(Note to readers: This visit took place shortly before the recent fire at Original Joe’s. We’re innocent.) The 100 block of Taylor, between Eddy and Turk, is not for the faint of heart. Spend some time taking in its considerable distress, and at some point you’re certain to gauge your own capacity for urban America’s torn and frayed seams. Voices here speak in all sorts of timbres. Some holler, while others just mumble incomprehensibly. Nearly all of them sound raspy. The common thread is desperation, and it’s not a pretty sound....

There's no more dizzying story of SF history than that of our local transit. If you think it's hard to keep track of the bus routes today, just imagine trying to sort through the patchwork of agencies and name changes and battling operators that've spent the last hundred years keeping us from getting from one place to another. A bite-sized chunk of that history can be found in the new book The Key System:......

Some organization we've never heard of and could probably care the less about, the American Institute of Architects, put together a list of the Top 25 Bestest Buildings in San Francisco. Look for attendant show on VH-1 featuring snarky comments from Hal Sparks, Ian Michael Black, and Rachel Harris. ...