Storied: San Francisco

Marcell Turner found his home in San Francisco.

In this podcast, the photographer shares the story of his childhood in Southern California. He skateboarded, loved punk rock music, and breakdanced in his teen years. Then, a road trip up north with a friend was all it took for Marcell to relocate up to the Bay Area.

We recorde...

Matt talks about how it was that he ended up running for political office to begin with. He walks us through Tom Ammiano's write-in campaign for mayor in 1999 and Matt's eventual ascension to the Board of Supervisors the next year.

What brought him into my s...

In Part 3, we meet Mini Bar's Operations Manager, Erin Kehoe. Erin is a sixth-generation San Franciscan. Her uncle researched family history, which was complicated by the fact that her grandma was orphaned. When you consider time in the state of California, her family history goes back here to when it was part of Mexico.

Much like John, she was born at Kaiser on ...

We open Part 2 with a discussion on the nature of neighborhood bars. An opportunity arose for John when he left the corporate world. His then-wife, Sommer Peterson, reminded him of his idea to open a bar when she also left the 9 to 5. Sommer researched spots in the general area of Divisadero and stood in lines at City Hall.

After scouting a couple other locations...

Welcome to the final episode of Season 5! We saved a special one for last for a good reason.

Mini Bar is, of course, where we're having our first art show (Hungry Ghosts) in more than three years. But it's also a neighborhood bar, and neighborhood bars are such a great symbol of the beating heart of San Francisco. Our whole dang thing, Storied: SF, was founded in...

In Part 3, we pick up where we left off in Part 2, with Mike's story of arriving at Bluxome Street early in the morning on Dec. 4, 2022. His San Francisco legacy business, Babylon Burning, was on fire.

Mike recounts the SFFD firefighters taking care when breaking into the 63 Bluxome art gallery doors that led to Babylon Burning. It was Mike, his wife Judy, and hi...

When COVID hit, in March 2020, Babylon Burning kept working.

In Part 2 of our episode on San Francisco's oldest screenprinting ship and their new location on Howard Street, we talk with owners Mike Lynch and Judy Tam-Lynch about the several years of hardship that lead to their new location. It started with the worldwide shutdown back in 2020.

They were lucky enough to already have orders from essent...

Welcome to the penultimate episode of Season 5!

We're revisiting our 2018 podcast with Babylon Burning's Mike Lynch in Part 1. Part 2 next week will be a talk with Mike and his wife, Judy, about their new location on Howard Street. We'll also chat about their new art space: Gallery 939.

We recorded Part 1 of this podcast at Babylon Burning in the South of Market in August 2018.

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Part 2 catalogs Smiley's journey out of high school and into the world of jobs and being a young adult.

Then we get to her time at BVOH, which began about four years ago. It started with an entry-level job, which she didn't mind doing because it got her foot in the door. Built in 1888 by the Masons, the then-designated "South San Francisco Opera House" was a spot...

In Part 1 of our episode on the Bayview Opera House, we sit down with opera house Programming Manager Ashley Smiley, (who goes by "Smiley"). Smiley shares how her family ended up in San Francisco. Her mom was born and raised in SF, but her mom's mom, a mixed-race woman, came from Texas. Her family was run out of that state by the KKK. That family landed in the Hunter's Point area and ended up in the F...

In Part 2, Brian and Zeima start off with a discussion of "green gentrification" and how, being a community-based non-profit that plants trees, FUF aims to mitigate that. We hear all about how plantings work, starting with FUF's community engagement team identifying areas delineated by grants and specifically targeting disadvantaged parts of The City. Another criteria is simply areas that look like th...

​Friends of the Urban Forest exists on the premise that there are "no trees in San Francisco." That of course isn't the literal truth. But we'll get to that.

In Part 1 of our episode on FUF, we sit down with Tree Planting Program Manager Zeima Kassahun and Executive Director Brian Wiedenmeier to chat about the non-profit's 42-year history of making San Francisco ...

In Part 2, Maria speaks about the many types of events that have taken place at the Women's Building over the years. This includes: poetry readings, quinceañeras, baptisms, weddings, even a Green Day show and other punk shows in the '90s. It's also served as a safe space.

Many non-profit community groups have come out of the Women's Building. La Casa de las Madre...

This episode is all about the Women's Building, a structure on 18th Street in the Mission that has served so many purposes for more than 50 years.

In Part 1, we talk with two members of the Women's Building staff—Maria Arteaga, Women's Building content specialist/social media manager, and Kristen Acosta, their community engagement coordinator. Maria starts us off ...

In Part 2 of our episode on Club Fugazi, we welcome guests we're not totally sure are human.

All kidding aside, Maya Kesselman Cruz and Dominic Cruz are two super-talented cast members of Dear San Francisco. Now a married couple, Maya and Dominic share the stories of their lives in circus arts, which go back to San...

When SF natives Gypsy Snider and Shana Carroll hatched their idea for a show in the space once occupied by Beach Blanket Babylon, they set out to pay homage to their hometown. The result was Dear San Francisco, a high-flying, loop-jumping, juggling, acrobatic love letter to The City.

In Part 1 of our episode on Club Fugazi, where Dear San Francisco takes place seven times every week, we sit down with...

In Part 2, we begin with the decision to open MBC. Molly had known her friend Sommer Peterson since high school, and Sommer had a long history in her family with bowling. The idea was hatched in 2010, and on Jan. 1, 2011, the two signed their lease. Molly acknowledges help they got from joints like Albany Bowl and Serra Bowl and we pay homage to Sea Bowl in Pacifica, which had announced its closing th...