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!

The all-new TCB Courier website is up and running as of today. So… WHAT’S FOR LUNCH???

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

(on Mission @ Valencia)

Photographer Laura Brunow Miner loves this view, so she stops and snaps a pic every time she’s up there, which must be a lot because there are currently 70 pictures in this set: “Views of a View”

This view will cease to exist when the new-and-improved Dolores Park debuts sometime soon, so enjoy it while it lasts.

Positive Destruction, the local music blog devoted to writing even more Oh Sees posts than I do, just put together a year-end best-of list:

The Bay Area absolutely smashed it in 2011, with some of our favorite artists releasing amazing albums, EPs and cassettes that we’ve been listening to endlessly this year. It was incredibly difficult to cull the past 12 months to our favorite 15 releases, but we did it anyway.

Thee Oh Sees’ “Carrion Crawler/The Dream” double-EP (pictured above) gets the #1 spot, which is fair, but I gotta say I think I like the Mikal Cronin record even better, so definitely buy it for the garage rocker on your shopping list. Read on for lots and lots of locally made gift ideas.

Vegetarians rejoice, Soul Groove now has you covered. Allison has the scoop:

Waffles, fake chicken and coleslaw. I think the dude said they also have some kind of fried green tomato thing.

Yeah!

[via C'mon, Pony!]

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]

You’ve undoubtedly wandered past many murals here in the Mission.  Perhaps you’ve wondered how they originally got there, or perhaps you don’t even give a shit.  Should your proclivities tend towards the former, however, here are two distinct behind-the-scene looks of how it all goes down.  Above, there’s some serious ladder action going on for a mural in progress on the side of Casa Guadalupe at 26th Street, with more pics of the process here.  Below, check out a sweet timelapse of a commissioned mural now residing by the corner of Bartlett and 24th.

Study hard, then try it yourself (at home)!

[via Ah fuck]