Mission Mission

Photographer Karoline Collins this morning took us back in time to the summer of 1998 and some kind of punk picnic in which a bunch of Mission kids piled into a van and went up north somewhere to catch some rays and have a swim.

“This is the first time I can remember seeing lots of punk rockers in bathing suits,” says the photographer. It’s a rare sight, right? Happy Friday!!

Previously:

Flashback: Mission Hipster, 2003

Throwback: Mission, 1989

Throwback: Mission, 1975

Burrito Justice, the Mission’s top historian, has done it again, this time with a full-scale expose on the storied history of business at the corner of 26th and Valencia.  He also comes up with the line of the decade so far:

“24th is certainly a hipster semipermeable membrane.”

Perhaps Capp Street is the voltage-gated ion channel in this scenario.

Browsing the SF Historical Photo Collection, I saw this cerca 1975 picture of the Giant Value building on 22nd and Mission.

First, I noticed the cool pinstripe paint job on the façade. Then something else occurred to me: the word “GIANT” is actually in a different place than it is today. At some point, whoever took over the building moved it over to the left and added the word “VALUE” after it.

Here is a picture of the building as it stands today:

So the question remains, what was it before it was “GIANT VALUE”? ”VALUE GIANT”? “MOVIE GIANT”? “THE GIANT”? Surely, someone who was here before 1975 can provide the answer. Ha! Yeah right… most of you weren’t even BORN in 1975.

In any case, it will probably be CONDO GIANT in a couple of years.

Update: Burrito Justice Johnny0 to the rescue again (there’s a shocker):

It had changed to its current incantation by 1982 when it was “Giant Value Pharmacy”.

A bit more judicious googling shows us that PayLess bought out the “Value Giant” store chain in 1976. I bet that PayLess didn’t take keep our Mission store, and in order to keep lawyers happy, that particular pharmacy flipped the sign around to read “Giant Value” — pretty damn clever.

Burrito Justice dug up some ancient BART concept art, lookin’ like straight out of TRON. If you think proposals 1 and 2 are nice, wait’l you see them alongside 3, 4 and 5.

Previously:

BART Badges

BART Swing

BART Boner

Well, I’m not sure what you expected to see:

Members of the Mission High School ROTC, San Francisco, Calif., demonstrate .50 cal water cooled machine gun for Jackie Walling, 340 Valencia, a member of the ROTC Band. (L-R) Larry Fifield, 72 Fair Oaks; Melvin Cook, 62 Santa Ynez Ave.; Neil Cook, 3517 16th St. These students are shown in their new issue uniforms which consist of ETO jackets in place of the old time blouses.

I love how it lists their addresses. You know, just in case you want to send any of them a letter.

The online SF Historical Photo Collection (AKA one the sources of Johnny0‘s power) has loads of sweet images like this.

First, an old video of Mission locals Dr. Popular and Kiya (yeah, Self Edge Kiya) nonchalantly SHREDDING on their yos while interviewing for KRON 4. (Bonus: it’s the same awkward correspondent that interviewed Broke Ass Stuart some time ago):

Next, Kiya posted this bit of history in the comments of the last Yo-Yo-related post and I thought it was too interesting not to share:

The Mission yoyo craze started many years ago when Doc moved from Minneapolis to the Mission and lived with me for a while on 22nd street.

I have a yoyo club which he’s a part of called The Consortium of Yo, we used to be sponsored by Zeitgeist and for years there was a COY x Zeitgeist yoyo you could buy at the bar that had both our logo and the Zeitgeist logo/motto on the side-caps.

Also, another bit of trivia… I named the fried pickles dish at Weird Fish/Benders, hence the name Fried Yoyos.

Doc is the Bay Area’s yoyo ambassador, 2nd Place World Champion, and a famous hair model.

Kiya: Still got any of those Zeitgeist-branded yo-yos buring a hole in a box in your garage? We must learn your ways.

Ok no more yo-yo posts this month, I promise.

Many Machines sometimes shares exchanges with the kids from 826 Valencia. Here comes one now!

Me: Is that your book about the history of pirates?

5th Grader: It’s not mine, but I was reading it.

Me: Is it good?

Read on for the answer. I really like the answer.

Previously:

826 Valencia Kids Love Obama [P.S. Why isn't this image on a shirt yet?]

Hurry, get your historically-accurate Santas at that One $ Only store* between 23rd and 24th!

*Item may not actually be $1. It’s one of those misleading “one dollar and up” stores. WTF? All they are doing is setting a minimum price.

A not very subtle follow up to the last post.

(link)

One of the things I love about Valencia is how it accidentally became the best street in the city.  It was a 4 lane highway with narrow sidewalks until 1999, yet commerce and culture still happened.  15 ft sidewalks with trees were not required.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not down on trees or outdoor seating, but I wonder if ditching the the grungy newspaper boxes and shitty sidewalks covered in stencil art will lead to more blight like this building.  Valencia was always the little street that could.  I cannot help but feel that city planners are over-engineering a great thing.

(photo sfhaps)