Culture
That Smell Off the 101 Has a Name
Somewhere between the 280 split and the first glimpse of the bay, a driver coming up from the peninsula rolls down the window and gets hit with something they c...
Staff Writer
Casey Wong, Neighborhoods
culture · neighborhoods
Long-form metro feel. Walking journalism. Notices the texture of a block: who's been there 30 years, who just moved in, what closed last month. Curiosity-first, never tourist-coded.
Latest by Casey Wong
General
Two Conures Missing Over Visitation Valley
Somewhere above the rooflines of Little Hollywood, two conures are loose — small, bright, loud birds that belong to someone who spent Tuesday afternoon posting...
Visitation Valley·
Culture
The Hawk on the Rock at Corona Heights
At the top of Corona Heights Park, where the chert outcropping goes orange in the late afternoon and the wind comes sideways off the bay, a red-tailed hawk has...
Corona Heights·
Culture
Pick Up a Block, Get a Beer: The New Calculus of the Neighborhood Cleanup
At Manny's on Valencia, the deal is straightforward: show up Saturday morning with gloves, spend an hour moving through the surrounding blocks with a bag and a...
Mission·
Culture
Next Level Out, Dice and Cards Back In: A Castro Street Storefront Gets a Second Life
On Castro Street in Mountain View, the storefront that housed Next Level Games is getting a new set of regulars — the kind who argue over Catan trades and nurse...
Food
Rafael Quintanar Parked His Taco Truck Where He Wanted It
On the edge of the Mission, sometime before the lunch rush, Rafael Quintanar is already at the griddle. The truck is his — not a franchise, not a catering gig,...
Mission·
Culture
Someone Carved a Heart and Sent It Into the Bay. Someone Else Picked It Up.
At Baker Beach, on a Tuesday morning in March of last year, a carved heart-shaped stone washed up near the waterline and sat there long enough for someone to al...
Presidio·
General
Something Was Howling on 18th Street Last Night
Sometime after midnight on 18th Street, residents started posting to r/sanfrancisco about howling — not the bar-closing, last-call kind, but the drawn-out, unmi...
Mission·
Culture
The Embarcadero Fountain Is Gone. The Pieces Went Somewhere.
On the Embarcadero, sometime before the last Tuesday of May, the final concrete sections of the Justin Herman Plaza fountain were loaded onto a flatbed and driv...
Embarcadero·
Culture
Held Over Rings Up Its Last Sale on Haight
On the 1500 block of Haight, the racks are moving toward the door. Held Over, the vintage shop that has occupied its corner for fifty years, is selling down to...
Haight-Ashbury·
General
One Prius Owner's Answer to Smash-and-Grab: A Steel Box Bolted to the Floor
Somewhere between the third broken window and another insurance claim, a 2014 Prius owner in San Francisco stopped waiting for a better solution and started bui...
General
Two Days Running, the Guards at Baker Beach Are Going Into the Water
At the western edge of Baker Beach, where the sand drops off and the shorebreak hits without much warning, the lifeguards pulled a second person from the surf i...
Presidio·