The Frisc

A decade ago, Sarah Garand was working downtown at a nonprofit organization and wanted an after-work hangout to unwind, one that served good wine, beer, and snacks and didn’t bankrupt her and her colleagues. Nothing fit the bill, so Garand raised money from coworkers and started a weekly happy hour at the office. It soon grew, and even friends of friends were attending. The popularity inspired her to leave her office job and try to open a bar with the same happy-hour spirit.

Political momentum to make homes easier to build in San Francisco seemed to hit a high-water mark with the June election. Housing wasn’t the only issue on the ballot, but it was perhaps the most obvious. But action at City Hall, mirroring years of lawmaking in Sacramento, hasn’t yet resulted in many new homes. Meanwhile, San Francisco has more than 37,000 homes in its planning and permitting pipeline, according to the Planning Department.

The Bay Area is still abuzz from hosting six World Cup matches. But for many locals, soccer fervor is a daily staple, not a once-every-four-years treat. For San Francisco’s Guadalupe Elementary School, soccer is also a crucial means to get kids back into class. Guadalupe is a small school on the city’s southern edge, just steps away from Daly City.

In September 1776, Spanish colonizers built San Francisco’s first Presidio. Within a few years, most of the buildings were in ruins. It turns out adobe wasn’t the ideal material for our foggy, rainy, wind-cursed coastline. San Franciscans have since learned quite a bit about preserving historic structures. These days, they have to contend with very different elements: politics, money, and warring concepts about whether it’s more important to keep bits of the past or prepare for the future.

Depending on whom you ask, San Francisco is built on anywhere from seven hills to more than 48. But most can agree that the city’s second highest points are its most iconic: the aptly-named Twin Peaks. These siblings share the same height — roughly 922 feet — but not the same name; “Eureka” belongs to the northern hill, and “Noe” to the south. A cruise up Twin Peaks Boulevard via car or bike offers a straightforward, albeit windy, way to the top.

Rosa Josephson has struggled for years with her mental health, especially after a series of strokes. She’s 86, and has often felt isolated, anxious, and depressed. But on a recent Monday afternoon, Josephson was lit up. She and a small group of seniors, all Latinas 60 and older, sat around a table playing lotería, or Spanish bingo at the South East Mission Geriatric Clinic. Their laughter filled the room.

Straddling San Francisco’s southern border could be the city’s next big neighborhood. Much of the site is technically part of Brisbane, the tiny town visible from Highway 101, but a slice of it is slated for SF’s side of the border. It will all be a few minutes’ walk from a Caltrain station — then a 10-minute ride to the South of Market terminus — as well as a quick drive if there’s no traffic.

Today is the first day of summer for San Francisco Unified students. It’s one week later than it was supposed to be, thanks to a four-day teacher strike in February, the first in 47 years. The strike was just one dramatic high-stakes event in a school year full of them. The year began and ended with tensions over the federal government’s hostility toward San Francisco. When last summer ended, fears of immigration raids were top of mind at SFUSD.

San Francisco needs tens of thousands of new homes to help relieve soaring housing costs. Ideally, a large swath of these homes would be affordable for lower-income renters. But idealism has an eye-popping price tag, according to a new City Hall report. To meet affordable housing goals in its 2023 blueprint, San Francisco would have to spend nearly $3 billion a year for six years, and that scenario also requires other sources, such as private, state, and federal funds, pitching in the same amount.

Like all California school districts, San Francisco’s public schools must serve all students who apply. But the San Francisco Unified School District, which has struggled with chronic teacher shortages, isn’t able to provide services to a small number of its special education students. The solution — busing dozens of kids out of town to private schools, sometimes three or four hours of travel a day — is disruptive for the students and families. It’s also expensive for SFUSD.