Results tagged “gentrification”

The expanding War on Fun has taken another life, ladies and germs. Marke B. over at the SFBG reports that punk-politico drag queen Anna Conda has decided to call it quits on her weekly Friday party Charlie Horse at the Cinch after complaining Polk Street neighbors brought the bar before the Entertainment Commission. Rather than "take a break" and try to tone down the often raucous drag night (where it was likely the noisy smoking porch out back and the spillover out front that brought the complaints) Anna has decided to put a bullet in the head of this five-year-old party and pursue other ventures.

Power Exchange, the 13-year-old sex club formerly located at 72 Otis that shutdown last year due to financial difficulties, wanted to open again, this time at 44 Gough. All was going according to plan, until one perturbed citizen, Lisa Dunmeyer, a Brady Street resident, put the kibosh on the popular humping space. It seems that said sex club (allegedly) attracted an unsavory crowd, one that would embarrass her in front of her guests. "When she had friends over," reports Mission Local, "they couldn’t believe the action. Cars circled the block blasting music, and prostitutes walked up and down the street."

Evil, culturally unrich, dastardly home improvement chain Lowe's is planning to open a store on Bayshore Boulevard. According to the SF Chronicle, it's in the negotiation stages. If you recall, a Home Depot planned on setting up shop in the same area, but backed out at the eleventh hour.

Even when obvious troll is obvious, readers still wring their hands and pull their hair. Take, for example, brilliant Curbed commenter "Bree" from OC. See, Bree, who is the unofficial mascot of SFist until further notice, allegedly hails from Orange County and would like to know where in SF she and her fetch friends can live on the cheap in la Mission. In a heated American Apparel post, Bree asks for Frisco's help.

In struggle, the Stop American Apparel coalition will meet at The Makeout Room at 7 p.m. tonight to discuss their plans at stopping the clothing store from opening in the Mission. They'll have "full color posters for you to take with you as well as petitions and postcards." If you remember, a few comfortably wealthy folks in the Mission do not want an American Apparel store opening up in the neighborhood because getting old sucks, chains are allegedly ugly (never mind the fact that there is a Sketchers and McDonald's just one block down on the more Latino-laced Mission Street), and they would prefer to keep the area "a corridor of outstanding independent businesses." Judging by our poll, most of you don't care whether or not an American Apparel opens shop on posh Valencia Street. But for those of you who do, you can check out tonight's meeting. Bonus points go out to those of you who snap shots of yourselves wearing American Apparel at the meeting. Tee hee.

Mission Mission, the one true voice of the Mission district as far as we're concerned, brings up the American Apparel brouhaha. If you recall, American Apparel is dropping a spore smack dab on chic Valencia Street. And the people of skid row are up in arms over it. Or so it seems. As Allan Hough asks, "Is the whole neighborhood up in arms?

In what's being billed as the retail "hipster wars" of the Mission, 988 Valencia will soon call sleaze designer American Apparel home. That is, if the scraggly elite of the Mission get their way. Local scribe and former prostitute Stephen Elliott is none too thrilled about this "chain store" opening up, going on to clarify the following at stopamericanapparel.wordpress.com.

Over at San Francisco's ninth circle of hell, Sixth and Stevenson streets, Eater reports that a chic French bistro/bakery/cafe will move into the area's old pawnshop. Calling itself Passion Cafe, the future eatery will add a nice balance to the the hood's Happy Donut/Tu Lan stronghold. What's more, there's chatter about possible rooftop garden dining there, too. Eater says that if it's done well, it "would definitely be a cool feature." Oh, you have no idea, Paolo. We'll eat there every night if we get to see images like this as we stuff our face. (Eater)

SFist interviews the Reverend Billy of "what would jesus buy?"

-- And then Nancy was all, "Like, what the hell, you guys?" [SF Examiner] -- The Central Subway Project. [Transbay Blog] -- Now you don't have to leave your bedroom to travel. Ever again. Yay! [The Tech Chronicles] -- The seven rules for talking (and not screaming self-righteously) about gentrification. [Neighbors Project] -- Behold: SF Weekly's new food blog. [SFoodie] -- A censure-free DiFi. [SFBG] -- After it was revealed that he was, and...

