporate donations and local hiring practices. Approximately 312 construction jobs were generated by the Lowe’s development project and of those jobs, about 126 constructions jobs were filled by San Francisco residents with nearly 60 positions by Bayview Hunters Point residents. In addition to construction jobs created, permanent retail and administrative positions were produced to ensure a well staffed store. The Lowe’s team on Bayshore consists of 210 employees and, of those employees, 185 members of the team are San Francisco residents with 81 team members who are residents of the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood.
For more than 60 years, Lowe’s has been providing home improvement shoppers with a wide range of home improvement products. Lowe’s has also continued to give back to the community. To date, Lowe’s has committed $100,000 to the San Francisco Day Laborer Program, $50,000 to San Francisco’s Adopt-A-Tree Program, $5,000 to Clean City Coalition’s Tool Lending Library, and $1,000 to Thurgood Marshall High School. In addition to these contributions, Lowe’s will host a Gift Card Match Day, during which customers can purchase a Lowe’s Gift Card and Lowe’s will match purchases of gift cards up to $5,000 to support Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco’s next building project.
People have been tooling around Golden Gate Park in their cars for more than 100 years, but it’s never been tougher than now to get around and find a space on the weekends.
This is what MLK Drive looks like from 9th Avenue on a summer weekend – it’s a parking lot. You’d be better off walking:
Click to expand
And here’s where you’ll find cyclists and bikers on MLK when things are bad – they just lane-split in the middle of the road. That’s how bad it can get.
But you want to carry your brood to the de Young Museum or the California Academy of Sciences anyway, right?
Now, if you want to approach the park from the north, from the Richmond District and then head right to that $4 per hour Music Concourse garage, well then be my guest. The problem with that is that the garage gets full sometimes. In that case, you should be able to (eventually) find a space on Fulton (for free on Sundays and some holidays.)
Or you could make a try for Stow Lake, where it’s always free to park. Pretty easy to get to from the south. Just follow the blue arrows past the boat house - if you can find a place near the east end of the lake then you’ll have to walk just a couple minutes to get to wherever you’re going.
Whatever you do, don’t try to circle the Music Concourse or use MLK between 9th Ave. and the southern entrance to Stow Lake. You’ll be traveling at one MPH if you’re lucky and there’s a good chance the southern garage entrance will be blocked off. You’d be better off trying to find a free space on MLK east of 7th Ave. or on Lincoln (where it’s free to park on Sundays.)
Bon courage.
