Bay Area history
San Francisco Bay Ferry to Add Lines, Expand Service
San Francisco may be neglecting the full potential of the strategic waterways that brought it into being. If you’ve ever sat in Bridge traffic and watched boats fly by on the water below, you might have felt the same. There is no reason the Bay Area shouldn’t have as robust
The Art and History of (Illegal) Pinball in the Bay Area
The Pacific Pinball Museum (PPM) in Alameda hosts multiple rooms with a rotating cast of over 100 pinball machines from the 1940s – present, all in playable order. I attended Pinball and Pints at the PPM as part of SF Beer Week. Friendly folks sharing their passions of pinball and
The November 2024 BAS Voter Guide
A Big Change to This Year’s Voter Guide We’ve been doing voter guides for a really long time. I’m pretty sure we put our first one out in like 2010 or something. And I know that thousands of you rely on our voter guides to help you make decision. But
Did You Know You Could Stay in Alcatraz’s Infamous D-Block?
I alluded last week to my love for spooky spaces in The Bay. My fascination with these extraordinary locations began in 1999, when I was 19 years old and fortunate enough to have the chance to spend a night sleeping on a cot in Alcatraz’s notorious D-Block. The number of
The Infamous Cult House in Tomales Bay, Turning into a Luxury Hotel
A few years ago, I ventured into the mysterious depths of Marin County’s history when a friend convinced me to join them on an exploration of an abandoned cult house – once owned and operated by a now-defunct cult. Little did I know that in the upcoming fall of 2023,
The Daly City Thrill Killer, ‘Penny’
Penny giggled while acting out her crime for the police and various journalists. The fashionably dressed, gun-chewing teenager was a goldmine and the media ran with it.
San Franciscans Rallied Together After Hardship Before. They Could Do It Again.
On April 18, 1906, five-foot-deep holes cracked through Market Street and ate people whole like cavernous maws to hapless anchovies. Author David K. Randall recounts in Black Death at the Golden Gate how Howard Street’s American Hotel collapsed on firefighter James O’Neill, crushing him beneath. And, when the first intense
Nostalgic Bay Area Commercials Guaranteed To Take You Back
This week, I casually referenced a Bay Area commercial to a friend. “Now you have a friend in the diamond business,” I joked. If you know, you know – our friend in the diamond business is Shane Company. This isn’t the first time this has happened. Every so often, I’ll
10 Fun Facts About San Francisco You May Not Know
You think you know a lot about San Francisco? Well let’s see how many of these fun facts you already had stored in your noggin. You’re about to be so much better at SF trivia. 1. Alcatraz was the only federal prison to offer hot-water showers, supposedly to dissuade prisoners