Anna Vignet

Another one of San Francisco's quirky traditions returned on Easter Sunday. The 24th Bring Your Own Big Wheel, where children and "adult children" hurl themselves down a street full of twists and turns on toy vehicles, returned to Vermont Street in Portrero Hill. The event started in 2000 when a man named Jon Brumit decided to ride a toy tricycle, or "big wheel," down Lombard Street. A few years and one viral YouTube video later, the ride drew crowds too big for Lombard Street, with its narrow staircases and delicate plants. Since then, racers have adapted to a less famous, more curvier street. There are no promotions or sponsors for the event, which relies entirely on donations and volunteers to keep it running. The annual cost varies, but hovers around $13,000. Alongside the main event were fundraisers for Starr King Elementary and Rocket Dog Rescue. 🎥🎬 Anna Vignet @avinyay

George A. Wyman was a Hayward native, born in 1877, who at the age of 26 made what is said to have been the first trip across the United States via motorized vehicle — in his case, a motorized bicycle produced by a company in San Francisco. Wyman’s journey began May 16, 1903, at Lotta’s Fountain, on the little triangle where Kearny and Geary streets meet Market. That’s a spot that became famous as a meeting place for survivors of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. The daily journal of the trip is drawn from Wyman’s dispatches to a long-extinct publication called Motorcycle Magazine, which sponsored the trip. The story that unfolds in those reports shows Wyman to have been unflinching in the face of both frequently hostile conditions along his route and the repeated breakdowns of his 90-pound, 1.25-horsepower machine. This was no modern road trip because, in many places, highways were non-existent. Wyman wrote that he often preferred the bone-rattling ride along railroad ties to struggling through the deep sand or intractable mud along what passed for roads. Wyman’s motor bicycle was a sort of hybrid, consisting of what looked like a conventional bicycle frame fitted with a small gas tank and motor. A leather drive belt — which broke and required mending constantly — ran between the motor’s crank shaft and a pulley on the rear wheel. “I can smile now as I recall the sight I was with my overalls on... my coat torn and dirty, a big piece of wood tied on with rope where my handlebars should be, and the belt hanging loose from the crankshaft. I was told that I was ‘picturesque’ by a country reporter named ‘Josh,’ who captured me for an interview a little way up the Hudson, and who kept me talking while the photographer worked his camera, but to my ideal, I was too dirty to be picturesque. At any rate, I was too tired then to care. All I wanted was a hot bath and a bed.” Just 20 days after Wyman arrived, Horatio Nelson Jackson completed the trip across the country by car, in 63 days. ✍️ Dan Brekke 🎥 Anna Vignet 🎬 Anna Vignet

this saturday, the torch crosses the harbor. march 14, 1 p.m. awards & afterparty @flagshipbrewery artwork by the great @avinyay photos by me

On Saturday, cyclists around the United States - and even the world - gathered to ride in honor of Alex Pretti, and protest his killing by immigration officers in Minnesota last week. Several photos of Alex Pretti circulated online after his death. In one of them, he's wearing cycling gear and smiling with a bicycle. Pretti's local bike shop Angry Catfish @angrycatfish put out a call on Instagram for solidarity rides to take place to memorialize him, and bike communities answered. According to the shop, there were 230 rides confirmed, across forty three states and fourteen countries. At San Francisco's afternoon ride, hundreds gathered at the Ferry Building with signs, costumes, and bright colors to ride a loop around the North half of the city along some of the city's most-used cycling routes, down Market Street, through Golden Gate Park to Ocean Beach, and the Presidio. Protest organizer Luke Ekkizogloy was upset by the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, and he went online to see if he could find any kind of ride. "Looking up Angry Catfish, they were organizing some stuff," he said. "It's showing up in unity for your fellows that also bicycle. We share this thing that we like to do and because of that we're a family. And so we want to stand up in unity and show our support for who this person is and what they stood for and their value system." ✍️🎥🎬 Anna Vignet @avinyay

After years of being known as a defunct mall, San Francisco Centre officially closed last weekend leaving 1.2 million square feet of vacant space. The mall was once a centerpiece of San Francisco’s shopping district, but it was hit hard by online shopping, the pandemic, and declining foot traffic downtown. Still, the building and 6-acre site pose what some are calling a major opportunity to help revitalize downtown. The mall was auctioned for nearly $133 million to lenders now looking to steer the space into a new future. Broker CBRE is marketing the mall for sale. “All of the recovery in downtown activity, up until the past couple months, that’s all happening while the biggest property in downtown is hollowing out,” said Ted Egan, the city’s chief economist. But San Francisco city and business leaders have been championing an economic turnaround and throwing money and social media attention at signs of recovery, from restaurant openings and store pop-ups to music festivals downtown. Egan is optimistic: “It’s going to be a huge boost that [the mall] is moving on to its next stage.” There are real signs of improvement. Compared to just before the pandemic in 2019, violent crime is down 34% in San Francisco and property crime is down 54%. Groups like the nonprofit Downtown Development Corporation have raised nearly $60 million from local billionaires to fund efforts like sidewalk power washing and draw businesses downtown again. City leaders are banking on a new kind of future for the building beyond a typical mall, but what that looks like remains uncertain and officials are tight-lipped about plans. ✍️ Sydney Johnson 🎥 Anna Vignet

