Posts Tagged ‘neighborhood’
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
Things were worse back in aught-seven, back when drivers waiting to fill up at the always-cheap ARCO station on Fell Street in the EaPA would queue up in the bike lane. But it’s no picnic these days neither, as you can see in this shot from a few days ago:
Well, comes now award-winning Michael Helquist of BIKE NOPA to learn us about planned changes:
“‘We have a design hashed out to take out parking on the south side of Fell Street,’ James Shahamiri, MTA Assistant Traffic Engineer, told BIKE NOPA. The new design would designate the former parking spaces as a curbside queue for motorists awaiting entry to the gas station.”
(IMO, that’s a painfully obvious solution that any other town in ‘Merica would have implemented years ago when the issue first cropped up. But oh well.)
So, you see them cars parked on the left side? You know, the Porsche 944 (or 968?), the Saturn S-Series, and the Honda CR-V cute-ute SUV? They’re parked in spaces that could soon be the ARCO queue.
What’s that, NIMBY? Over your dead body you say? O.K., well, I think this cake is already baked, but maybe you’ll be able to hear more about all the deets at this meeting:
Thursday, March 18th
7:00 pm, visit with neighbors
7:30 pm, meeting begins
9:00 pm , meeting ends
Change is Good, huh?
Tags: 1775, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 76, arco, area, Assistant, association, automobiles, autos, bicycle, bike, BIKE NOPA, block, blocking, BP, cars, cyclists, divisadero, divisidero, EaPA, east of panhandle, engineer, fell, fulton, gas, gasloline, golden gate park, intersection, James Shahamiri, jannah, lane, Line, meeting, metropolitan transportation agency, Metropolitan Transportation Authority, michael helquist, mta, Muni, neighborhood, nimby, NOPA, nopna, north of panhandle, oak, panhandle, parking, queue, San Francisco, SF, sfist, SFMTA, Station, street, traffic, union, vehicles, wait, Waiting
Posted in bikes, cars | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
Like these guys.
It would take forever to make it up the stairs to the top of controversial landmark Sutro Tower, so a swaying elevator car is the preferred method.
Click to expand to get a closer look at a sunnier, more colorful San Francisco:
Take the tour.
Tags: 11, 12, 14, 2, 2009, 29, 30, 34, 4.4, 41, 42, 45, 5, 65, 66, 7, 9, ABC, analog, analogue, antenna, antennae, antennas, association, auxilliary, AZT, bay area, broadcast, c. w., cable, cbs, digital, dt, DTV, elevator, Forest Knolls Neighborhood Organization, forrest, Forrest Knolls, Forrest Knolls Neighborhood Organization, fox, gump, High, hill, home, Improvement, inc. sutro tower inc, incorporated, ion, KBCW, KDTV, KFSt TEL, kgo, KKPX, KNTV, KPIX, kqed, KRON, KTNc, ktvu, low, Midtown Terrace, Midtown Terrace Home Owners Association, mount, nbc, neighborhood, nimbies, nimby, nimbys, Owners, pbs, power, radio, re-scanning, red, rescanning, San Francisco, scan, scanning, stairs, sutro, sutro tower, television, tons, twin peaks, Twin Peaks Improvement Association, UNI, white, workers
Posted in TV, architecture | 3 Comments »
Friday, January 15th, 2010
Didn’t make it to the entire meeting of the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council yesterday but everything seemed pretty copacetic from what I could see. A representative from Whole Foods made a presentation about their proposed store at 690 Stanyan. Then came the Q and A:
Will they have organic food? Yes. Will they have stuff on sale sometimes? Yes. That’s how it went.
Attention developers – this is the kind of get-together you need to hold before you can begin developing in San Francisco. Paying thousands of dollars a year to nearby community groups, as Sutro Tower, Inc. does, might also help but outreach meetings like these are mandatory. Just saying.
The next stop is a rubber stamp from the Planning Commission on January 28th. Then you can look forward to having a place to shop for Thanksgiving in Autumn.
Hooray!
Tags: $28, 1833 page, 2010, 690, 94117, ashbury, branch, cala, calvin welch, clayton, cole, commission, council, district 5, food, grocery, haight, haihgt, hanc, january, library, market, meeting, neighborhood, nimby, nimbys, page, park, Planning, San Francisco, spate, stanyan, store, street, upper, whole foods
Posted in food and drink | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
It’s all going down this Thursday, January 14th, 2010, at the Park Branch Library on Page Street in the Upper Haight – representatives from Whole Foods will be on hand to discuss their proposed new store at Stanyan and Haight.
