San Francisco - Community & Society

The pastor who transformed Glide Memorial Church into a feed-the-needy powerhouse, and an early activist for LGBTQ rights since 1964, the Reverend Cecil Williams turns 93 years old today.

The corner of 24th and Mission Streets is less chaotic, cleaner, and free of stolen goods for the first time in about nine months, as a new vendor permitting system is off to a promising start.

The San Francisco SPCA currently has a good amount of adult dogs and cats up for adoption. In order to help them find their forever homes, the animal rescue is participating in the Clear the Shelters nationwide campaign, which aims to help older pets get adopted.

The battle between a big private school and a little farmers market could end, as Supervisor Eric Mar has brokered a compromise deal, and the Outer Sunset Farmers Market has just won a ten-month extension either way.

St. Kevin’s parish on Cortland Avenue turns 100 years old Saturday, and their Centennial Celebration will serve up the dishes of the Latin American, Filipino, and Pakistani heritages that make up the congregation.

The last Corgi Con held in San Francisco was in 2019, bringing with it hundreds of stubby dogs and thousands of humans eager to see corgis race one another, don cute costumes, and grab a picture with one (or several) of them. After a pandemic-spurred hiatus, Ocean Beach will again have many short tails wagging in the wind this weekend.

Citing a list of financial concerns, the City College of San Francisco's Board of Trustees finalized 38 faculty layoffs during a virtual meeting this past Friday.

SoMa’s Common City Gardens will become 200 units to house families experiencing homelessness, after the SF Board of Supervisors approved its purchase for $145 million late Tuesday night.

No one was injured in the April 8 fire on Noe Street, but it displaced five residents and shut down Sushi Urashima, and crowdfunding campaigns have been launched for both.

The noodle wars are coming back, as the street food festival Noodle Fest will pit 29 North Beach and Chinatown restaurants against one another in a noodle contest with celebrity judges Martin Yan, Soleil Ho, and Broke-Ass Stuart.

The Golden Gate Greenway will be back on Golden Gate Avenue in the Tenderloin this weekend, but just as a pop-up.

A loudmouth rooster named King Henry IV wore out his welcome in the Tenderloin, but his new home 90 miles away is something to crow about.

“King Henry IV” is the rooster whose cock-a-doodle doings have been ruining Tenderloin residents’ early mornings, but he’s now cooped up, and Animal Care and Control did not have to resort to fowl play.

The Tenderloin has the highest concentration of children of any San Francisco neighborhood, and the SF Board of Supervisors just approved a Yellow Brick Road to direct kids away from blight, and toward schools, parks, and community centers.

A fire station, a church with a notable window, and a log cabin with a bawdy past are in the running to be the first Vis Valley building awarded landmark status.

Privacy concerns raised by hotel guests and Castro residents have resulted in policy changes at the newly open 12-room boutique lodge The Hotel Castro (4230 18th St.).

Longtime Castro Merchants administrator Richard Magary died Tuesday, December 20. Magary was 81.

San Francisco has designs on buying a vacant Geary Street building to use as a safe injection site, even though doing so is illegal, and the consequences could be enormous.

Social media is piling on a new local TV station report about how “luxury condos overlook city’s worst squalor,” with some mocking how the issue is framed, and others eager to lodge the insult “Pelosiland.”

A neighborhood art event has returned, two candidates for State Assembly open Castro campaign offices, a neighborhood organization awarded grant funding, special events continue at the Castro Theatre, and holiday events are being scheduled.

Plans to build affordable housing at the troubled ex-McDonald’s are still on, though much delayed, but the city just scrapped plans to put a homeless drop-in center there during the interim.

Last week, the San Francisco Public Works Department replanted nearly half a dozen palm trees along the 400 and 500 blocks of Castro Street.

The future of car-free Saturdays and Sundays along a two-block section of Castro's 18th Street is uncertain and on indefinite pause after the Castro Merchants cut ties with its event producer.

The St. Anthony’s Foundation is leading the effort to create the Golden Gate Greenway, a block-long full closure of the avenue between Leavenworth and Jones streets, to provide new community space in the Tenderloin.

Groups like Walk SF and the SF Bicycle Coalition are rallying to keep the Great Highway car-free, and have an unexpected ally in state senator Scott Wiener.