A hot pink nail salon. A yellow taqueria. A periwinkle Edwardian with red trim. Block after block along San Francisco’s bustling 24th Street, architectural gems mimic the vibrant papel picado strung up in windowfronts across the historic Mission District corridor. Less eye-catching, however, are the small signs affixed to the sides of these buildings, an understated acknowledgment of the man who painted thousands of technicolor buildings and helped shape the city’s iconic skyline in the process: Bob Buckter, better known as Dr. Color. San Francisco is widely known for its colorful architectural landscape, particularly the rainbow of Victorians dotting its hillsides. Much of it can be attributed to Buckter, who has painted and consulted on color design for tens of thousands of Victorian homes, churches, commercial buildings and more for nearly 60 years. Color fads also come and go. One trend you won’t see Buckter getting enthusiastic over is monochrome, such as the all-black or all-white Victorians some homeowners are going with these days. He recently released his own book, which he said is his first and last, on all of the signature work he’s done in the city and beyond. ✍️ Sydney Johnson 📷 Tâm Vũ @tamatoess 🎥 Anna Vignet @avinyay

Lombard Street is one of San Francisco’s most iconic thoroughfares. Beautiful mansions and carefully trimmed hedges frame the winding brick lane. But after the curves end, the street continues, heading all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge. If you’ve ever driven along this stretch through the Marina district, you might have noticed that dozens of motels dot the thoroughfare. Why so many in one place? We answer this question on our podcast Bay Curious. As is so often the case, San Francisco’s built environment is a product of its past. By the 1920s, America had entered the age of automobiles and highways began to connect places that had once seemed distant. And, in the early 1930s, engineers started planning for the construction of what was, at the time, going to be the longest suspension bridge in the world. Now one of San Francisco’s most iconic landmarks, the Golden Gate Bridge would stretch across the channel of water between Marin County and San Francisco, formerly only connected by boat. And Lombard Street would be the main approach road leading to the bridge. Back in 1939, Heidi Detjen’s grandfather could see the writing on the wall: when the bridge opened, visitors with cars would flood into San Francisco. They — and their cars — would need a place to stay. In 1939, just two years after the Bridge inauguration, he opened up the first motor lodge on Lombard Street. It was called the Marina Motel. Find this full episode of Bay Curious, the podcast that answers your questions about the San Francisco Bay Area, at kqednews.org/baycurious. ✍️ Christopher Beale, Gabriela Glueck 🎥 Anna Vignet 🎬 Anna Vignet

For most of the past year, Caltrans contractors have conducted a far-from-routine physical on an 89-year-old patient: the monumental western span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. In a process completed in September, engineers opened up the massive main cables that support the bridge’s double-deck roadway between Yerba Buena Island and San Francisco’s Rincon Hill to check on conditions inside. The results from that exam are due by early next year. The last time crews looked inside the cables was in 2003, during a major seismic upgrade project. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission said this year’s checkup was the first systematic investigation of the 25-inch diameter cables since the Bay Bridge was completed in 1936. Beginning last fall, ironworkers and engineers moved along the main cables, removing the outer housing at select locations to expose the tightly packed bundles of galvanized steel wire inside. “What we’re doing out here is we’re taking a look at the main cables that actually hold the deck up that you drive on,” said Bart Ney, the chief spokesperson for the Caltrans office that covers the Bay Area. “And so, at 10 different locations, we’re going inside the cable, we’re opening it up, and we’re testing the steel inside of it.” ✍️ Dan Brekke 📷🎥 Beth LaBerge @bethlaberge 🎬 Anna Vignet

😸 RallyKat summer 2025 😼 Extreme trial and error on the playground 📣 Bring back the scooters!

A major escalation of immigration enforcement expected in the Bay Area has been canceled, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee confirmed Friday, a day after President Donald Trump called off a planned “surge” of federal officials into San Francisco. The news comes after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials began to arrive this week at Alameda’s Coast Guard Island, where they had planned to set up a “place of operation,” according to the Coast Guard. On Thursday, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said that after a phone call with Trump, the president would not go through with plans to bring federal officials into the city this weekend, but whether the cancellation applied to the wider Bay Area was initially unclear. Now, Lee said, it appears the region will avoid an immigration enforcement surge, at least for now. “I spoke with Alameda County Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez, who confirmed through her communications with ICE that Border Patrol operations are canceled for the greater Bay Area — which includes Oakland — at this time,” Lee said in a statement. Sanchez said San Francisco’s ICE field director for removal operations, Sergio Albarran, told her that the direction from the Trump administration was to cancel planned enforcement actions. Still, she said she believes the city should remain ready for an operation at any time. ✍️ Katie DeBenedetti 📷 Beth LaBerge 🎥 Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman, Gustavo Hernandez 🎬 Anna Vignet

As San Francisco leaders finalize their plan to make way for thousands of new homes, they have heard the same criticism: New construction could dramatically change the quaint and quirky character of San Francisco neighborhoods. That tug-of-war is especially tense on the city’s west side, where many new homes could be built by the plan’s upzoning of mostly single-family neighborhoods. In an attempt to appease that concern, San Francisco’s Planning Department wants to find a compromise by identifying historic landmarks for preservation across the city, too. But housing advocates worry the historic landmark program could make it harder to add housing in neighborhoods that have been historically lower-density. San Francisco plans to upzone large swaths of those neighborhoods to make way for about 36,000 homes. The city’s efforts are part of a larger statewide mandate requiring every city and county to plan for a record number of homes by 2030. But historic designation, housing advocates warn, is increasingly being used as a tool to skirt those rules. “There are also a few that it feels like they’re just being protected because they’re old and not necessarily because they have any sort of historical significance,” said Juliana Lamm-Perez, whose organization Grow the Richmond advocates for reducing obstacles to housing development. “We want to make sure that we are not creating more roadblocks to new housing — especially in the Richmond, [which] has seen so little growth in the last 30 years.” ✍️ Adhiti Bandlamudi 🎥 Anna Vignet 🎬 Anna Vignet

⚙️ Went to a women’s wheelie ride ⚙️