Yesterday, Burning Man finished up another year. For those that attended, they are undoubtedly already starting their plans for next year while nursing sun and other anatomical “burns”. For those who did not attend, the once-a-year opportunity to try out Mission & Haight hot spots has passed (Steve should have realized.)

Amidst all the articles that are bound to come this week about how it “changed my life” or “I’m so totally moving to San Francisco now” or “I’m so totally moving to New York now because my Burner roommate won’t shut up about it and the apartment is full of this shit Playa dust” there on the Burning Man blog was an interesting article entitled, State of the Man. Most people are focusing on the fact that Burning Man LLC is finally going to shift to being a non-profit enterprise, which is one of those, “it’s about time” kind of moments. Something that really hasn’t been hit upon (yet) is the location of where they plan to be based in the future, which is somewhere along the 6th Street, Mid-Market corridor.

Obviously, most people outside the area would ask, “Why?” but it makes a good deal of sense due to it being a neighborhood in San Francisco that is in pathetic shape and is currently being locked down by the homeless/advocate industry to create the stagnation in development that you see. A Burning Man arts center would add a stabilizing element that would bring an interesting, eclectic flow of people to the area, albeit a mostly white one initially.

Short of tossing out the current residents of the Mid-Market area, this is one way to improve the area and bring in non-charity based money, that would branch out to grow other businesses. I’ve said it before, but the only way that the Tenderloin is going to grow is a break-out of the lock these certain groups have has upon it for the last two decades. And while I don’t really believe in Burning Man, I do believe in this.

For those who know of it, 555 Post is a very nice, Tenderloin/Union Square building. I am quite familiar with this building as I briefly worked for the company that used to occupy its premises, Euro RSCG. They’re a design and ad agency that lives up to nearly all the bad stereotypes of agencies and has since moved over to Telegraph Hill.

555 Post has however been empty since they moved out back in June. It’s a cool building though as it used to be a gentlemen’s club and as such it has a full, dark wood bar in it as well as the old contours of a swimming pool that was in the basement with a subterranean gaming room. I swear you can still smell cigars and Scotch in the walls of the lowers floors to this day. The upper floors are relatively nondescript, but it’s within this history that apparently the SF Flex Academy is opening on the 7th as in next Tuesday. I really have no idea what this is and after searching around a good deal, I think I have even less. Officially they claim to be:

…a full-time, tuition-free public charter school located in downtown San Francisco, serving students in grades 9-12 from anywhere in the Bay Area.

California’s first full-time, five-days-a-week hybrid school combines the best of online education with traditional, onsite schooling. SF Flex uses the curriculum from K12, the largest provider of online learning for grades K-12, to offer courses in the core subjects (Math, English, History and Science) along with a robust catalog of electives. Students attend school in our building every weekday, are supported by professional, certified teachers, and can participate in extracurricular sports, activities, and clubs…

There’s a bit more than, but you get the drift. Unfortunately that’s about all you get. Trying to find anything else on their site that describes them in heavy detail is all but impossible. Furthermore, a search on SFGate turns up no related results for them which is really weird for a brand-new school opening up in the heart of the city. Also, they call themselves a “public school” yet they’re not listed anywhere as a San Francisco public school.

To further muddy the waters, when reading their PR announcement, I saw that the parent company of this, K12, is a publicly traded company based in Virginia. So, not only is it not a true public institution nor a non-profit, but it’s a private company that’s publicly traded. If anyone finds this to be a good idea, let me point my finger at the awesomeness that is our current publicly-traded, capitalism-based health case system that keeps me stocking up on the much cheaper meds whenever I visit those “commie” systems in Europe.

All of this is just weird and in case you didn’t get the point by now, I have serious doubts to this thing. An 11,000+ square foot building, despite being on the edge of the Tenderloin, is not cheap, and will cost about $400,000 in rent yearly. That’s why an ad agency (who regularly pulled in very, very fat contracts) left and it leaves me wondering how a learning institution that is in theory “free” (i.e. not charging the $25k a year that the AoA does) is able to fill the space and not be dodgy.

