My Changing Neighborhood(s): April 2018

Monday, April 30, 2018

RED PSYCHEDELIC MUSHROOM PIPES

If you live or visit in my neighborhood (mid-Polk), one of the things you'll notice are the many sidewalk steam pipes painted red with white polka-dots. Some are old and beat-up

while some are fairly new.

They're meant to look like fly agaric mushrooms,

which are “known for the distinctive appearance, being bright red with white spots, and for their hallucinogenic properties....”.

I have no idea who started this, or if they're prominent in other neighborhoods as well.

On Hyde St. between California and Sacramento

They're even memorialized in cement.

Saturday, April 28, 2018

NEIGHBORHOOD CLOSINGS #5 – THE JOINT

The Joint at 1014 Larkin Street has closed and advises its former clinentele that if they want the new location to go to its website, whatever that is.

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

NEIGHBORHOOD CLOSINGS #4 – MEL'S DINER

Mel's Drive-In at 1050 Van Ness has closed. Other Mel's Drive-Ins in San Francisco remain open as far as I know.

Monday, April 23, 2018

RETURN OF THE KOI

When I first started this blog in 2014, one of the topics I meant to write about were the swimming koi I saw painted on the sidewalks thruout San Francisco.

Folsom between 8th and 9th

They were done around 2010/2011 by the artist Jeremy Novy.

Anyway, I never got around to blogging about them, and soon they faded away off the sidewalks and out of my consciousness.

Then, last year, they began re-appearing in my neighborhood: