Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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SOMA & The Haight – EL Mac
SOMA – San Francisco The Haight – San Francisco This is on the corner of Russ and Howard Streets, South of Market. Miles “Mac” McGregor. Goes by The Mac or El Mac. According to his own website El Mac was “born in Los Angeles in 1980 to an engineer and an artist, Mac has been creating…
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Civic Center – High School of Commerce
Civic Center San Francisco 135 Van Ness Avenue There are so many wonderful building on the Van Ness Corridor, sadly, most people are driving either in or out of San Francisco and much to busy to notice them. This building is near Market Street, not far from City Hall, if you are in the…
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Hayes Valley Farm
Hayes Valley – San Francisco Hayes Valley Farm Thanks to the efforts of Colonel Thomas Hayes, Hayes Valley became the first outlying area of the vast Western Addition to develop. Hayes was born in 1823 in Ireland. Afflicted by gold fever, Hayes and his two brothers set sail for San Francisco, and acquired a 160-acre…
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Western Addition – Pastime
Western Addition – San Francisco Corner of Franklin, Page and Market Street It is no secret that I consider graffiti to be an art form. Do not confuse that with tagging, (those single color scribbles) or bombing (just really, really large tags) which fall into a whole other category. But the question is, where does…
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SOMA – Freeway Prophecy
SOMA – San Francisco Clementina and 8th Street Freeway Prophecy Subtitled “a surrealistic look at the future of transportation” this is another mural by Johanna Poethig sharing “lead artist” credit with Sofie Siegmann. “Freeway Prophecy” was a major coordinated production crediting, besides Siegmann, nine other Artist Collaborators, seventeen Youth Artists and the Writers Corps…
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Mid-Market – Swallows and Sycamores
Mid Market – San Francisco Swallows and Sycamores by Amber Hasselbring 7th and Market Mid Market area has long had a reputation for being a wasteland. Storefronts boarded up, tourists as well as locals, finding a way around this section of Market, without actually walking down it, a veritable waste land in the middle of…
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Alamo Square
Alamo Square – San Francisco Alamo Square is surrounded by Victorian Houses, and the famous “painted ladies” photograph that is quintessentially San Francisco, to say nothing of the fact that it’s image is probably the number one selling postcard. I see no point in posting that picture, you have seen it. I even hesitate to…
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SOMA – Tile Buildings
SOMA San Francisco 1235 Mission Street at 8th This building houses the Department of Human Resources offices. * * * From the Architect and Engineer Magazine of 1928: Bliss and Fairweather’s building for Mangrum and Otter Inc…is being favorably commented on for the somewhat daring, but nonetheless effectual, architectural treatment in glazed color tile…Admittedly, it…
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UN Plaza
Civic Center – San Francisco United Nations Plaza United Nations Plaza is an area off of Market Street with a walkable corridor straight to Civic Center, which includes City Hall and Herbst Theatre. The United Nations Charter was signed in the War Memorial Veterans Building’s Herbst Theatre in 1945, leading to the creation of the…
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The Tenderloin – Humming With Life
The Tenderloin – San Francisco Hyde and Golden Gate This is panel one of a new mural on the U.S. Postal Service office building at the corner of Hyde and Golden Gate. It was done by Johanna Poethig, whose work we saw in The Tenderloin National Forest and Tutubi Plaza. This mural is titled humming with life. If…
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SOMA – Murals on 6th
6th Street Corridor – San Francisco 6th and Minna Streets 6th Street in San Francisco is not the nicest street in the city. Its overabundance of SRO’s crack dealers, and soup kitchens make it a street many people avoid. I took all these shots while wandering by myself, however, it was broad daylight. The point…
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SOMA – Gordon Street Murals
SOMA – San Francisco This mural is on Gordon Street, South of Market. Gordon is a dingy dead end alley off of Harrison Streets between 8th and 9th. It is hard to find, and you would have no reason to even be on the alley, but it was a quiet Sunday and no cars or…
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SOMA -Art that Disappears when Buildings Do
SOMA – San Francisco 260 Fifth Street at Clementina This sign is an anathema to me for several reasons. While hard to read, it states that this building will be demolished and a 9 story building will be put up in its place. Although not highly ornamented, it does have some lovely features. When I…
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The Tenderloin – 20,000 Missing Seats
The Tenderloin – Market Street Junction – San Francisco 6th -Taylor – Market Street This fascinating piece is on the back side of Show Dogs Hot Dog Stand at the corners of 6th Street, Taylor and Market. The mural is an homage to those movie and performance art theaters (Strand, Unique, Embassy, Rialto, Granada, Regal,…
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SOMA, Tenderloin, Market Street, July 30, 2011
