[Photos courtesy of SF History Center / SF Public Library, via Katy Hill]
35 Responses to “Tartine and Bi-Rite a million years ago”
Allan Hough (7858)
Brittany Janis & Katie Cruz (104)
Authors
Allan Hough (7858)Brittany Janis & Katie Cruz (104)
Funny how little the buildings change here, all of these buildings should be twice the height at this point
3 or 4 times higher, if you ask me.
Really the entire Mission should just be bulldozed and replaced with high-rise apartments — except for one burrito joint that is retained so that we don’t lose the character of the place. Right?
You’ve got yours already, right, “Valenchia”? Let’s keep the city quaint and exclusive for homeowners like yourself.
It is really more about keeping it a pleasant place to live and work. Yes, there can and should be more building, but the reaction of some people that anything less than 5 stories tall should be destroyed is a bit odd.
I am sorry you don’t appreciate San Francisco; if you want to live in a crowded metropolis maybe you should move to New York City.
I’m sorry you won’t accept that San Francisco is a growing and evolving city. If you want to live in a quaint hamlet, frozen in time, maybe you should move to Carmel.
Valenchia: Well said. You are absolutely correct.
Ah honey turn that frown upside down.
Exactly. People who are in such a hurry to destroy exactly what makes San Francisco special absolutely disgust me.
Yea, because the current system works so well. I guess that’s why we have literally the highest rent of any city in the country, and anyone in the creative community has absolutely zero chance of moving here.
Great! Glad we all listened to you for decades, and now have to suffer.
I just can’t understand the sentiment, we have the highest rents in the entire country. The highest. We have the highest rents. Is this sinking in yet?
An inadequate housing supply does not make SF “special”. It welcomes only the wealthiest newcomers and turns the current residents against each other.
You disgust me.
I pity you.
@Mark: There are many things that San Francisco has done to create a housing shortage, but most of them are politically untouchable.
I guess I just don’t understand the sentiment that we should destroy the City so the newcomers can come in and have cheap rent. Why do you feel entitled to do that?
“Destroy the city”? Spoken like a homeowner who already has theirs. Too bad for the next generation. “Maybe, if you’re nice, I’ll rent you a closet in my basement.”
new housing “destroys a city”, this holds true if by ‘destroys’ you mean shaves off a few bucks from the selling prices/rents of property owners. i’d happily destroy the greed.
What are you talking about? I support building lots of new housing, throughout the city.
You’re all starting from a false (albeit pervasive) premise.
Building luxury lofts does not only does not ease the housing crunch, it exacerbates it: 1. It raises avg prices, which raises the new target prices 2. it fuels speculation, which leads to higher prices, which leads to further speculation, rinse and repeat, until the bubble collapses.
High-end housing and affordable housing are not fungible.
Building expensive housing does not make housing more affordable. The only way to make housing affordable is to provide affordable housing.
two beers: Exactly.
How do we build affordable housing in SF? New housing is extremely expensive, primarily because of the scarcity and high costs of land. The current system subsidizes affordable housing construction via the sale of market rate housing. What is the realistic alternative?
I’m for a much more stringent requirement in terms of affordable housing inclusion for privately-funded projects. I’d be fine with 25% or even a third of new construction being ear-marked for below-market-rate. I’d even strongly support construction of more below-market-rate housing at taxpayer expense. But, then, I’m basically a socialist, so go figure.
I live in Seattle where they’ve been building more housing, and guess what? The culture isn’t changing and the rent is actually going down in price.
San Francisco’s rent is appalling and the fact that the same people complaining about techies moving in are also whining about high rise apartments shows just how idiotic that city can be. If you want to stop gentrification, you have to build housing to support a growing population. It doesn’t kill the culture, it lets new cultures in.
For a city that prides itself in being so open minded and progressive, a lot of you guys sure do like to put a gate up and keep your city exclusive to your tastes. The saddest thing is, I used to be one of those preservationists when I lived there. Its clearly an ideology that’s heavily ingrained in the cities culture, for better or for worse.
