San Francisco (as you very well know) is a city rich with history and tangled with politics. With a collective attention span of roughly 6 months, it can be easy for many of us to lose sight of historical precedents that mirror many current events. With that in mind, we here at SFist would like to occasionally lend our platform to friends at the Tenderloin Geographic Society, who have spent considerable amounts of time building an extensive archive of interesting ephemera, surprisingly informative detritus, and otherwise overheard conversations. Our first topics of conversation: 70s-era blogs and the Bay Guardian’s attempts to unionize.
(Courtesy of the Society’s private collection)
By Tenderloin Geographic Society
Blogs in 1976 were printed on paper, and some of them still are: The Potrero View, for example.
Potrero Hill may have just triumphed over Lower Haight as CurbedSF’s Neighborhood of the Year, but back in the day the Hill was just an excitable little bump, as evinced by this 1976 issue of the Potrero View. Just look at those exclamations!
All kidding aside, voter turnout in this District has always been significant in comparison to other San Francisco neighborhoods, which, no doubt, lent them this valuable edge. What can we expect of this outcome? Lower Haighters not possessed of single-speed bicycles can be expected to wreak The Warriors-style vengeance upon Hill-dwellers, meting out the particular cruelty of the smote adversary.
Or, everyone will go on about their daily business and wonder what this really means. Bragging rights in modest San Francisco? Please, you jest.
Courtesy of the Society’s private collection
The left, not always so left.
Young and impressionable sorts looking to write for money, look away, hum something.
See, journalism doesn’t pay. Emboldened by the very news they reported, employees of the Bay Guardian first sought to unionize in 1975. Even going as far as holding a benefit dance to cover wages for striking workers. We’re afraid to cite Wikipedia here, but the legend of Cesar Chavez haunts this one. Full caveat: no more supporting evidence than that one piece, so take it with a salt lick.
That said, no bargain was struck for labor: the Guardian to this day is open shop. And when was the last dance they held?
But thanks for the voter guides!
The Tenderloin Geographic Society is San Francisco’s home for colloquial cartography and citizenship services since 2006.
