Culture
The Best Deal in San Francisco Is Already Paid For With Your Taxes
Here's a radical concept for a city where a mediocre latte and two hours of café Wi-Fi runs you $8 plus tip: you've already paid for some genuinely excellent pu...
Section · 30 stories · Friday, May 15
Culture.
Galleries, stages, bookshops, and the conversations they're hosting.
Culture
Your Reminder That the Best Things in SF Are Still Free
While city hall finds exciting new ways to spend your money on consultants, committees, and programs that produce glossy reports and little else, the Pacific Oc...
Culture
Your Reminder That the Best Things in the Bay Area Are Still Free
In a region where a one-bedroom apartment can run you $3,000 a month and a mediocre burrito somehow costs $18, it's worth pausing to appreciate the things aroun...
Culture
San Francisco's Early Bedtime: A Feature, Not a Bug
Stand atop Nob Hill on any given evening and look east across the city. The views are stunning — the Bay Bridge twinkling, downtown's skyline catching the last...
Nob Hill·
Culture
The Transamerica Pyramid Is Shooting Lasers at Coit Tower and Honestly? We're Into It
If you looked up at the San Francisco skyline last night and thought you'd accidentally wandered into a Bond villain's origin story, you weren't alone. The Tran...
Financial District·
Culture·Scene
The Free Market at Its Finest: One SF Beauty Worker Is Giving Away Products the Donation System Won't Take
Here's a small story that says a lot about how broken our systems are — and how regular people quietly route around them. A worker at an organic beauty retaile...
Culture
Bape Is Coming to Union Square — Yes, That Union Square
Japanese streetwear giant Bape is setting up shop in Union Square, and honestly? We'll take it. For a retail corridor that's spent the last few years collectin...
Union Square·
Culture
Karl the Fog: SF's Most Beloved Influencer Is Losing His Audience
San Francisco has no shortage of local celebrities, but none have achieved the cultural staying power of Karl the Fog — the personified blanket of gray that rol...
Culture
16th & Mission Gets an Open Mic Night — Minus the Mic
Somewhere in the grand tradition of San Francisco's DIY spirit — the same city that gave you poetry slams in North Beach basements and impromptu concerts in Dol...
Mission District·
Culture
Thursday Nights Just Got Better: White Rabbit's Inner Circle Keeps the Midweek Party Alive
Look, we spend a lot of time around here talking about what's going wrong in San Francisco — the budget disasters, the bureaucratic bloat, the policies that mak...
Tenderloin·
Culture
The National Queer Arts Festival Returns — Here's What to Know
The National Queer Arts Festival is back in San Francisco, and love it or not, it's one of those cultural institutions that reminds you why this city still punc...
Culture
The Ancient Queen Behind One Sculptor's Modern Vision
There's something quietly radical about an artist who looks past the endless churn of contemporary trends and finds inspiration in a warrior queen from ancient...
Culture
Another SF Institution Loses Its Leader After Slashing Staff
Scott Sampson, the head of the California Academy of Sciences, has resigned — and the timing tells you everything you need to know. His departure comes on the...
Golden Gate Park·
Culture
When San Francisco Actually Looked Like a City Worth Fighting For
Sometimes you need to look backward to understand just how far we've drifted. A pair of photographs from early 1900s San Francisco have been making the rounds...
Culture
SF's Underground Comedy Scene Is Thriving — And It's Free
While San Francisco's city government continues to spend millions on "activating" downtown with consultant-designed placemaking initiatives, the city's actual c...
Culture·Scene
Mark Twain Was Right: A Survival Guide to SF's Coldest Season (Summer)
Every year, thousands of transplants arrive in San Francisco expecting sunshine, flip-flops, and rooftop cocktails from June through September. Every year, Karl...
Culture
A Love Letter to Bay Area Architecture, One Old Photo at a Time
Here's something that doesn't involve a budget scandal, a transit meltdown, or a supervisors' meeting that makes you question representative democracy: someone...
Culture
When Striped Bass Ran Beneath the Golden Gate
There's a photograph floating around from the 1930s that should make every San Franciscan stop scrolling for a second: striped bass, caught right under the Gold...
Culture
The Castro, Captured in Chalk: When Art Reminds Us What We're Fighting to Keep
There's something quietly powerful about seeing a San Francisco neighborhood rendered in pastel — soft, warm, almost nostalgic — when the reality on the ground...
Castro·
Culture
Seven Hours of Hitler: Because San Francisco Film Culture Has Never Heard of 'Less Is More'
San Francisco's art-house film scene is bringing back *Hitler, A Film From Germany*, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's legendary — and legendarily long — 1977 cinematic m...
Culture·Scene
Your Solo Summer in the Bay Area: A Case for Getting Off the Couch
Summer's here, and if you're a twentysomething grinding through a degree or a desk job in the Bay Area, there's a decent chance you've looked up from your scree...
Culture
Welcome to San Francisco, Where Eye Contact Is a Felony
If you've ever moved to San Francisco from literally anywhere else in America and felt like you'd accidentally become invisible — congratulations, you're not br...
Culture
Beach Raves at Point Lobos: Spontaneous Fun or Another Permitting Gray Zone?
If you happened to be wandering near Point Lobos on a recent Friday evening, you might have stumbled into something unexpected: a full-blown beach rave, complet...
Outer Richmond·
Culture
San Francisco's Streets Were Built for Skateboarding — A New Doc Proves It
Say what you will about San Francisco's crumbling infrastructure, but skateboarders have always seen the city's hills, ledges, and concrete jungle as a feature,...
Culture
The Gold-Rimmed Bunny Prius: San Francisco's Most Honest Car
Somewhere on the streets of San Francisco, there is a Prius rolling around with gold rims and bunny girl decals plastered all over it. And honestly? We respect...
Culture·Scene
The Free Market Is Alive and Well — One Nail Polish Bottle at a Time
Somewhere in San Francisco right now, a bottle of Mooncat nail polish in "Mermaid Bait" — an icy green that apparently doesn't flatter its owner — is looking fo...
Culture
The Antisocial Run Club SF Didn't Know It Needed
San Francisco's run club scene has a problem — and no, it's not the hills. It's the vibes. The forced mingling. The post-run happy hours where you're cornered...
Culture
140 Years Ago, SF's Chinese Laundry Owners Won a Civil Rights Victory Worth Remembering
San Francisco is marking the 140th anniversary of one of the most consequential — and most overlooked — civil rights rulings in American history. And yes, it st...
Culture
The Tower of Jewels: When San Francisco Built Things Worth Remembering
In 1915, San Francisco did something extraordinary. Just nine years after the 1906 earthquake leveled much of the city, residents didn't wallow in bureaucratic...
Marina·
Culture
Golden Gate Park's Bird Nests Are Tiny Time Capsules — And They're Free to Appreciate
Here's something that costs the city exactly zero dollars and delivers genuine wonder: bird nests in Golden Gate Park are functioning as miniature botanical arc...
Golden Gate Park·