Cool set of pix.
I think this is the last time the market on 17th & Guerrero was open regularly:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sfplsanfranciscohistoricalphotographcollection/7687500744/in/set-72157630845728908
Mark & Lee must be newbies. Where they tear down nicely built, solid old homes and throw up shitty, metal studded, cardboard boxes with shitty finish stucco jobs. I could really give a shit about the new people v old mission people, tech v artists, etc. etc… I was born at St Lukes so you all are new to me but when people start saying that old homes should be torn down, it really upsets me. Mark/Lee, go back to Ohio or San Jose or wherever you are from and tear down and build up there.
Aw, Im sorry it upsets you. Enjoy living in your capitalist paradise of $12 candy bars. Personally I’ve almost had enough of the mentality of this city in trying their hardest to keep people from moving here, you think an artist is going to pay 3k a month in rent? Especially when Portland is now more interesting than SF, and easily 1/3 the cost.
My original point was that the building of SF should have kept up with the population moving into it. I have no idea why that is a shocking comment to this city. Seattle did a much better job of it, and they have a thriving tech scene also, just look at craigslist for what rents are there.
No one is demanding that you stay here. If you don’t appreciate San Francisco then there is nothing wrong with your moving on. Thanks.
Me moving on (which Im strongly considering, but also for work related reasons), will have no effect on the market.
As for this comment, “I guess I just don’t understand the sentiment that we should destroy the City so the newcomers can come in and have cheap rent. Why do you feel entitled to do that?”
Such an arrogant comment. Tell that to the residents of the Mission being Ellis’d out. Or for people who literally can never move from their apartment because they cant afford anywhere else.
Let me ask you, what is this city? Is this city characterized by its buildings, or by its citizens? Are you more interested in protecting the visual look of the city, or about protecting its identity as a place where disaffected youth can move here to create art, to feel safe if they are LGBTQ. Personally I moved here in 2002 for the latter reason, the fact that the city is interesting to look at did not at all factor into it.
Building luxury lofts exclusively is the surest way to $12 candy bars.
You’re disingenuously trying to equate increased development/taller buildings with a more equitable housing situation. Increased development only makes housing more equitable if the new development is affordable. Otherwise, it just increases the stratification.
I suspect you know that, but think you can fool typical knejerk liberals by appealing to their sense of justice.
Two beers: Bingo.
4 floors of housing can easily be constructed above a one story commercial structure like the Bi Rite building.
Actually, that’s pretty much how it looked in 1995, when I lived across the street from Carl’s (which never, ever had a line down the block).
I got all my birthday cakes at Carl’s.
I grew up in the Mission and it is a shadow of its former self but that is just my perception. The problem is things changes always! You can’t keep things from morphing into something you no longer recognize. So get over it! Saying that we need people fighting to keep in the same and people fighting for progress and hopefully everyone will meet in the middle. I am clearly feeling optimistic today!Oh I also live in New Orleans where the gentrification train in pulling into the station! Its everywhere people!
One thing’s for sure, toast sure as shit wasn’t $4 back then.
@two beers
“You’re disingenuously trying to equate increased development/taller buildings with a more equitable housing situation. Increased development only makes housing more equitable if the new development is affordable. Otherwise, it just increases the stratification.”
I don’t at all agree with this. Even IF all we can build is luxury housing, that means that people who can afford luxury houses will move there. These people are then not in the marketplace. So someone making 100k a year living in any open building he can find, can move to a fancy new building freeing open his previous slot.
Removing anyone from the market is a win. Been to any open houses for rental units in a while? They are packed, last time I moved I saw many with 10 or so people there. Now imagine that in SOMA we had 50 places like NEMA, the people that move into the new NEMAs are now not attending open houses in the mission, dogpatch, and soma. You act as if there is an infinite number of people to take their place, what could have ever given you this idea? The local economy is only so big, only a certain percentage of people are willing to travel 40 miles south to their job.
Carls Pastry shop was my very first job!!! Its nice seeing the old picture thanks