5 posts tagged “san francisco”
The San Francisco government has destroyed one of the best galleries for wild style graffiti writers in the city. Warm Water Cove is a small park situated in the midst of what can only be described as an industrial wasteland. The park, also known as Toxic Tire Beach, is popular with the artistic fringe of SF (punks, burners, etc) as a location for both larger events and small picnic gatherings. My brother Marcus and his friends has been hosting free punk music shows there for over a decade. Chicken John has held circus and other shows there. I think it's where La Contessa received a viking funeral (although I missed that event).
Why has the city taken sudden interest in this park beloved only to its fringe citizenry? Could it be because of all the condominiums popping up several blocks away along the new third street MUNI line? Not all of the art spray painted on these forlorn walls was wonderful, but some of it was. Some of the best pieces were many years old, respectfully untouched by the other writers and taggers. What's going to happen now that the wall has been turned a drab olive green? They will soon be covered by ugly hastily thrown up tags that truly are ugly and without merit. The park will continue to be a small mostly forgotten piece of land in the midst of an industrial wasteland, it will now just be much less attractive.
What can be done? The answer comes from the Port of San Francisco Director of Public Works Executive Director in a form letter sent out to the many unhappy citizens who emailed him:
The second phase of the planning process for Warm Water Cove Park will include community input. We encourage you to be come involved in this planning process, if you wish to have a voice in the beautification and stewardship of the park.
We the community need to make it clear that we -liked- the artwork at Warm Water Cove. We want the artists to be given permission (and supplied with paint) to recreate the artwork that was destroyed.
Update: OtherThings of Graffiti Archeology has a great roundups of links covering theis event in the blogosphere and traditional media. If you really want to see why people love the art in that park, check out his like to Graffiti Archeology's timeline photography at the site. The SF Chronicle article makes it sound like there is a chance some compromise can be worked out with the city. I've created a Warm Water Cove yahoo discussion group, please join if you want to participate in further community response regarding the park.
A colleague sent me this wonderful large panorama shot of San Francisco taken from atop the Bay Bridge in 1971. Don't click on the tiny picture here, click on the link in the previous sentence to see it in a large horizontal scrollable size.
I took a great Dogpatch City Guides tour once that talked about those huge buildings in the Dogpatch/China Basin area (the left side of the photo, on the bay side of Potrero Hill), but I can't remember now what they were exactly. I know there was some ship building going on, but I feel like they were some other sort of manufacturing. Steel maybe? Anyone know?
This photo is from the site of Brad Templeton (of EFF fame, among other things). He has many more similar but more recent panoramic photos available for viewing and purchase, including other places besides San Francisco as well. Here's a shot he took at Burning Man 2000, my first year there.
Via the Flickr group Rainbow of Books, I discovered today that there is a KQED Spark segment available that goes over the installation of the rainbow of books project by artist Chris Cobb. Mie and I don't watch a lot of TV, but Spark is one of the shows we enjoy regularly.
I'm not officially a competitor in the November mustache competition we've been having at the offices of Pivotal Computing where I've been contracting lately, since I didn't shave at the beginning of the month, but I feel like I'm doing a good job in the for-fun master's division. And today I made both a behind the back/over the shoulder shot and and no-look back to the goal shot on our small office hoop with witnesses.
And then on my way home, I jumped on the F Market and got off at 8th and Market only to see the #19 just pulling away. Since I had my skateboard with me, I started chasing after it. I really wanted to catch it to avoid having to walk up the steep north slope of Portrero Hill (or waiting for the next bus, always a sketchy proposition).
Yesterday I saw Bill Clinton speak at the Civic Center in support of 87. It took two hours of standing in a crowd and having to suffer through some joker from third eye blind doing an acoustic set, but it was so worth it. Man I miss that guy being president.
Anyhow, as was brought up several times during the rally, the oil companies have spent ONE HUNDRED MILLION dollars trying to defeat proposition 87. Don't let them do it. I just got an email laying out their latest ploy:
There's a bogus "Voter Information Guide for Democrats" that many of our supporters have been getting in the mail. Maybe you and your friends have too.
Don't be fooled. This mailer has nothing to do with the Democratic Party.
It's a sleazy, underhanded trick paid for by big oil and big tobacco.
Proposition 87 is on the verge of winning on Tuesday. The oil companies are now so worried that they're spending $100 million to stop us. ABC news has calls their TV ads "misleading" and "not accurate."* And now they're stooping to new lows, trying to deceive voters about who supports Prop. 87.
YES on 87, NO on 88, YES on 89