Yum! Did you smell something nasty in downtown SF yesterday? Some people described it like raw sewage, and others like rotting meat. Turns out it was from the sewage holding system, which was ripening in the sun faster than it was getting flushed into the system.

Last week's winner, the Bay Guardian. We should totally put needle disposal boxes in Golden Gate Park. Also, C.W. Nevius says that Newsom called him and yelled at him for 45 minutes after he wrote his first article on the issue. We'd put that call on mute. Gentrification is destroying Polk Street. City contractors still use sweatshop labor. Annalee Newitz has mice. Sonic Reducer's still at the Guardian. Cover article: Local bands to watch. You've got your whisky swillers, your barefoot folksters, your hip-hoppers, and some fey whimsy. And read Marke B's column and show him not everyone's away for Burning Man!

Banner week for SFist as the site's new editor introduced himself -- hooray for Brock! While the NY Times weighed in on SF's mayoral race, only SFist had the hard-hitting latest on candidate/activist Josh Wolf. Coverage of a protest vs. gentrification spawned a fantastic debate amongst SFist's readers. Finally, from the sublime to the ridiculous: video of a man that confused a Board of Supes meeting with "open mic night" and sang a custom version of Madonna's "Borderline" to a much-beleaguered board member.

A rally against gentrification in the Mission

A local wine bar's new Hummer SUV.

--Picture of a woman collecting bottles from people in the iPhone line by reader zombie. Thanks for sending them in, zombie! [ZombieTime.]

-You know what $250 bucks at a fundraiser gets you for lunch? A lunch box of sushi. That's it. For $250 bucks, we'd want kobe beef in gold infused soy sauce in a bed of rare Nepalese quail. On the other hand, you did get to listen to Hillary.

Before we begin, we'd like to extend our deepest sympathies to the family of James Kim. We are not, by any means, trying to discount that tragedy by juxtaposing posts about the Kims with more light-hearted posts. It's the nature of doing a compilation such as this one: we're trying to give a full slice of the goings-on in the Ist-a-Verse: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

At the Roxie, (3117 16th St. between Valencia & Guerrero) it's FARMCORE, a documentary about punk rock's 1980s home in the Mission, The Farm. The screening is a benefit for San Francisco Indybay Media and Oaxaca Indymedia. The film documents the punk scene (Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains, and Black Flag played there, to name a few) and the staff’s struggles to keep the doors open while battling a greedy landlord and hostile police, until the place became an early victim of Mission gentrification and “live-work” loft conversion schemes (now you can say, "Ellis Act Evictions, that's sooo 1987"). In its heyday, the Farm also provided a place for community gardens, an urban barnyard, an art gallery, child daycare center and a multicultural community space. (7 & 9pm)

Pete Wilson (the anchor, not the ex-Governor) says "sorry about that" over his comments in regards to gay people having babies. -Oakland sues landlord for being very, very bad.

Has all our elections coverage on the 'Fist gotten your progressive fire up? Do you want to meet Chris Daly and (possibly) Matt Gonzalez? Do you maybe just want to hear some jazz on a Saturday afternoon? Well, grab your Noam Chomsky book and head on out to St. Mary's Cathedral (1111 Gough at Geary) this Saturday, Sept. 30 for an all-day convention of the SF Peoples' Organization (9 a.m. - 5 p.m.).

