Posts Tagged ‘japantown’
Saturday, March 6th, 2010
This was the scene at Geary and Steiner in the Western Addition / Japantown area today as hundreds gathered to see the debut of the new Hamilton Recreation Center and Pool. This place has it all – basketball, tennis courts, giant murals, the works.
Click to expand
After hearing a performance from students at the Willie L. Brown, Jr. College Preparatory Academy…
…and some brief heckling from Giants Cap, who wants laid-off RPD employees rehired…
…out comes Ross Mirkarimi, your District 5 Supervisor, to give his stemwinder, as seen on this CNN iReport (entitled “‘Bay Area Girls’” Teanage Girls perform [Pat Benatar's 'I love Rock and Roll'] at the Inaugural of the Hamilton Recreation Center”) and then cut the ribbon:
The mise-en-scene inside - it’s like a mini water park. Throw in an orca or two and then there’d be no reason to travel to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (aka Marine World) in Vallejo:
But who’s that atop the ladder for the yellow slide wearing his street clothes? It’s Ross!
Here he comes down the slide…
…and here’s the aftermath, looked like fun. Bill Wilson should have some good shots of the wettened supe. [Like this.]
OTOH, the orange slide is terrifying, apparently:
(I think you’re supposed to cross your arms like you’re an ejecting pilot – that’s what some people were doing in the orange tube/slide contraption.)
Not sure how much it costs to employ six(!) lifeguards (that would seem a lot more than required at slide-free Sava Pool in the Parkside) but oh well.
Bon courage, Ham Rec!
Tags: (415), 1900, 2010, 5, 6, 6th, b ball, band, basketball, bay area girls, blvd., board of supervisors, boulevard, center, City Hall, courts, cut, debut, department, dept., district, district 5, expressway, fillmore, five, geary, gym water, ham rec, hamilton, hamilton rec, i love rock and roll, japantown, kick off, kickoff, life guards, lifeguards, march, Mirkarimi, mural, opening, orange, park and recreation, parks and recreation, pat benatar, playground, pool, post, recreation, recreation and park, Recreation and Park Department, ribbon, ribbon cutting, ross, ross mirkarimi, rpd, San Francisco, scott, SF, slides, splash, steiner, street, Supervisor, swim, swimming, swimsuit, tennis, waterslides, western addition, wet, yellow
Posted in parks | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Well it’s late January in San Francisco so it’s time for our sidewalk plum trees to begin blossoming. Yeah, they look a lot like cherry trees and that causes people around town to start talking about how global warming / climate change is making the cherry trees of April wake up three months early or something.
You can double-check with the Friends of the Urban Forest if you want, but I’ll tell you, those flashes of pink you see brightening up the otherwise-dreary Streets of San Francsico these days are early-rising Prunus blireiana, aka Flowering Plum trees, or something similar.
Be patient and you’ll be rewarded with real cherry trees in March – check out the sked at the San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park.
If this January blossom is cherry, I’ll eat my hat:
This will be the scene in the Financh in a couple of months – our wild parrots love all kinds of prunus blossoms of course.
Take heart, Spring is just around the corner…
Tags: 2010, april, balmy, bloom, blossom, cherry, climate change, day, February, Festival, global warming, golden gate park, ground, groundhog, hanami, hog, january, Japanese, japantown, march, plum, post, sakura, San Francisco, spring, street, tree, warm
Posted in flora | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
You all know Webster Street, right? It’s Fillmore’s little buddy, taking people from Market Street north all the way up to our mismanaged Marina Yacht Harbor.
But take a look here to see what happens after it crosses Hayes Street. It turns into boulevard for some odd reason, for some 11 blocks, only to shrink back down again into a regular street at the intersection at Bush.
Looking north. The traffic heading up this street, (like the silver SUV) needs to jog right to get on the other side of the very wide median See that? It’s goes parking lane, bike lane, slow lane, fast lane, huge median, fast lane, slow lane, bike lane, and then another parking lane:
Here’s a bird’s-eye view. From Grove to Bush, from the Western Addition to “Little Osaka” (the cartographers’ favorite term for what people actually call Japantown in real life) it’s an unbusy boulevard, for an only-Gaia-knows-why purpose:
I cry foul.
