Mission Mission

To commemorate that today is the anniversary of the 1906 earthquake, Muni released a batch of never-before-seen photography from the aftermath. Three are set in the Mission.

Above is an almost totally incinerated street car on Guerrero Street, with the ruins of the Mission in the background. Below are scenes from Howard Street. (Now it’s known as South Van Ness, but it used to be Howard.)

[via Haighteration]

Yep. It was going to be called Triton City. Cracked explains:

Triton anticipated a lower maximum population of just over 100,000 people, and was also to be the first fully organic city, complete with a desalination system to re-circulate ocean water. Schematics for Triton were sent to the United States Navy’s Bureau of Ships, to check it for “water-worthiness,” stability and organic capabilities, then off to the Bureau of Yards and Docks to see whether or not they could even build this thing, specifically at the cost they had projected. Both Bureaus gave the thumbs up, and the Navy’s cost estimate came within 10% of Buckminster’s. And that’s probably the craziest part of Triton: At every stage, it was going to work.

So why aren’t you living in a floating metal pyramid, mocking the ocean and all her impotent fury? Like all things, you can probably blame Lyndon B. Johnson for that: The plans had taken too long to get approval, and by the time they did, LBJ left office and took all support for the idea with him. He even took the Triton City model when he left and put it in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library & Museum. You guys didn’t play nice, so he just took his futuristic water-city and went home. [link]

Bummer! (Although it’s probably for the best; today we don’t have to watch blog trolls complain about Triton douchebags invading the Mission.)

[via husk.org]

In case you missed it, yesterday we debuted a new look. (It was promptly panned by critics, so we took it down.) (Also, the Buca di Beppo ad was totally an April Fools, we swear.)

But seriously, that new header is something I was working on back in 2009, before the boys from Sleepover swooped in and designed the Mission Mission we all know and love currently. (Which is why it’s missing the mural that surrounds the Mission Market signage today.)

Anyway, in digging up this old thing, I came across a whole mess of other iterations of Mission Mission’s look, including a few what-might-have-beens. Firstly, this is basically what it looked like in the beginning:

Nobody will remember that because I was probably the only one that read it during that look. After about a year, I switched to a different, more sophisticated WordPress theme, and also made a somewhat more sophisticated header:

(more…)

Man, over at SF Appeal what started as a simple, “can my landlord really raise my rent?” turned into, “short answer is yes, long answer <insert history of land ownership in Western civilization>”. Here’s a snippet:

As societies became more complex, ruthless bands of sociopaths (call their leaders pharaohs, kings, popes, bankers or the 1%) took control, they usurped the commoners’ (call them the people or the 99%) rights to own the land. I’m sure the bargain went something like this: “Look peon, I’ll defend your land for you, but because I have taken on this burden you have to give me unfettered rights to your land.” Faced with an offer they could not refuse, most commoners gave in. Those who resisted lost their ability to pass down their genetic make-up to future generations. It seemed that evolution created the perfect marriage of cowards and kings.

Good read, if you wanna shake your fist at the sky. Check it out.

[via SF Appeal]

Reader Josh I. explains:

Don’t know if you ever went to the Ace Cafe, on 14th and Mission, but it was one of those bars seriously beloved by a cadre of local motorcycle enthusiasts. Filmmaker pal Henry Dombey recently completed this short film following the last days of the bar.

It’s a moving little movie:

Found atop of a pile of discarded junk on York Street. Who this is?

Let’s take a closer look:

[via The Tenderloin Geographic Society]

The Tenderloin Geographic Society reports:

Let us remember with fondness the house that Q*bert built, for it is no more. [link]

If only we’d left the Mission more, maybe we’d have been able to enjoy this thing more. I think I saw one movie in that place, and I think it was some kind of special screening of the Coen Brothers’ now classic The Man Who Wasn’t There, and they handed out promotional plastic combs. I am remembering this with fondness.

It was kind of an art project, kind of a protest, from a time when citizens were about to vote on whether or not to allow more high-rises to be built. Gravel & Gold today published some pictures and an explanation by the great Tom Wolfe:

This coloring book is the work of 16 artists, and I like what they’ve done. (I haven’t written home about it, you understand, but I like it.) But I also like it for what it illustrates about the problems of social protest graphics. A high percentage of the entries for the show fell in that category, and almost all of them show the artists’ natural instincts (Me!) working at cross purposes with the cause he is lending his talent to. This coloring book was created in support of Alvin Duskin’s campaign to stop the spread of high-rise building in San Francisco (“ecology”). . . But most of the artists were obviously far more intrigued by the graphic possibilities of skyscrapers and Heartless Tycoons than of low-rise buildings and the common man. I’m sure that all children who actually used this hook learned to love skyscrapers and were filled with the ambition to build one, or at least go see a few.

Read on for more analysis from Wolfe and of more pictures.

Hey, look, a map of San Francisco!

Waaaaait a second, something’s different about this. <insert Wayne’s World time travel music> It’s Google Maps, 1853! Behold PastMapper, an utterly epic work in progress on the part of @bradvertising, bringing the 1853 Coast Survey map to life and geotagging the 1852 city directory on top of it.

In the 1850s, the Mission was where you went to party and drink on the weekend. The Mission Plank Road (the curve of which BART follows today) was completed in 1851.

There was a toll — just 25 cents for riders on horseback, 75 cents for two-horse wagons, one dollar for a four-horse team! (What a bargain compared to BART or Muni.)

Well, not so fast — a dollar in 1853 was worth about $30 today. A glass of ale cost 12 and a half cents, and the typical fine for drunk/disorderly conduct was $5.  Needless to say, lots of folks hoofed it along side trails, cutting through the sand dunes and Hayes Valley.

Anyway, the 1853 is only the start for Pastmapper.  I have it on good authority that the much more expansive 1857/1859 Coast Survey map (with much more of the Mission) is on the to-do list.

Pastmapper: bringing you yesterday, today!