Bloomberg: Google, Lendlease End Deals to Build San Francisco Bay Projects. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google and property developer Lendlease Group have ended an agreement to build four projects in the San Francisco Bay Area as the technology firm reviews its real estate footprint.”
San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. mystery images find a permanent home (where you can see them too). “A cache of mysterious Kodachrome slides found abandoned on a Mission District street corner are going to the San Francisco Public Library’s History Center — where they’ll join collections including Harvey Milk’s papers and the San Francisco Call-Bulletin photo morgue.” The digitizing process is already underway.
Mission Local: Hidden history of BART revealed in newly digitized newsletters. “Did you know that BART employees used to get big bonuses for coming up with ideas that saved the transit authority money Resourceful city workers whose insights were rewarded are immortalized in the pages of BARTalk, the organization’s old newsletter, alongside fun events in BART history, features on rarely acknowledged jobs, and details about the much-anticipated annual picnic. Now, thanks to an unofficial project by BART enthusiast Vincent Woo, two decades of the newsletter have been digitized and are available online for public perusal.”
SF Gate: Injured person reportedly dies after Cruise cars block first responders. “On Aug. 14, two stalled Cruise vehicles delayed an ambulance from leaving the scene of a crash in which a driver had hit a pedestrian with their car, according to reports from the San Francisco Fire Department. The pedestrian later died of their injuries, which first responders linked to the delay in getting them to the hospital.”
San Francisco Chronicle: Hack of critical real estate tool upends Bay Area house showings. “A cyberattack on a software service used by real estate agents to track property listing data is in its second week, upending open house tours in San Francisco. ‘It is wreaking havoc everywhere,’ said David Bellings, an agent for 37 years. ‘It is disrupting and frustrating. Clients are asking for information and we just have to tell them we don’t have access.’”
Rolling Stone: Twitter HQ Neighbor Speaks on Elon: ‘Dennis the Menace Moved Into the Neighborhood’. “Looking back on the ill-considered, short-lived sign, and how it briefly made him a social media celebrity, [Christopher] Beale spoke to Rolling Stone about following Twitter’s ups and downs from close nearby, the absurdity of capitalism in the big tech capital, and whether Musk is paying his rent.”
Jezebel: Elon Musk Forced to Take Down Disastrous ‘X’ Sign on Twitter Building After 3 Days. “Over the weekend, days after police had to stop the company from taking down its Twitter sign as they didn’t have the necessary safety permits, Musk rolled out an enormous, blinding ‘X’ sign at the top of the building. The brightly lit eyesore—which inevitably poses a risk to those vulnerable to seizures—terrorized neighbors across the street. Well, as of Monday afternoon, the ‘X’ sign has vanished from the top of the office building following a string of very vocal complaints from neighbors, CBS reports.” Note to posterity: we find this just as ridiculous now as you will then. I got nothing, fam.
San Francisco Gate: Google software engineer got $605,000 bonus, plus more from massive salary leak. “Workers at the Mountain View-based tech giant compiled a spreadsheet with 12,000 entries, Insider reported Wednesday, containing self-volunteered pay details from full-time software engineers, salespeople, designers, product managers and other workers based in the United States. Eye-popping numbers abound; Google employees’ salaries are regularly five times larger than the national average.” I’m guessing this doesn’t include contract workers?
SF Gate: Google gets go-ahead to build 153-acre Bay Area neighborhood by headquarters. “Bay Area tech giant Google got the go-ahead to build a 153-acre mixed-use neighborhood just south of its headquarters in north Mountain View on June 13, with unanimous city council approval. Plans for the 30-year project, which will supplant the Google offices and parking lots currently in the area, include over 3 million square feet of office space and 7,000 residential units.”
Beyond Chron: 40 Years That Shaped San Francisco: The New [Tenderloin Housing Clinic] Archive. “The archive may be the largest source of stories on how San Francisco went from never passing a tenant ballot measure until 1992 to now having the nation’s strongest tenant protection laws. The city also has the most powerful protections for SRO hotels and rental housing.”
CBS Bay Area: Fake Twitter video of looted Walmart store triggers fear in Fairfield. “A video has gone viral in a tweet that says is a looting incident at a Walmart in Fairfield. As it turns out, it was a fake tweet but the damage had already been done. As soon as the Fairfield Police Department found out about the tweet, it sent out a response on social media right away saying it was untrue. The problem was by that point, the tweet had gone viral, sending panic into the community.”
San Francisco State University: SF State Bay Area Television Archive is a treasure trove of history on film — and streaming online . “Based in the J. Paul Leonard Library on campus, the Bay Area Television Archive features more than 135,000 videos from Bay Area television stations. A visit to the new Bay Area Television Archive website is a YouTube-like rabbit hole of a time machine dedicated to the issues and events that gripped the region decades ago.”
SFist: SF Police and Sheriff Unions Engaged in Bizarro Social Media Fight Over Staffing at SFO. SFO is San Francisco International Airport, I believe. “Immature posts from law enforcement unions are nothing new, but we can’t help but be amused by the new Twitter fight between SF Police Officers Association and the SF Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, who are publicly airing beef between them over who should staff SFO.”
San Francisco Chamber of Commerce: San Francisco Chamber of Commerce Invests in Downtown with Launch of NEW Data Dashboard and Urban Planning Initiative. “This dashboard is open to the public and highlights key indicators of the city’s downtown economy. It is intended for elected officials, new and existing businesses, and media to explore downtown office activity, areas of investment, and sector-specific demands to inform decisions around the recovery of San Francisco.”
CBS News: San Francisco building inspectors to investigate bedrooms at Twitter HQ. “San Francisco regulators are looking into what appears to be employee bedrooms newly installed at Twitter’s headquarters. As part of Elon Musk’s overhaul of the social media company, the billionaire CEO had part of Twitter’s offices outfitted with sleeping quarters, Forbes first reported this week.” I know some people are claiming this is harassing EM personally but it’s really not; back in 2016 a guy in SF was stopped from living in a wooden “pod” in his friend’s living room.
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