Last week's winner, the Bay Guardian: Mocking Dede Wilsey and Newsom about the DeYoung parking situation. The Guardian gets distracted from its single-minded focus on Village Voice LLC to decry MediaNews's purchase of the San Jose Merc News. Letter from a Peoples Temple survivor asking for further investigations into a CIA conspiracy. Hipsters worry that they're accidentally causing gentrification in Oakland. Sonic Reducer reviews an album of songs sung by actors. You know, we may have to download the version of Ewan McGregor singing Sade (or Jennifer Garner singing a show tune. It's totally awesome to work out to!!!!!.) A review of the Flipper reunion show from April 8. It took them a month to get that up? New brunch place in Noe Valley, Shanghai soup dumplings in the Sunset. Cover: Daniel Clowes. And SFist Eve's horoscope: be more confrontational. Watch out, crazy commenters! The SF Weekly: Nate Cavallieri, ex-Weekly writer, won a journalism award for his cover article about a guy who works with gang members. Congratulations, Nate! Matt Smith on Chris Daly, Mission Housing, and someone saying that Daly speaks with a "forked tongue" -- outraged Matt Smith spittle flying everywhere! N.B.: Matt Smith reports that Chris Daly has adopted a policy of "not speaking to me." Gay cop sues. Orphan pigeon rescue. Cover article: why won't the SF Unified School District back smaller schools? Meredith goes BBQ, while SFist Ced roasts some ribs of his own! And Savage Love: do any fetishists want to buy a letter-writer's breast milk? Direct all responses to Dan Savage, not us. The EBX's Best Of issue, and the Metro -- after the jump.

That's all we are saying in our Dog Patch neighbourhood where officials have been trying to improve the sidewalks by planting rows of young saplings.

Picture this story with the Drudge Report flashing lights, but we have an exclusive, late-breaking and developing story from The Weekly World News: ALIENS ARE COMING TO SAN FRANCISCO! We repeat, ALIENS ARE COMING TO SAN FRANCISCO. According to the story (which is so hot that it's not linked to, and the fact that the Weekly World News doesn't put their stories online is criminal), the aliens in question are from Mercury and are said to be "short" and "red-skinned." Last week, the state legislature and the Governor voted to give a square mile in between China Town and Nob Hill (there goes the strip clubs) to the aliens from Mercury, or as there known Mercurians. With the land given to them, the Mercurians will build housing for themselves "made of solidified liquid mercury and powered by solar panels" something that will make the Mayor happy because it's in keeping with his big Green Initiative.

Hey, the party's not till Monday, so check out some crazy characters hitting SF stages this weekend.

Rockin like Dokken -- what's on tap? Today: Did you know the SF Public Library sponsors film events? Tonight's screening is the film "Mission Movie," which follows a group of neighbors through everyone's favorite neighborhood as dot-com gentrification starts to settle in. Oooh, we hope Nestor Makno makes a cameo! FIlm starts at 6, in the auditorium of the Main Library. Thursday: You can either check out Tuvan throat singers at 7 p.m. at the Asian Art Museum -- or ululate with the candidates for city assessor-recorder at the League of Women Voters-sponsored debate (ladies, the word "calendar" is misspelled on your site). Maybe Ron Chun will bring his ermine robes and crown! Debate starts at 7 at the LGBT Center at 1800 Market. And TGI Friday: As part of the Bay Area Now series, the Yerba Buena Center presents Under The Radar 1, which sounds like it's going to be an underground cabaret -- female faux drag queens (one of whom used to be our yoga teacher!), acrobats, hip-hoppers Felonius, a women's toy instrument ensemble, and Lynne Breedlove of Tribe 8 (among many others) will be performing. Yow! 8 pm at the YBCA, $20. Picture of drag artist Glamamour off the YBCA website

We guess all those Bay Guardian warnings about the dangers of gentrification are coming true because in a study trying to determine what's a conservative city and what's a liberal city, San Francisco only came in as the seventh most liberal city in the country. See what happens when you let a bunch of Yuppies move in? The most liberal city? Detroit, followed by Gary Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana. San Francisco was even beaten by local brethren Berkeley (third) and Oakland (fifth) which does mean that we can say that we are the most liberal area in the country. In case you were wondering, the most conservative cities are Provo, Utah and Lubbock, Texas, two cities we're sure we'll see hosting MTV's "Real World" real soon.

A weekly reaffirmation that the only thing better than going out boozing is reading about going out boozing. By your barrespondent, Drew.

SFist literally stumbled (we were a bit tipsy) into Artist Television Access Studios last Friday night. We were looking for an entirely different event, but once we got inside, we stuck around. Why? Because they were screening the incredibly compelling documentary , directed and produced by local film phenom Kevin Epps.