I saw this when walking down Ellis this morning. At first I thought, “Shit, SFPD moves people for free now? That’s going to be some tough competition for Delancey Street.” Then I realized that it was some dude’s shopping cart (and probably his mattress) in the back. So then I thought, “Really? SFPD has a shopping cart/mattress impound yard?”

The confusion behind my multi-pronged quandry is based on the fact that SFPD really stands for Super Focused on Pension Disbursements and there was no way that they were just picking up garbage. The whole scene was just bizarre and I was high on a full night of sleep which didn’t help matters at all.

There’s only one thing in the Tenderloin that I dislike more than the smell of piss/puke/armpit and it’s the smell of churchy people feeling good about themselves for coming to distribute free food on Sundays. Dear good samaritans, have you noticed that no beggar ever asks you for Jesus instead of freebies? Instead, they’ll typically ask for things like these. So next time, come better prepared. Or better yet, don’t come.

I’ve only recently learned who Randy Shaw is and it’s primarily by reading this article that I learned more about his whole Uptown Tenderloin Museum as well as related posters. Now, I’ve never met Randy Shaw. I have no idea what he’s like as a person, but I do know that he lives in Berkeley, so I have a hard time taking his activism for the Loin seriously. I also know that what he’s doing is helping no one in the Loin because despite working here for 20+ years, there has been no discernible change since when he started and the current day. Sure, you can point to the various laws he helped to draft and pass in the city, but on the ground, they have affected no change.

By the way, this new “Uptown Tenderloin” marketing slogan is downright embarrassing.
(comment from SFGate article)

The worst thing about people like Randy is that they do indeed mean well (although aid research has proven that good intentions are not enough). The problem is that their system of “aid” is based upon a mashup of Christian guilt mixed with American capitalism. They run on the premise that more money and more “awareness” will fix the problems that plague an area such as the Loin. Sadly, they are dead wrong. What fixes the Loins of the world are grassroots, foundation-up changes wherein businesses open in the empty storefronts attracting customers, citizens become active members of their neighborhood, and the criminal elements are forced out by a local population tired of rotten apples damaging the whole basket. Creating more homeless shelters or soup kitchens or community activism groups won’t affect this change. It will only attract more homeless, dealers, and preachers while alienating the rest of the neighbors.

To those still reading along, it would probably be easy to accuse me of encouraging gentrification when in fact I’m wishing more for urban renewal which from my viewpoint is a far better option than endless millions of dollars being lost in a black hole of aid and non-profits. Randy Shaw’s museum is one such project. This should get no funding from the city, let alone the $3.9 million he’s pursuing. That’s a staggering amount. Granting 200 local businesses $19,500 (or however you want to break that amount up) would do more to revitalize the neighborhood than one museum started by one man/group that will always be in need of funding from year to year.

The Tenderloin has a rich history and is a place that needs some stability. I doubt this project is that.
(comment from SFGate article)

It’s the development seed money that the neighborhood needs, not Randy Shaw putting up posters and a fancy front to try and milk money out of a broke city administration that caters to far too many non-profit groups already. On a small level, the seeds are indeed being sown with places such as little bird, Koko’s Cocktails, Brenda’s, Hooker’s, Jebena, farm:table, Infinite SF and Dwntwn, as well as several art galleries opening up recently. Not to mention many, many other great places in the neighborhood that have nothing to do with subsidized housing or charity aid.

We come for the food Randy. What we could do without is it being an open air sanitorium. Work on that Randy.
(comment from SFGate article)

People who believe in the neighborhood are investing in it, but with activists like Randy Shaw working to bring in yet more aid money to continually focus the homeless and destitute in one neighborhood, it will sabotage all these efforts. I cry foul in all of this and plead with Randy Shaw to work on the local social issues on his own neighborhood while we continue to work on ours in a way that works for us because we live here.