Here’s a modest proposal – why not de-boulevard (v.t.) Webster by getting rid of the useless treed-up median and the twin northbound lanes for the entire three-quarters of a mile? Would anybody miss the median and the extra lanes? I mean, Fillmore does the all the heavy lifting with traffic and buses and whatnot, right?
That would leave us with 200,000 square feet of space to do whatever we want with. What would you do with 3.5 football fields worth of space?
In Japantown, some people already want to shut down the northbound lanes for extra parking or for temporarily housing businesses displaced by planned seismic upgrades for buildings on Post Street. But why not just kill the whole boulevard now in one fell swoop?
(Poorly-designed Octavia Boulevard has the opposite problem of having too much stalled traffic idling away, blocking travelers journeying east and west. Oh well.)
In conclusion:
What do we want?
A de-boulevarded Webster Street!
When do we want it?
Now!
(Repeat as necessary.)
Tags: alley, avenue, bike, boulevard, bridge, bush, cyclists, de-boulevard, deboulevard, fillmore, grove, hayes, ivy, j-town, japantown, jtown, lane, little osaka, mall, median, parking, pedestrians, post, San Francisco, street, strret, trees, webster, western addition, wide
Posted in streets | 3 Comments »
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
Get up to speed first.
Now, here are the debut menus for Baker & Banker. Click to expand:
The neighbors, like Ashley H., seemed pleased, anyway:
“I live right around the block from Baker & Banker, and when I saw that a new restaurant was opening I was so excited to try it out, so I went for opening night, and it was great!
The inside decor is pretty nice and simple with low lighting and mirrors on the walls. To start I had a salad with goat cheese, pomegranate, persimmon, and I think pear, which was super delicious. It was a nice light way to start out the meal. For my main course, I had the scallop dish with brussel sprout leaves and sun choke puree, and it was superb! For desert I had the cheese cake apple crisp, and as a cheesecake expert, it was a great mixture of a traditional cheesecake with apple in the middle – I totally recommend it!
For me this place is a really cute neighborhood restaurant, and I definitely plan on going back. I also think it’s definitely worth a trip even if you aren’t in the neighborhood – it’s great!”
Tags: +3, 1, 1701 octavia, 2, 2009, 4, American, baker, Baker & Banker, baker and banker, banker, bar, bus, bush, Collin Casey, contemporary, Cuisine, december, Designer, director, home, japantown, jeff banker, lori baker, market-driven, meetinghouse, menu, menus, michael brennan, Muni, New American, nimby, nimbys, octavia, open table, opening, pac heights, pacific heights, pine, quince, reservations, restaurant, San Francisco, wine, yelp
Posted in food and drink | Comments Off
Monday, November 30th, 2009
Combining our twin obsessions of food and money, it’s Baker & Banker! And they’re all set to serve up steak, cast-iron potatoes and more starting this week (probably tomorrow, December 1, 2009) at 1701 Octavia betwixt Bush and Pine.
Will our Quince replacement get along well with its NIMBY-ish neighbors in this residential hood? We Can Only Hope.
As it looked a few weeks back:
Eater SF has the deets:
“As you’ll recall, Jeff Banker (of Home fame) and his wife Lori Baker are opening a new American, “welcoming neighborhood restaurant” there, and lo and behold, it’s coming along quite nicely. Notable designer Michael Brennan has spruced up the cozy interior with some dark leather banquettes and a dark wood bar…”
Why don’t you drop by sometime and see the results of the efforts of this cute couple? It’s already(!) rated five stars on Yelp, so that’s a good(?) sign.
The aforementioned Baker and Banker:
More details, after the jump.
Bon courage, B&B!
(more…)
Tags: +3, 1, 1701 octavia, 2, 2009, 4, American, baker, Baker & Banker, baker and banker, banker, bar, bus, bush, Collin Casey, contemporary, Cuisine, december, Designer, director, home, japantown, jeff banker, lori baker, market-driven, meetinghouse, michael brennan, Muni, New American, nimby, nimbys, octavia, open table, opening, pac heights, pacific heights, pine, quince, reservations, restaurant, San Francisco, wine, yelp
Posted in food and drink | Comments Off
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
I finally caught this tiny 1957-or-later Fiat Nuova 500 at rest. It was my white whale but it eludes me no longer.
