Category: Local

  • Scenes from Rainbow Grocery Co-op’s 50th anniversary block party

    Started in 1975 as an offshoot of a “food conspiracy,” San Francisco’s preeminent worker-owned vegetarian grocery store began at a small storefront on 16th Street. After several moves — the original store is now the home of German beer bar Gestalt — Rainbow acquired their Folsom Street location in the 90’s and has been selling…

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  • Talking Heads sculpture

    The latest temporary public sculpture in Patricia’s Green is “Talking Heads” by Russian-born Bay Area artist Oleg Lobykin as part of his Void & Substance series. The highly reflective stainless steel form is reminiscent of a drop of mercury hitting a surface, mirroring its surroundings for a brief moment in time. As you, the viewer,…

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  • R-Evolution

    Earlier this month the plaza across the Ferry Building at between Market St. and Embarcadero became the temporary home of R-Evolution by Italian-American artist Marco Cochrane. The metal lattice sculpture depicts a woman standing tall with her shoulders back and her palms facing out. It’s part of Cochrane’s Bliss Project series of sculptures and made…

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  • Keys to the city

    Not far from downtown San Francisco in the SOMA area is an alleyway filled with giant keys and locks sticking out of the ground. Though it may give you the impression that giants walk above us, this is part of an installation called Locks and Keys for Harry Bridges by Bay Area artist Mildred Howard.…

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  • SFO Museum and Library

    Tucked away in the corner of SFO’s International Terminal ticketing area between the food court and the Terminal A entrance sits the SFO Museum and Library. It’s built to look like a scale model of the SFO entrance hall from the past. Few seem to even know about this museum, yet they have small exhibits…

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  • It’s not a Westfield anymore

    Much has already been said about the downfall of the San Francisco Centre mall, but those of us who remember its most recent incarnation will recall the basement in the east half of the building (the former Emporium) at one time had the most upscale food court in the city. Westfield, the mall’s operator at…

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  • Happy(?) Bell Riots everyone!

    Things aren’t going great in California right now for the poor. Instead of being taken care of they’re being treated like prisoners, which is exactly what happened in the 1995 episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine “Past Tense.” In the episode, Commander Sisko, Lieutenant Dax, and Doctor Bashir get into some sci-fi nonsense and…

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  • Computer History Museum

    Situated roughly between downtown Mountain View and Google’s corporate campus is the Computer History Museum. I had a chance to visit for the first time the other day. The museum’s main gallery — which is quite large — begins with the abacus, and ends more or less at the modern day. As if to drive…

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  • My own unique piece of BART history

    You may have been on it, or you may have seen it go “rohr”-ing past you. What could it be? I recently purchased a number plate from a retired BART train over at RailGoods.com. This was the plate on a B-type BART train car — specifically car number 1648 — made by Rohr Industries in…

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  • Inside San Francisco’s Cable Car Shop

    Last week I was lucky enough to get a rare glimpse inside the workshop where the most worn out San Francisco cable cars are sent to be restored — if not rebuilt. This was part of a tour offered by Muni, San Francisco’s public transit agency, in conjunction with the non-profit Market Street Railway to…

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