Bears Around San Francisco A while back I was walking in my own neighborhood, SOMA, (this is Berwick and Heron off of Harrison or 8th Streets) and in this little alley I came across this great big bear. Well as I was wandering The Tenderloin Forest, I came across this guy I knew I had seen this…
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SOMA – Inner City Home and Truth
SOMA and Market Street Areas of San Francisco This is by Ricardo Gouveia, a Portuguese artist residing in San Francisco. From 1984-2002, Rigo used the last two digits of the current year as part of his name (in this case Rigo94) , finally settling upon “23″ in 2003. As part of TODCO’s Inner City Arts Program,…
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SOMA – Frisco’s Wild Side
SOMA – San Francisco Langton between Folsom and Harrison This newly restored mural is on Langton Street between Folsom and Harrison in the South of Market area. Originally painted in 1995 by Precita Eyes it is called “Frisco’s Wild Side”. It took more than 70 participants to plan and paint depictions of endangered species in North…
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Hayes Valley – Ethereal Art
Hayes Valley – San Francisco Hayes Valley came to prominence when film director Erich von Stroheim chose the corner of Hayes and Laguna for the filming of his 1924 film “Greed.” His affections were for a 19th-century Victorian that had been built in the early 1880s by Col. Michael Hayes as an amusement pavilion, though…
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Hayes Valley – Pop Up Art
Hayes Valley – San Francisco I had the privilege of catching Andy Vogt in the process of making this piece. We chatted for awhile, as he worked putting lath into the chain link fence. This space surrounds a temporary landing spot for the Museum of Craft and Art. The museum is presently in a storage…
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Chinatown Architecture
15 Waverly Place Chinatown – San Francisco The Marble plaque on this wall reads: Chinese Baptist Church Property of the American Baptist Home Mission Society of NY Built 1888 Destroyed 1906 Rebuilt 1908 When Chinese students were not permitted to attend the city’s public schools, the Church offered day school for children, and night school…
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Art Nouveau in Chinatown
720 Kearny Street Chinatown, San Francisco The first overseas office of the Sing Tao Daily was opened in San Francisco in 1975. The parent company of the Sing Tao Daily, the Sing Tao Newspaper Group Limited, was founded in 1938 and is based in Hong Kong. It has one of the longest publishing histories among…
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Oriental Home and School of San Francisco’s Chinatown
Chinatown 940 Washington Street, San Francisco I love the architecture that you find in Chinatown. I actually think, more because of the history than the actual styles. This brick building with its’ beautiful tile arched entry is one of my favorites. It is the Gum Moon Womens Residence. It has a nice piece of marble…
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Chinatown’s Dragon Mural and More
Chinatown – San Francisco * Chinatown is chock a block with murals, and this is one of my favorites. It is titled Dragons Gate and is by Wes Wong and Lost One. According to their website Fresh Paint they are “a San Francisco based mural painting company offering a fresh take on aerosol wall painting.” They are…
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Phone Company Building
743 Washington Street Chinatown San Francisco’s Chinatown is the oldest Chinatown in North America and the largest Chinese community outside Asia. Established in the 1840s, It plays an extremely important part in the history of San Francisco and the history of the Chinese diaspora. Chinatown is the most densely populated neighborhood in the city and one…
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Chinatown Murals
Chinatown – San Francisco Stockton and Pacific This mural is also on the Ping Yuen Housing Project. This is the Stockton Street Side of the building. Painted by Darryl Mar in 1999. Mar is a graduate of UC Irvine. He went on to get a masters in Asian American Studies from UCLA. Mr. Mar was…
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Chinatown – 8 Immortals
Chinatown – San Francisco 711 Pacific Bok Sen – Eight Immortals I was stopped short by this set of murals. The style is so obviously asian and yet you just don’t see that style outside of the asian world when it comes to murals. This is the front of the Ping Yuen Public Housing Project…
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Pepe Ozan’s Invocation
Potrero Hill – San Francisco This sculpture is located at the corner of Bayshore Blvd, Cesar Chavez and 26th Street, just to the side of Highway 101. Though it was installed in 2004, to mark the beginning of a new bike path, they just started construction on said path this month. The sculptor, Pepe Ozan,…
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SOMA – Meagan Spendlove
SOMA – San Francisco This mural is on the corner of 10th Street and Sheridan in the South of Market Area of San Francisco. The artist is Meagan Spendlove. Her website reads “Meagan Spendlove currently works in San Francisco, California as a professional designer, illustrator and project coordinator. Her latest endeavors include yet are not…
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Tenderloin – Alcazar Theater
Alcazar Theater – Tenderloin – San Francisco This is the center section of the Alcazar, it is flanked by two matching wings. In 1976, the Alcazar was awarded the highest rating for architectural significance in a survey of city buildings. Located at 650 Geary Street, between Jones and Leavenworth in the Tenderloin, it was built…
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