(Mistakenly thought they called these things Topolinos (little mice), oh well.)
See it parked next to a normal car? Click to expand:
Kimochi (meaning “good feelings,” or “feelings of respect and concern for the older generations“) Inc. is “a non profit organization dedicated to the well-being of seniors in the San Francisco Bay Area.” That’s where the 500 was parked.
Look for this orange cutie when you’re on the Streets of San Francisco. Zoom zoom.
Tags: 500, car, fiat, inc, japantown, kimochi, laguna, nuova, orange, San Francisco, street, tiny
Posted in cars | Comments Off
Saturday, October 17th, 2009
You can learn a lot when you visit San Francisco’s Japantown
The Great Mall of Buchanan, at night:
Click to expand
Tags: boat, Buchanan, crane, fune, horse, j-town, japantown, mall, night, San Francisco, sign, street, tsuru, uma
Posted in Uncategorized, streets | Comments Off
Thursday, September 24th, 2009
Mother Nature is slowly reclaiming Hamilton Recreation Center at 1960 Geary Boulevard in the 94115. See?
Welcome to the Land of Wind and Ghosts, San Francisco, CA:
Click to expand
Some cities near Chernobyl, Ukraine were evacuated after Reaktor 4 had a “power excursion” causing the famous Mini Meltdown of 1986 (the one that threw up 400 times as much fallout as the bomb at Hiroshima.) Those ghost towns probably have similar scenes…
Tags: 94115, accident, atomic, blvd., boulevard, center, chernobyl, courts, decay, dental, dentist, department, dept., disaster, geary, ghost, ginsburg, hamilton, japantown, nuclear, park, parks, phil, pool, post, pripyat, Projects, rec, rec center, recreation, redevelopment, rpd, San Francisco, scott, steiner, street, students, tennis, town, uop, western addition
Posted in sports | 2 Comments »
Saturday, September 12th, 2009
Were you “jolted awake by a blinding white fireball that engulfed” your building this morning around 8:36 AM, Saturday 12, 2009? If so, you were not alone. And if you miss that kind of stuff, as world-famous Xeni Jardin does, then you’re not alone, again!
It sounded like an airplane crashing into the Fillmore Center, if you happened to be at the intersection of Geary and Divisidero as I happened to be. Was it a groundstrike into Hayes Valley or the Western Addition or (or the NoPA, oh no, not the NoPA!) or Pacific Heights?
Of course the Pigs Giraffes & Elephants at our local PG&E power monopoly were dealing with power outages earlier this morning, but some additional service was lost by this big strike. (“Saint Francis Woods,” like there’s more than one? Where do these writers live, freaking Walnut Creek?) Utility workers should focus their attention on soggy Golden Gate Park to make sure that Alanis Morrissette can put on her show this afternoon at Power to the Peaceful.
Did a transformer get hit? We’ll find out soon enough. Power at Post and Webster was out this morning just after the Big Boom of 9-12-9, so the strike couldn’t have been too far away.
Courage people, courage.
[UPDATE: Jay Barmann at SFist has the scoop. Here's the clap of thunder (craaaaaack!) and here's the result via PDX503. That's one less Audi, Chariot of the Yuppie, on the Streets of San Francisco.]
If only Megan Fox were here, to fix our transformer.
Oh, here she is, fixing the transformer of a 1969 Camaro in the movie Transformers:
Or maybe PG&E, perhaps they could help….
It was Miller Time at the scene of yesterday’s lightening strike after workers towed away the cars and patched things back up. Actually, strike that, the bolt darkened the ground so let’s call it a darkening strike.
For all you do, this Miller Time is for you.
Tags: 8:36, 8:40, Alanis Morrissette, am, Big Boom of 9-12-9, City Hall, divisidero, dpw, electricity, fillmore center, fireball, geary, grove, j-town, japantown, lighting, loud, morning, noise, NOPA, octavia, pacific heights, pg&e, police, post, power, power to the peaceful, rain, San Francisco, SFPD, sleep, street, strike, thunder, transformer, wake, weather, webster, western addition, woke, woken up
Posted in weather | Comments Off