Get some history on this projecto here, courtesy of Curbed SF. And read “the whole story” from purported “fossil”Calvin Welch right here.
The proposed residences upstairs are no longer in the works but there’s still lots to argue about. Grab your pink popcorn and show up at the library at 7:00 PM for the next Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council Community Meeting:
See you there!*
*At the meeting, not at Whole Foods, which is too rich for my blood.
Tags: $28, 1833 page, 2010, 690, 94117, ashbury, branch, cala, calvin welch, clayton, cole, commission, council, district 5, food, grocery, haight, haihgt, hanc, january, library, market, meeting, neighborhood, nimby, nimbys, page, park, Planning, San Francisco, spate, stanyan, store, street, upper, whole foods
Posted in food and drink | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
Via Jamie Whitaker’s Rincon Hill blog comes news of a fight against consideration of the so-called “Beale Street Alternative“ for the San Francsico terminus of California’s nascent High Speed Rail line.
I don’t have a dog in this hunt, but you, well take a gander if you’d like:
Targeting: Supervisor Chris Daly (District 6, City and County of San Francisco Board of Supervisor), Medhi Morshed (Executive Director, CA High Speed Rail Authority) and Curt Pringle (Chair of the Board, CA High Speed Rail Authority)
Started by: April Veneracion
Demand the California High Speed Rail Authority stop its consideration of the infeasible Beale Street Alternative that is…
· Risking over $400 million in federal funding to the Transbay Transit Center
· Harming property values in the South Beach neighborhood of San Francisco
· Wasting millions of Prop 1A dollars on study of infeasible alternatives that should be spent on construction”
So that’s the issue. All the deets, below.
Quentin Kopp with youthful HSR supporters at San Francisco City Hall during happier times last year:
The whole magilla:
“As a strong supporter of building High Speed Rail throughout the state and into San Francisco’s downtown Transbay Transit Center, I am appalled at your consideration of the Beale Street Alternative. This study is not only wasteful, it risks over $400 million in federal funding for the Transbay Transit Center and is harming property values in the South Beach neighborhood of San Francisco.
Your study of the Beale Street Alternative was proposed to you by a lobbying and law firm on behalf of an unidentified special interest. This location has already been rejected as a technically and economically infeasible terminus for High Speed Rail in San Francisco. San Franciscans overwhelmingly voted for Proposition 1A to bring high speed rail to our Transit Center. Your study of the Beale Street Alternative, widely thought to be pushed by Board Member Quentin Kopp, is a wasteful expenditure of limited Proposition 1A money that should be applied to construction of the project.
With the passage of Proposition 1A, we believe that your study of the Beale Street Alternative is illegal. The voter approved mandate codifies in State law that the northern terminus for high speed rail will be the Transbay Transit Center.
The Transbay Transit Center is a federally approved project currently in construction in downtown San Francisco that has received the support of the San Francisco electorate on multiple occasions. Over $2 billion in funds have already been secured, independent of Proposition 1A. This Center is designed to accommodate high speed rail to downtown San Francisco.
The existence of this project is reason enough to drop your study of the Beale Street Alternative. Additionally, the Beale Street Alternative would likely result in the taking of more than 1,800 current and future residential units in the South of Market area. Your study alone has made many of our homes unmarketable by the required disclosure of your irresponsible study into any potential home sale. In contrast, the approved downtown extension to Transbay will take only 2 dozen residences. Given San Francisco’s housing crisis, this is a far more reasonable approach.
Meanwhile, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority has applied for $400 million in ARRA funds to build the rail box in the Transit Center. While this application has the support of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Mayor Gavin Newsom, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, we understand that the Federal Rail Authority has expressed concern about your Beale Street Alternative. We are worried that the Beale Street Alternative is not about adequately addressing environmental issues, it’s about political brinkmanship.
It’s time to put high speed rail to San Francisco back on track.
As a supporter of high speed rail and Proposition 1A, I demand you halt your irresponsible study of the infeasible Beale Street Alternatives. I also ask that you hold a formal meeting of the California High Speed Rail Authority in San Francisco, to hold yourselves accountable to the people whose properties and projects you are jeopardizing.”
