Mission Mission

Allegedly, of course. Mission Local spent a recent evening with some parking attendants at a garage near 16th and Valencia. Here’s an excerpt:

8 p.m.

John walks over and tells me he’s been here for 11 years, since the garage has been open.

“I’ve seen it all,” he sighs. “This very bad neighborhood.”

John says most of their valet customers are from the East Bay. Not all of them are friendly. He says people from Oakland like to come to the garage on their way to sell drugs around 16th and Mission.

“They park here,” he says. “I see what they’re doing. I’m not stupid!”

Read on.

Former Serpentine sous chef Eric Ehler wrote in to tell us all about Seoul Patch, his new late night Korean pop-up restaurant coming to the Mission this Friday.

Ehler started Seoul Patch in September, and they’ve been operating a lunch pop-up out of Rocketfish in Potrero Hill. Starting this Friday, they’ll be cooking up late night eats at Asiento on 21st and Bryant (that mysterious corner bar with the galaxy mural façade), every other Friday from 10:30pm to 1am. Menu offerings include wings, Korean pancakes, tofu, pickles, and BBQ, and prices will range from $5 to $10.

Pretty exciting stuff given the current lack of Korean fare in the Mission, and a good excuse to migrate over to some of the less traveled corners of the neighborhood.

Surely you’ve wondered what went on at all those run-down theaters lining Mission street before they were converted to dollar stores, parking structures, and termite farms. Well now is your chance to find out. Jack Tillmany, a San Francisco transit and theater historian, will be hosting a free presentation tomorrow, Wednesday 10/19 7pm at the Bernal Heights Public Library.

During the golden years of moviegoing in the first half of the 20th century, just about everybody went at least once a week. Ten thousand people a day went to the movies in San Francisco on Mission Street alone. Most of the theatres are gone now, or, worse yet, sitting vacant and abandoned as sad reminders of what once was, but will never be again. But a couple of them have been in business for more than a century and continue to survive and, let us hope, prosper.

Transit and movie theatre historian Jack Tillmany’s presentation offers a guided tour of just about all of them, from 16th Street through the Mission and Bernal Heights to Daly City, in black and white and in color, along with the many streetcar lines that provided transportation on San Francisco’s longest thoroughfare. Best of all, the presentation is free — and all attendees will receive a free, authentic souvenir of the streetcar era!

Interesting history talks sound like the perfect companion to Whiskey Wednesdays at Bender’s! Unofficial after-party?

[via Bernalwood]

1880 Mission starts construction starts tomorrow. It  will be a 6-story “market rate” (expensive-as-fuck) residential building:

The $60 million, 230,000-square-foot mixed-use project will provide much-needed workforce housing: 202 residences –a mix of studios; one-, two- and three-bedroom homes; and, penthouse lofts. Also included in the six stories of wood over concrete building is 7,502 sq. ft. of street-level retail space and 155 below groundparking spaces, as well as amenities such as two interior landscaped courtyards, community garden, multimedia fitness facility, bike workroom and secured bike parking or each unit.

The proximity to the Armory will be a plus for you kinky types. Maybe you’ll even get a window-level view!

The groundbreaking is tomorrow at 2pm, in case you want to protest the fact that more valuable parking spots are being taken away from our fair city.

Update: Mr. Eric Sir pointed out that the building rendering is available online and is “ugly as shit”, an opinion which I will further demonstrate by sloppily scaling up the microscopic source image here:

Available now at Gravel & Gold.

What do you think this bear’s costume is? Spy vs Spy? Alec Baldwin from Beetlejuice? Some kind of fetishist? A bird?

Window display at Borderlands.

We’re pretty lucky. ATA is one of the best places in the world to see some truly independent cinema, and it’s right here in our neighborhood and they program rad and challenging stuff all year long. This week is one of their flagship events, the ATA Film & Video Festival. Here it is in broad strokes, but click over to the festival page for specifics:

Wed, Oct 19 is the Opening Reception (7p-9p, free).

Oct 20 & 21 are the film screenings.
And we are having a Super8 Film Workshop on Oct 23.

http://festival.atasite.org/2011/

To win a pair of tickets to the screening of your choice, leave a comment below explaining why you love independent or underground cinema. The contest ends this coming Wednesday at noon, and winners will be chosen based on merit.

Come hang out already!

Baby carrots. Really. And I think there’s a pea pod in there. ”Where’d you get that heinous slice?” I asked. Here’s Lindsey’s answer:

bristol farms :/ but it was so tasty.

According to the internet, Bristol Farms is located in some place called Union Square.

[via Lindsey]

The calm before the storm?

[via Last Renaissance]