Mission Mission

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!

This looks like the scariest place to spend the night EVER.

(on Mission @ Valencia)

Only $200 in Monopoly currency per house! And think of all the extra income you’ll be raking in once you save up for a hotel.

[via the Minutes]

College can be a pretty fun experience, and sometimes it’s a little tough to let go and embrace the real world when it’s all over.  That seems to be the case with this Craigslist post from a recent graduate:

Wanted: One big room, full of girlfriends – w4ww – 22 (mission district)

Trendy ladies of the Mission, listen up. I am at my wit’s end. I am a recent transplant to this city from Seattle (don’t I get cool points for that already?) and after four months of hanging with the same three people (also, all transplants), I am at a lost as to how to make new girlfriends. Listen up Carries, Samanthas, Mirandas and Charlottes of the world, I want one big a$$ room full of bada$$ girlfriends. I want to form the trendiest girl group that will knock all other Mission girl groups out of the park. I want us to form the trendiest group where we go biking, brunching, happy-houring, getting trendy a$$ coffee together-ing.

I want it all, and I want to be YOUR best gal pal.

Full listing after the jump…

(Thanks Carolyn!)  [Completely unrelated photo by Carina]

(more…)

Check out the tale of a recent ride-along over at The Bold Italic. Written by Mark Lukach with design by Diana Martinez. Among other things, we learn that when you get pulled over late at night for something seemingly insignificant, the cops are just using you as an excuse to flash their lights.

[From midnight to 2 a.m.], the most important thing for officers is to be as obvious as possible. The easiest way to do that is to pull people over. So we did that. If we saw a guy with a tail light out, or turning left where it’s prohibited, we pulled the car over. Not to cite the guy. Not to be dicks. We did it in order to have police lights flashing on busy streets where drugs are sold, gangs congregate, and the inebriated get rowdy. In the course of an hour, we pulled over four cars along Mission Street, and didn’t ticket a single driver. We were just letting our presence be known.

Read the rest here.

One of the squeaky-clean kids over at Mission Loc@l dressed up in his Sunday best and showed up filming of Kink.com’s “Public Disgrace”, a groundbreaking independent web video series.

Here’s a snippet:

“Let’s review the rules,” she says into a bullhorn from the center of the circle.

In more explicit language, she says that if you plan to participate, please wash your hands.

“The bathroom is over there,” she adds.

She looks back down at her list of rules.

“That’s it.”

The crowd laughs. I gulp.

Eventually, he caught on:

I’m getting it now: Kink.com is filming a porno/sex party, and we are the extras. I knew from the release form that there would be cameras at the event, but I now understand that this is really part of an adult video shoot, and the guests are the public part of the “public disgrace.”

How precious.

Read on, and if you watch the episode later, keep your eye out for a dude in a wool suit holding a notepad.

[photo, story via Mission Loc@l]

According to Mission Bicycle:

Not cool, Martha Stewart. But I’ll let it slide this time on account of this:

DoVulcanTitsDefyLogic? posted this, with the caption:

My roommate’s response to this picture: “I bet some freshman from Brown put that up.”

Come to think of it, at Garfield Park, I did hear someone say, “Where are all the brown people at?” Was he talking about Brown University? I guess so!

[via DoVulcanTitsDefyLogic?]

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.