To Be Continued…
Tags: alternative, association, authority, beale, caltrain, Chris daly, Curt Pringle, High Speed Rail, hill, hsr, jamie whitaker, Judge, Medhi Morshed, mission, neighborhood, petition, Quentin Kopp, rincon, rincon hill, soma, south of market, Station, street, Supervisor, terminal, terminus, transbay
Posted in travel | 1 Comment »
Thursday, November 19th, 2009
Not that you’d really be able to tell, though. Sutro Tower Inc. has just finished a project that had some of the digital TV broadcast antennas (not “antennae” – that plural term is only used for bugs in our silly English language) gaining a higher altitude.
Not much howver, maybe a seven-percent increase, max. Does that make a big difference? No, not for most people, but at least STI is trying.
Here’s the antenna of KPIX-TV (OMG, that’s the home of Eye on Blogs – big ups, Brittney Gilbert!) a way up top, like 1700 feet above sea level. Now Channel 5 is as high as possible:
Click to expand
The Future is Now, and what’s labeled “CURRENT” is history:
From this:
To this:
Well, they were still wrapping the KPIX, KRON, KTVU antenna assembly, but you get the idea.
So it looks like we’re all set with the Great Digital TV Conversion of 2009. As long as Sutro Tower doesn’t get hit by a shooting star….
…we’ll be all right.
Tags: 11, 12, 14, 2, 2009, 29, 30, 34, 4.4, 41, 42, 45, 5, 65, 66, 7, 9, ABC, analog, analogue, antenna, antennae, antennas, association, auxilliary, AZT, bay area, broadcast, c. w., cable, cbs, channel 2, channel 4, channel 5, channel 7, chronicle, Chronicle Publishing, clarendon, conversion, Cox Broadcasting, digital, dt, DTV, emf, Examiner, Forest Knolls Neighborhood Organization, forrest, Forrest Knolls, Forrest Knolls Neighborhood Organization, fox, gump, High, hill, home, Improvement, inc. sutro tower inc, incorporated, ion, KBCW, KDTV, KFSt TEL, kgo, KGO-TV, KKPX, KNTV, KPIX, kqed, KRON, KTNc, ktvu, law school, low, Midtown Terrace, Midtown Terrace Home Owners Association, mount, nbc, neighborhood, nimbies, nimby, nimbys, Owners, pbs, Peace and Love and Noticing the Details, pelosi, power, radio, re-scanning, red, rescanning, ronald, San Francisco, scan, scanning, Stephen R. Barnett, STI, sutro, sutro tower, Sutro Tower Inc, television, tons, tower, TV, twin peaks, Twin Peaks Improvement Association, UNI, USF, Westinghouse Broadcasting, white
Posted in TV | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
San Francisco’s famous Sutro Tower (owned by Sutro Tower, Inc., the buyer-offer and $hutter-upperof San Francisco’s mid-town NIMBYs) has a new look for Fall.
Here’s Before (a way back in August 2009)…
…und jetzt After, the way it looks these days (when being buzzed by a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700 NG heading to El Lay, camera right, see it?)
Click to expand
Très chic! Non?
Now, she’s all set for the next meteor shower:
Courage.
Tags: 11, 12, 14, 2, 2009, 29, 30, 34, 4.4, 41, 42, 45, 5, 65, 66, 7, 9, ABC, analog, analogue, antenna, antennae, antennas, association, auxilliary, AZT, bay area, broadcast, c. w., cable, cbs, change, digital, dt, DTV, east, Forest Knolls Neighborhood Organization, forrest, Forrest Knolls, Forrest Knolls Neighborhood Organization, fox, gump, High, hill, home, Improvement, inc. sutro tower inc, incorporated, ion, KBCW, KDTV, KFSt TEL, kgo, KKPX, KNTV, KPIX, kqed, KRON, KTNc, ktvu, low, Midtown Terrace, Midtown Terrace Home Owners Association, mount, nbc, neighborhood, nimbies, nimby, nimbys, north, Owners, pbs, power, radio, re-scanning, red, rescanning, San Francisco, scan, scanning, south, stack, sutro, sutro tower, television, tons, twin peaks, Twin Peaks Improvement Association, UNI, west, white
Posted in TV | Comments Off
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
[UPDATE: Whoops, apparently the Chronicle has two Andrew Rosses covering similar beats? Oh noes! Well, all the better. Speaking of mistakes, what are the odds that I'll see a lit up snowflake on Market Street tonight? About 100%, based on the past two weeks' observation. Oh well. Good thing those snowflakes don't use petroleum-based electricity, huh?]