In other words, we don’t want your museum or tours Mr. Shaw. Anyone who says otherwise either doesn’t live here or just wants a piece of that tasty tasty pie you’re chasing.
(comment from SFGate article)

By way of an update, it appears that Randy Shaw doesn’t like comments, particularly when they pertain to him…

I live on Jones Street, which I like. One exception: the nearly constant fire engines and ambulances wailing down the street, often late at night. I don’t know why they like to use Jones so much. It could be that it’s a straight, low-traffic way to get to Market, and thus the rest of the city. Or it could be that their fire engines are actually attending to people further down Jones or near the famously drug-addled 6th and Market area. Random fact: despite my hatred of fire engines, I really like firemen and actually belong to a local credit union that caters to them. Sometimes at the branch there are hunky guys in gear making deposits. Yum.

Firemen aside, I found this piece in the Examiner that says the SF Moma’s expansion will make room for a new $14 million fire station on Folsom between 5th and 6th. According to the article, this would help take the weight off of other fire stations like station #1, which is at 3rd and Howard, which also serve “the Sixth Street corridor and Tenderloin neighborhood.” The article didn’t specifically mention my local fire stations (#41 at Leavenworth and Jackson, and #3 at Polk and Post) but given the number of fire engines that go straight down Jones, all the way to Market, I can’t help but think this new station will help reduce the number of daily sirens I hear. At least, it will when the new station’s completed in 2012. Until then, I’ll keep pausing the TV for 10 seconds when fire engines go by and try to tell myself I’ll miss that sound when it’s gone. This neighborhood is quickly gentrifying, and I’m sure someday I’ll talk about the good ol’ days when it had “personality.”

A few days ago, Craig Newmark of Craigslist fame wrote on the Huffington Post that he is helping out St. Anthony’s with its technology lab. “The Craigslist Foundation, and me personally, are helping them with that computer lab, getting better systems and Internet connection,” Newmark wrote. “More to come…”

While we wait for more info from Newmark, there’s plenty of info online about St. Anthony’s Tenderloin Tech Lab. According to the foundation’s newsletter (PDF), the lab is “the Tenderloin’s only technology center specializing in adult computer and employment skills training designed specifically for the learning styles of adults struggling with poverty, addiction, mental health challenges or homelessness.” As much as I feel the city’s approach to homelessness is flawed, this program is one I fully support. There are few jobs nowadays that do not use technology, and being comfortable with it could be key to getting a job. Heck, I have to up my own skills every few years just to stay competitive.

St. Anthony’s newsletter says Newmark gave the Tech Lab “a gift” (I’m guessing monetary) and that the Lab desperately needs bandwidth help as well: “Our client services in the Tech Lab have increased 234%, but our bandwidth hadn’t increased in proportion.”

We found this beautiful picture of a recent wedding at the St Boniface church on Golden Gate Avenue (between Leavenworth and Jones). It’s a pretty pink and yellow Roman Catholic church originally built in 1900, but since it was severely damaged by the 1906 earthquake, it was rebuilt in 1908 (and it was fully restored in 2002). We were happy to find these wedding pictures showing the interior of the church since we have never been inside and it appears that it would be worth doing so.

As a side note, the church is also known in the area for letting the homeless sleep on the pews during daytime when there are no services (they call it the Gubbio Project).

We just got word of Google’s Technology Day in the Tenderloin, a computer help day hosted by the Tenderloin Tech Lab located at 150 Golden Gate Ave at Leavenworth, 3rd Floor. Tomorrow Thursday, June 11th, from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m., Google employees will be volunteering to teach classes and do one-on-one tutoring with homeless and economically challenged participants at the Tenderloin Tech Lab, which is a collaboration between St. Anthony Foundation and Network Ministries.

The St Anthony Foundation Blog quoted Karl Robillard, the Manager of the Employment Program & Technology Lab as saying:

Today’s economic crisis is running counterpoint to the technological crisis in areas like the Tenderloin, where the decreasing number of resources and services are forcing people to be more savvy about their survival. Technological access is proving to be the unlikely thread that is holding marginalized people together by connecting them to information, services, and each other.