Mission Mission

2010

• Public radio dreamboat Ira Glass tagged a wall in what appeared to be some sort of viral marketing scheme for This American Life
• Janebook lamented about lame-o craigslist Mission rooms for rent, what with their no-boyfriends policies, weekly house meetings, and fucking chore wheels

2009

• Chicken John tried to sell his warehouse, but apparently he’s still there organizing Dolores Park vomiting parties
• The Ghostbusters moved to the Mission, ditched the hearse for a more economical station wagon

2008

• The droids you weren’t looking were muralized to promote “Iron Rich Foods”
• Phat Philly, the best place to score some imported Tastykakes, opened. Do their onion rings still kick ass?

2007

• Somebody couldn’t wait to get to the park and did 7 whippits on the J Church
• Mother nature left some unintentional dead rat street art

2010

• Local standup comedian Chris Garcia KILLED US with this bit all about the Mission
• A car plowed into a group of celebrating Giants fans, the driver was pulled out, and beaten by an angry mob

2009

• “You Occupy Wallstreet kids think you invented tagging banks, well we were doing it in 2009 when you were still worrying about midterms”
• Someone clearly partied too hard on Capp street

2008

• Everyone wants to say they live in the Mission, even though they really live in “Missiontrero”
• The UFO Response team took a case in the ‘hood. It probably turned out to be a weather balloon

2007

• Xeni from BoingBoing favorited a picture of a dumpster we posted, so apparently is what it takes to make it on the Internet. That, and steampunk Star Wars ukuleles.

It’s 1938. You need to go shopping on the Miracle Mile but you can’t find parking between 24th and 25th. What do you do? Park in the Southern Pacific right of way, naturally.

That’s 24th on top, 25th down below, Mission on the left and Capp on the right. Rosamunde now sits in the west side of the former tracks, and Foot Locker on the east side. And Killing My Lobster is doing a kickstarter to open up their theater space just to the south of the old tracks.

Zoom and enhance!

Given the less than precise angles of the parked cars, the train was obviously not running frequently in 1938 (though I do like to imagine it barreling through and knocking cars asunder.) In fact, Southern Pacific would give up the line by 1948.  Note that the railroad was originally built in the 1860s and pre-dated the Mission street grid by a few years.  It took its jaunty angle to avoid two horse race courses that were in the area.

BurritoVision ON:

And a wider BV view. (The photos were taken at different angles so it doesn’t align as nicely as I’d like.)

Hmm, just noticed the arches over 25th and Mission:

I knew there were iron arches over Fillmore that were torn down during WWII, but not on Mission.

Anyway, do thank David Rumsey and the SFPL for being awesome. And I wrote more about it over here if you didn’t see it already.

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]

The calm before the storm?

[via Last Renaissance]

We’ve noticed more and more of these decommissioned parking enforcement vehicles around the neighborhood over the past year or so being driven by regular people like you and me.  In fact, most of the time they happen to be doing the opposite of parking enforcement, as this fellow here so clearly demonstrates.  However, not all Cushmans are created equal, as this well-kept example used to be in the service of the Bureau of Street Cleaning & Urban Forestry.

That’s right–the Department of Public Works used to have a Bureau of Urban Forestry.  I wonder what sort of forestry qualifies as “urban”?  But that’s not all!  Inside the cockpit (btw, someone definitely needs to open a bar in the Castro called the Cockpit), you’ll also find evidence of a celestial co-pilot.

Of course, I suppose that just means the devil is his navigator.

Previously:

San Francisco is Cushman Crazy

Mystery Cushman Spotted?

Mystery Drunken Golf Cart?

Our pal Nick (of Buster Posey, Dreamcatcher fame) let us know of this colorful shirt his buddy Albert recently designed and will be selling this Sunday from 12-4pm at Cafe Trieste on 609 Vallejo Street here in the city.  Probably not a good idea to go to this one wearing feathers, though.

Previously:

Is my Indian headdress offensive?

Looks about right. It’d be wild if the slopes were more rigidly terraced like that though, right?

In any case, Dolores Parks Works says Rec and Park’s recent release of the Historic Resource Evaluation Report (which includes this historic sketch) might gum up the works with the forthcoming Dolores Park renovation:

The key historical period for Dolores Park is 1905 to 1966 ending when the Mexican Liberty Bell and the statue of Miguel Hidalgo were added. There is a wealth of original elements in the park dating from this period and the plan for Dolores Park drawn by John McLaren, the master gardener of Golden Gate Park is still evident. Therefore, Page & Turnbull conclude, Dolores Park has kept her historic integrity and “any projects which contemplate alterations to the park are therefore subject to review by the San Francisco Planning Department, and should be carried out in compliance with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties…”

Read on.

Dan sends us word of his new project, OldSF.org, which overlays 13,000 images from the San Francisco Public Library’s Historical Photograph Collection with their locations on a map of San Francisco. The result? A time-travelling google street view.

Spend a couple of hours on it today and impress your friends this weekend at Dolores Park with a snide “man, this place was cooler when it was a refugee camp.”

Leed’s! Isn’t that where the Who played that one time?

[via BlowJoe]