Welcome to This San Francisco! I’m Alex Mullaney and I'll be your guide. Our twice-weekly email gets you up to speed on what’s new in The City. As always, please share it with a friend! We rely on word of mouth.
The Transbay Transit Center and Salesforce Park opened in August only to close six weeks later after a pair of damaged steel girders were discovered.
Today, commuters use the temporary transit center and no reopening date has been set for the $2.2-billion station. Authorities have not officially announced what caused the fissures in the steel beams nor a work plan for repairs.
Metallurgical testing is expected to be completed this month. Observers anticipate the station will reopen sometime next year.
San Francisco is on track to become the first major US city remove minimum parking requirements for new housing. District 6 Supervisor Jane Kim introduced legislation on Nov. 16. To significantly update San Francisco’s parking rules to align with its “transit-first” policy. The legislation will go before the full board next week.
Skip and Scoot, the two companies allowed to deploy tech-enabled electric scooters on The City’s streets, have different policies for allowing customers to use their products in rainy weather. Skip doesn’t allow its scooters to be used in the rain. Their app shows a map devoid of scooters without explanation. The "How to ride in the rain" section in Scoot’s app is blank.
Local cinematographer Jason Joseffer made a short documentary called “n95” that captured the post-apocalyptic milieu created by the scenes of San Franciscans wearing masks to protect themselves from the unhealthy air brought on by the Camp Fire in Butte County earlier this month. He published it on Youtube.
Three weeks after the Nov. 6 general election, the Department of Elections officially declared the winners in the Board of Supervisors. The victors are Gordon Mar in District Four, Matt Haney in District Six and Shamann Walton in District 10. District Two Supervisor Catherine Stefani and District Eight Rafael Mandelman will retain their seats.
The Office of the City Attorney sent a letter to Orton Development, the developer of Pier 70, and its tenant Juul requesting evidence that the electronic cigarette company is complying with state, city and other laws. The San Francisco-based company has drawn negative attention for popularizing addictive flavored nicotine among teenagers.
A new-fangled personal conveyance has been spotted in the wild: a pedal-powered electric tricycle. A Veemo was seen parked on Market Street and has already drawn the ire of the tech-fatigued.
Chinatown
Citing an uptick in property crimes, the San Francisco Police Department Central Police Station opened a center in the Portsmouth Square Clubhouse where residents who do not speak English can connect with bilingual peace officers on Wednesdays and Fridays from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Crime statistics show a four percent increase in auto burglaries reported in the area.
Tenderloin
Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff is donating $6.1 million to help turn the long-shuttered Bristol Hotel on Mason Street into housing for formerly homeless people. The funds he is providing will help subsidize rents.
Mission
Owners of the Richmond institution Cinderella Bakery are finding that opening up shop in the space formerly occupied by the famed Mexican panaderia La Victoria may be difficult — and even include a boycott or pickett line.
Haight
The former McDonald's at Haight and Stanyan streets has been made available for holiday shoppers to park their cars for free. It’s meant to mitigate the impacts from street construction on the small businesses.
Embarcadero
Two-month old seafood restaurant Angler topped Esquire’s Best New Restaurants list, with one local restaurant snagging the top spot. Dominique Crenn’s Bar Crennat ranked twelfth and Divisadero’s Italian hotspot Che Fico ranked seventeenth on the list of 20 restaurants.
Union Square
Winter Walk 2018 opened on Monday, transforming two blocks of Stockton Street into a destination for holiday shoppers until New Year’s Eve.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, On Guard: Peskin, nurses call for General Hospital to drop Mark Zuckerberg’s name
Jaya Padmanabhan, In Brown Type: Homeless and undocumented: Different sides of the same coin
Broke-Ass Stuart, Broke-Ass City: Reaching a generation that expects music, journalism and movies to be free
Robyn Purchia, Green Space: Consider the environment when you buy gifts this holiday season
Joe Eskenazi: A changed city, a changed world: Assessing the legacies of Harvey Milk and George Moscone, 40 years after their murders
This edition was curated and written by Alex Mullaney and edited by David Mamaril Horowitz.The newsletter is designed by Marquee and published on Proof.
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