Tag Archives: San Francisco

Michelle Tandler writes:

For seven years (’11-13, ’15-20) I went downtown to work. I’ve worked in SOMA, Mid-Market, Financial District. I loved getting ready in the morning, packing up my work bag, and heading downtown to work.

Now I’m on day 500 of sitting home alone at my desk…

All my friends here in SF are working from home. Some go into their offices sometimes but they say it’s just too eerie. Three people in a space built for 60.

What is happening to all the local businesses? The taco trucks? The falafel shops? The salons? The after-work bars? The catering companies? The florists? The janitorial staff? The lunchtime restaurants? The bodegas? The shoe shiners? The liquor stores?

What is happening to all these shops & people? How are they staying in business? How are they making the rent?

How are the landlords staying afloat and paying their bills? Are the tech companies paying full rent? How are the REITs and commercial landlords balancing their books?

Something isn’t adding up. How is San Francisco solvent right now? Is it because we received so much federal aid?

Isn’t our economy reliant on downtown? Tourism? Conferences? A daily influx of office workers?

Something here is off…

Anyone?

Top pic: Michelle Tandler

Symphony Of The Fog – an ongoing celebration of the fogs of San Francisco by photographer Michael Shainblum, who sez of it:

The Fog in the bay area feels like it has a mind of its own. The fog can often times disturb a beautiful sunny day and cover the sky with darkness. There are mixed feelings about the fog, many residents finding it a huge inconvenience and depressing. Where as many residences embrace the fog and its erratic behavior. 

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The scene yesterday (above) at 2020 Kettredge Street, Berkeley, California

But the work-visa program that allowed for the exchanges has in recent years become not just a source of aspiration, but also a source of embarrassment for Ireland, marked by a series of high-profile episodes involving drunken partying and the wrecking of apartments in places like San Francisco and Santa Barbara..

The program has been a source of discomfort. James Howard, 24, who went to San Diego in 2011, said it was basically “party central.”
“There were 18 of us sharing a two-bedroom apartment, and the hundreds of Irish students around us were in a similar situation,” Mr. Howard said.

“It was my first time away on my own for any length of time. I’m glad I did it, but once was enough,” he said.
Cahir O’Doherty, the arts and culture editor of The Irish Voice, wrote a column in 2014 expressing distress at “the callous destruction unleashed by these loaded Irish students” of a house rented in the Sunset District of San Francisco.
“If you know the city you’ll know Sunset is one of the more desirable locations in which to buy a home,” he wrote. “So those J-1 students actually caught a big break by being rented to in the first place. Nice payback, guys.”

“They ripped chandeliers from the ceilings, they broke doors and they smashed windows; they even punched holes in the walls,” he wrote. “Then they abandoned the place without a heads-up or a word of apology.”

Classic victim blaming, in fairness.

Deaths in Berkeley Cast Pall on Program (New York Times)

Previously: ‘All Irish. All Gone’