You see, normally the San Francisco Chronicle’s Andrew S. Ross is lumped together with PhilMatier, thusly:
But sometimes they let him run wild and unchained, all by his lonesome, thusly:
As here, where Andrew Ross gives his take on the order of battle of this morning’s Whole Foods Showdown: Six Flags Over Noe Valley, Don’t Mess With Texas. See what Andrew did there? He fleshed things out, he gave more detail, he added to the story.
Que bueno!
(Now, you give those limited column inches to somebody like C.W. Nevius to check in with 24th Street and what would you get? Well, maybe vitriol and emotion, and maybe that would be it. Oh well.)
Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with M&R together (a quarter mil. we have to pay for horrible, soon-to-be-cancelled Trauma, where the average worker, we’re talking median and mode here, makes rock-bottom minimum wage?), but they should let Andrew out of the bizness ghetto and allow him to run wild over any and all subjects of the day
And that’s the The Bottom Line.
[UPDATE: Whole Foods has started to construct a defensive wall made of pumpkins, but how strong could it be? We'll find out soon enough.]
[UPDATE 2, Electric Boogaloo: War Reporter Andy Wright has extensive coverage from the field of battle]
Tags: 24th, 24th street, 30, 30th, 3950 24th, Andrew Ross, andrew s ross, association, bags, bell, bevan, blog, boycott, Bread Baking Ceremony, CEO, chronicle, Church Street, Community Benefit District, dufty, editorial, facebook, Friends, girlcott, goodie, goody, grand, grocery, health care, healthcare, inc, Jennifer Dobrowolski, John, John Mackey, Mackey, market, matier, Mayor, Merchants, neighborhood, neighbors, nimbies, nimby, nimbys, noe, Noe Valley, NVMPA, opening, payola, Professionals, protesters, Reform, ross, San Francisco, september, single payer, street, supermarket, upper, upscale, wall street journal, wez, whole foods
Posted in protests | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
Oh, it’s going to be on tomorrow morning at the Grand Opening of the new Whole Foods at 3950 24th Street in The Valley. San Francisco’s fifth WF will start the sacred Bread Baking Ceremony at the same time protesters arrive to raise a ruckus about health care reform and CEO John Mackey, mkay?
Everyone is welcome to the store and the protest – highly unlike the invite-only events Whole Foods has recently held for the fearsome neighborhood groups. It’s called outreach or something. Whole Foods just ought to put these neighborhood associations on the payroll the way Sutro Tower, Inc. pays money to neighborhood groups around Mount Sutro to shut them up. A little payola (or granola in a huge goodie bag) can go a long way when you’re trying to placate the NIMBYs, of course.
Anywho, be there at 9:45 AM tomorrow to see San Francisco’s upscale version of Harlan County, USA.
And just think, after the boycott, “You’ll feel proud to come in and get food to serve to your family, friends, and neighbors.” Remember how embarrassed you were serving up that slop from the old Bell Market? Those days are over, soon as the boycott ends.
And if you’re not boycotting, sign up for the store tour on Tuesday, October 6th:
Tuesday Tours: A Taste of Whole Foods Market
10-11am Please sign up in advance, but the tour is FREE and limited in size. | Details
Both seasoned shoppers and new customers can benefit from a guided store tour, especially with so many unique choices available! In this tour, we’ll showcase what we mean when we say we offer all-natural, real food, at the best possible price. This is your chance to ask, listen and learn everything you want to know about our market. Please sign up in advance, but the tour is FREE and limited in size.
And here’s the bacchanalia you were excluded from:
“We are eagerly awaiting our opening next week on Wednesday, September 30th ! We have been working hard and are so delighted that we’re almost there! Further, we feel incredibly grateful for the support, well wishes, humor, smiles and hospitality that our new community has shown us! As a very small token of our thanks, we’d like to invite you to join us at our very own “Whole Foods Market Tapas Truck” on Saturday, September 26th from 11a-2p (really it’s a Taco Truck, but we’ll be serving Spanish Tapas—but you can’t miss it in our parking lot.)
