SAN FRANCISCO—Head meat, intestines, mashed cow brains, and fish—that’s what keeps Taquería San Jose afloat in the mad river of taquerías, pupuserías, and fast food joints that compete for customers around the 24th Street BART station. “We have the best selection of fillings,” says owner David Velle. “Plus our salsas are good and our tortillas the highest quality.” Continue reading
Category Archives: San Francisco
Teacher Migration Common in SF
When Douglas Rich walked into his first classroom 11 years ago, he says it was “like something out of the movies.” Kids were throwing paper airplanes, running around the room. “One had jumped up and was hanging from the doorway,” he says. “It was funny.” Continue reading
Surge of Burmese refugees come to Oakland, looking for community and hope
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SAN FRANCISCO–Ba Shar seems adrift on a sea of his imagination, oblivious to the scenery that surrounds him. He is standing on the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time in his life, looking out at the San Francisco skyline. The bridge’s red cables loom over his head and a thin mist covers the silver water below. A slow smile spreads across his face as he seems to come to, waking up to his new reality.
“Being here is like a dream,” he says. He pauses, and then chuckles. “I would never expect this would happen to me in my life.”
Bay Area Burmese youth give voices to people of Myanmar
SAN FRANCISCO – Under a grey sky, standing beside the Chinese consulate, 19-year-old Kyaw Naing held a microphone to his lips as he led 200 protesters in repeated cries of “Free Burma” on a recent Friday afternoon. As he does at all such gatherings, the Burmese student wore a red sash wound around his head, in memory of the blood shed by protesters in his home country. Continue reading
Bayview Residents Say San Francisco Violating Its Own Environmental Laws
If it seems that “redevelopment” has been on the tip of the tongue of many of San Francisco’s political, community, and policy leaders for ages now, it’s because it has. In 1969, the Redevelopment Agency was brought in to help the city reinvigorate a portion of it’s struggling Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood, and nearly 40 years later is still engaged in an arduous process with city officials and community members to bring the vision to fruition.
SF Plan for Biodiesel-Powered Vehicles Praised
SAN FRANCISCO — Many passengers on San Francisco’s diesel-burning 38L bus Wednesday had not heard that the city intends to replace 20 percent of diesel fuel in its vehicles with biodiesel. Still informed and uninformed passengers alike were positive about the plan.
“Anything that’s good for the environment,” said Brazilian transplant Jander Lecerda, who had read about the switch and hoped –- incorrectly -– that the change would also reduce noise pollution. Continue reading
Auto Show Fans Going Green
SAN FRANCISCO — This year Debbie Yates came from her home in San Rafael to San Francisco’s 50th annual auto show because she heard there were more green cars than ever before.
“The good part of me wants a Prius,” Yates said, standing by a silver pine mica Toyota Prius hybrid that cost $27,734. “But the bad part of me wants a Porsche Cayman.” Continue reading
The Handlery Hotel
SAN FRANCISCO — Every morning, Jon Handlery puts on a deep blue suit and floral tie. After kissing his wife and just before leaving his San Mateo house, he pins a gold rectangle reading “General Manager” to his left lapel. Usually, he’s not late to work, but “you know, the first rain of the season,” he says, which means that the traffic on his drive to San Francisco on a recent Friday resembled that of a normal city during a Hurricane evacuation. Continue reading
Rethinking Journalism Education 2.0
This audio podcast was captured from the event “Rethinking Journalism Education 2.0, held Nov. 9, 2007 at San Francisco State University. Continue reading
Pulitzer Prize-winning Author Denounces War
SAN FRANCISCO—As a musical based on her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Color Purple” continued its run blocks away, Alice Walker told a group of women Wednesday that the United States’ military presence in Iraq is morally wrong, and to ensure the country’s next generation understands her views, she’s written an anti-war children’s book. Continue reading
Dia De Los Muertos in San Francisco
A slideshow on the Dia De Los Muertos celebrations in San Francisco’s Mission District.
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National Institute of Art and Disabilities
A program nurtures the talents of disabled artists.
San Francisco Next in Line for Municipal ID Card
SAN FRANCISCO — When Manuel Quezada immigrated illegally to the United States from Jalisco, Mexico in 1965, he said all you needed to get a social security number and driver’s license was your Mexican birth certificate.
