Mission Mission

Can anyone help this guy out? If so, contact him at–oh. Well, I guess he’ll find you.

[Spotted by Miegan at 18th b/t Guerrero and Valencia]

Telstar Logistics just published a photographic guide to some of San Francisco’s most truly dazzlin’ pieces of neon signage, and a couple Mission District favorites are in there. See the light.

Go Climb a Rock is an expertly curated parade of vintage photographs of granola-eaters hiking around in the woods. Or it usually is. This week, they published this shot of a couple of very modern-looking girls hanging out atop Corona Heights Park.

At first I was like, “What is this thoroughly modern tableau doing cluttering up an otherwise–” And then I realized: no Transamerica Pyramid. They’re a couple of hippies, way back in the stone age, climbing a rock. But they look just like us!

The more things change, the more they stay exactly the same, right? I saw both those pairs of sunglasses at Buffalo Exchange the other day, I swear.

Building upon the deluge of nostalgic Dolores Park photos that surfaced earlier this week, MM reader friscolex clued us in to the gold mine that is the San Francisco Public Library History Center Blog.  And what a gold mine it is!  Here we have a photo of Mission High School students eating lunch in Dolores Park in 1958.  Myriad interesting things here. 

First of all, these “high school” students look a lot older than most high school students I see around these days.  In fact, they look older than most undergrads!  Perhaps they’re not really high school students at all but are merely playing the part a la James Van Der Beek.

Furthermore, I’m not quite sure, but all of these students look pretty white.  Although this may just mean that they weren’t on the city champion soccer team, I’ve got a feeling that most of their fellow classmates were white as well.  50 years later, it seems that things are a little different.

But that’s not all from the SFPL HC!  Check out these amazing early (1965) designs for BART trains!  Supposedly, BART promised “trains automatically timed to arrive at stations every 90 seconds during rush hours, [and] BART is guaranteeing everyone of its passengers a seat[!!!]“  I wonder how that worked out.

Nevertheless, the SFPL History Center is a gold mine.  Be sure to check it out and support it however you can!

Previously:

Dolores Park 20 Years Ago

More Photos of Dolores Park 20 Years Ago

Mission Soccer: A San Francisco Dynasty

Miscellaziness is a Mission-based photo blog you can always depend on for some choice shots of fun. Yesterday’s post starts with pills, crack and vacancy, and then takes a turn for the more pleasant. Sort of.

Previously:

Life in the Mission (2008)

Yesterday’s post featuring pictures taken in Dolores Park 20 years ago was so nostalgic it inspired MM reader and cheese connoisseur Gordon Edgar to post some his old snapshots from the same era.

A week or two after Bush Sr. started the first Gulf War San Francisco had a huge protest. We watched the crowd grow outside our window (and let people in to use the bathroom since no one rented honey buckets for protests back then) and I finally took a picture when the crowd got huge. Then we rushed downstairs and joined the march.

Oh yeah, all the people in the park were there for the protest, not sunbathing. The park was empty by the time we got to City Hall.

Read on for more photos of the Park and to find out the name of the vegetarian Chinese restaurant that used to be in the Dolores Park Cafe spot.

Photographer Jason Schlachet (of the Ohio Schlachets) has some thoughts on why “the kiss” is such a special sub-genre of street photography:

[I]t’s tricky to get right since you need to be close up, focusing, and yet not interrupting (or even be noticed during) the moment.

Read the rest, and see the above kiss (at 16th and Valencia) in its entirety, here.

For rilz.

More carson! Nick Fisher was on the scene last night.

“The fire somehow turned on the horn and headlights which were both blasting for the duration.”

“[The firemen] are trying to get the hood off to put out the fire still burning under there. Eventually they sawed it off.”

Just a week and a half since  2 cars on 18th Street were torched in a row. Still not cool, bro.

UPDATE: Thanks to actual journalism, The SF Appeal gets the official story so far:

“[A]ccording to SFPD spokesperson Sgt. Michael Andraychak, the arson task force has determined that the fire was accidental in nature, and is not believed to be connected to last week’s intentionally set fires.

Andraychak, who says he spoke directly with arson investigators, confirms Talmadge’s report that the fire began in one car, then spread to the second. God, sucks for the second guy, doesn’t it? Best of luck to all in dealing with that insurance claim.“

(One of the infamous “hotel rooms”?)

Nick Fisher read our post from a few months ago about getting a free tour of The Armory and sprang into action. Last Friday his tour came up and he was kind enough to take Julie, Dottie and me with him.

Julie posted about it on Caliber, along with a link to the full set.

Check out the sights after the jump. (some NSFW stuff linked)

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