Marketing Team Leader
Whole Foods Market, Noe Valley”
This is a special invitation ONLY event for our neighbors in the associations that we have been working with.
Have a look at the attached & either print a copy of this to bring with you or contact me so that I can get you printed copies that I have here at the store.
Any question, please ask—we’ll see you very soon!
Best regards,
Jennifer Dobrowolski”
Choose your side and get on out there!
Dead and wounded on either side/
You know it’s only a matter of time
Tags: 24th street, 30, 30th, 3950 24th, association, bags, bell, blog, boycott, Bread Baking Ceremony, CEO, Church Street, Community Benefit District, editorial, facebook, Friends, girlcott, goodie, goody, grand, grocery, health care, healthcare, inc, Jennifer Dobrowolski, John, John Mackey, Mackey, market, Merchants, neighborhood, neighbors, nimbies, nimby, nimbys, noe, Noe Valley, NVMPA, opening, payola, Professionals, protesters, Reform, San Francisco, september, single payer, STI, street, supermarket, sutro tower, upper, upscale, wall street journal, whole foods
Posted in protests | 5 Comments »
Thursday, September 10th, 2009
The Japantown “Better” Neighborhood Plan Organizing (nee Steering) Committee held a meeting last night to “share information on the status of the plan and to develop effective steps to incorporate community input into the process.” 68 somber souls showed up – people expressed their opinions but it was nothing like the Chernobyl that occurred in Golden Gate Park when they tried to charge admission at Strybing Arboretum to everybody not born in San Francisco, or something.
As it looked at the JCCCNC at 1840 Sutter Street:
Can you see some of the themes of the evening? Click to expand:
Here’s the takeaway – the Organizing Committee is aware of a little blowback over The Plan. In the words of one attendee, “There was a feeling that these issues weren’t fully explored.”
O.K. then, but realize that there’s no developer chomping at the bit to start digging, and there’s no Environmental Impact Report yet, and the Planning Department hasn’t assigned the 20-hour-per-week worker to get going on things, and the Board of Supervisors hasn’t voted yet, etc. So it’s all going to take a while. And The Plan will change.
Al right, what’s on the mind of The Community?
Well, parking for one thing. The Community Wants Parking during renovations and after. So, if you tear down the underground parking garage and lose 700 spaces, where is everyone going to park? What’s that you say, Transit First? Yeah, they’ve heard of that concept, but they don’t accept it. So, an inadequate parking situation will “kill the merchants of J-Town.” That’s what they’re saying.
(By the way, did you know that the Cathedral Hill Hotel (the former Jack Tar Hotel) on Van Ness is going to turn into a 550-bed hospital one of these days? Is there worry about the 2500 employees “on any given shift” stealing the parking spaces that belong to J-Town? You bet.)
And where would the merchants go during the renovation time? Would you want to shut down Webster Street and put in temporary structures complete with running water and electricity? Would that be following the post-Loma Prieta earthquake Santa Cruz Model when businesses set up in temporary buildings? Yes. Would the developer pay for that? Maybe yes, maybe no.
And There You Have It.
Look forward for another meeting before year’s end. After that, who knows?
Come and learn about the status of the Japantown BNP Draft Plan and how to get involved in making it responsive to community needs. The Japantown BNP Organizing (formerly Steering) Committee is hosting this community meeting to share information on the status of the plan and to develop effective steps to incorporate community input into the process.
The agenda for this meeting will include:
* Summarizing the Draft Plan.
* Reviewing the Planning Commission Resolution approved on June 25.
* An update on the Planning Department’s proposed workplan and funding for the next 12-months of the plan process.
* Getting the community involved in reviewing and improving the Draft Plan.
* General questions.
Tags: better neighborhood plan, bnp, brt, bus, bus rapid transit, committee, department, dnp, DPT, fillmore, gavin newsom, geary, government, Japanese Cultural and Community Center, japantown, Japantown Better, Mayor, Muni, Nakayoshi, neighborhood, Paul Osaki, Planning, planning commission, redevelopment, ross mirkarimi, San Francisco, street, sutter, traffic, young professionals
Posted in government | Comments Off