Quezada, who now has a green card and works as a sales representative for Ohmega Salvage in Berkeley, said it doesn’t make sense to him that it is so difficult now for undocumented workers to get identification cards. Continue reading
Wall Street Journal Plans to End Internet Subscription Fee
SAN FRANCISCO — Months after The Wall Street Journal announced takeover plans by Rupert Murdoch, surprise has once again rippled through the news industry as the enterprising media mogul announced that he plans to put an end to the Journal’s online subscription-based system. Continue reading
Governor Halts Fishing Season
Signs prohibiting fishing went up around the Bay
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued an executive order Tuesday that halted fishing in the San Francisco Bay a week after a devastating oil spill wreaked havoc on marine life. Continue reading
Teen Joins Shipyard Cleanup Board
For San Francisco news, find the Center of the City
SAN FRANCISCO — When Independence High School senior Jocquay Thomas attended his first Hunters Point Shipyard Restoration Advisory Board meeting last August, he was amazed that anyone could ask the U.S. Navy questions.
He was also struck by the fact that there were only five minutes at the end of the meeting for public comment. Board members had much more time to talk and ask questions. So the 18-year-old decided he wanted to apply to be on the board. Today, he is the youngest member on the panel formed in 1994 to involve the community in the environmental cleanup of the Hunters Point shipyard.
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San Francisco Will Offer ID Cards, Regardless of Immigration Status
The Board of Supervisors passed an historic ordinance Tuesday, which will make San Francisco the nation’s largest city to offer photo ID cards to its residents, without consideration of their immigration status.
Bra Fitters a Booming Industry
SAN FRANCISCO – Magie Crystal looks at her dressing room as a mosh pit. It’s her, the client and at times, an armful of underwire, foam-padded, contour cups. The referee? An unforgiving mirror.
Crystal is to the San Francisco boom of late what personal shoppers were to women in the 1980s, or what valets were to Victorian England: a niche service that emerges in times of plenty. Continue reading
Ed Jew Pleads Not-Guilty
SAN FRANCISCO – Fresh from entering a not-guilty plea on Wednesday to federal charges of extortion and two counts each of mail fraud and bribery, Edmund Jew walked casually up to a circle of cameras outside the Federal Building courthouse and smiled. Continue reading
Public Trail Expansion Opens Outdoor Options
By Jenny Chu and Kiran Goldman
Last Saturday, a new 7.5-mile section of the Ridge Trail was opened to the public. The East Bay Municipal Utility District (EMBUD), the property owners, and the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council, a non-profit founded in 1987 to promote the completion of the 550-mile trail, joined for the trail dedication. The path now links the Pinole Watershed to the Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve, permitting ten miles of continuous hiking. Continue reading
Propositions Pit Walkers, Bikers, Drivers Against Each Other
By Maria Jose Calderon and Gabriel Leigh
SAN FRANCISCO – Two transportation and parking propositions on the ballot this election – pitting bicyclists against drivers and pedestrians against Hummers – could answer a fundamental question about San Francisco’s future as a walkable city.
Of the eleven propositions on the ballot in the San Francisco municipal elections today, Propositions A and H are two that could dramatically affect transportation infrastructure in the city.
The debate over the measures has ensnared passionate advocates on both sides of the issue – should San Francisco put more money into its bus system and increase emission reductions, as Prop A suggests; or should the city pave the way for more parking lots for drivers, the main goal of Prop H? Continue reading
“Loser’s Ball” Ends Eccentric Mayoral Campaign
It’s Election Day, and for “Chicken” John Rinaldi, even though he’s not going to win, this calls for a celebration. He’s not giving a concession speech; he’s throwing a party.
Blue-Collar Workers ‘Booming-Out’
SAN FRANCISCO — Spending 12 hours a day away from home is nothing new for San Francisco’s white-collar, commuter workforce, which is accustomed to balancing affordable housing with having a job. But with the massive boom in construction projects south of Market Street, the commutes of blue-collar workers have increasingly become longer than their cubicle-bound counterparts. Continue reading
Audio Slideshow: Open Studio
On Saturday, Nov. 3, Bay Area art lovers flocked to an old navy shipyard on the southeast edge of San Francisco to the oldest and largest open studio event in the country. Check out this audio slideshow. Continue reading
SF Mayor Faces Little Competition in Reelection Bid
SAN FRANCISCO — With Chinese dragon dancers undulating to loud thumps and clangs of cymbals and drums outside, and a packed room full of labor leaders, blacks, Latinos, white voters and the gay community, Mayor Gavin Newsom, with a young child in his arms, held one of his final campaign rallies this Saturday at his Sutter Street headquarters. Continue reading