Storied: San Francisco

In this episode, Tongo picks up where he left off in Part 1 , describing the changes he saw in his hometown of San Francisco after spending a few years in New York. It was obvious that money had done its part to stifle, displace, and erase art and the working class. He started teaching with SF YMCA's CARE program, which works with imprisoned youth in The City, but some shady goings on in the progr...

Poet Tongo Eisen-Martin was born into a revolutionary home. Tongo's parents met in Chicago but moved to San Francisco soon after. He was born and raised in an apartment at 25th and Valencia, part of a communal environment that taught him to question and analyze institutions from a young age. He got started with poetry in elementary school doing a rap for Jesse Jackson when Jackson ran for presiden...

Mike Soracco has had the same job for 50 years. In this podcast, Mike, who today owns Liguria Bakery in North Beach, takes us back to the founding of this neighborhood staple. Mike's grandfather came to the US in 1907 from near Genoa, Italy. He worked in bakeries in North Beach for a few years before opening his own at the location where Liguria operates to this day (that's 109 years, for those ke...

The story of Dragonspunk Grows, the Black-owned organic farm in the Bayview, starts with the Chinese community. In this episode, Isaiah, whom you got to know in  Part 1 , takes us on a tour of  Florence Fang community garden . Isaiah's work at the garden inspired him to join forces with Faheem Carter, to carve out a large section of the existing land to establish Dragonspunk Grows. It started out...

NYC hip-hop artist turned SF city gardener? Why the hell not? In this podcast, Dragonspunk Grows gardener Isaiah Powell charts the early stories of his life's journey. His family moved all over the East Coast when he was young. He went to four different high schools, then got into the University of Miami immediately as a 17-year-old. At such a young age, Isaiah didn't take college seriously and he...

In this podcast, Josiah picks up where he left off in Part 1 , sharing stories from his time with Molotov Mouths, the touring poetry collective from the 1990s. He pivots to talking about the gentrification he saw happening first-hand in the Mission in the late-'90s/early-2000s. Josiah has been working at  City Lights Books  in North Beach for the last several years, and he talks about his job at t...

Josiah Luis Alderete's poetry speaks for a people devastated by gentrification and colonization. In this podcast, Josiah traces his life back to his parents' union at a club in North Beach roughly 50 years ago. He moved around the Bay Area a bit, from various spots in the Mission to Marin and back. He tells stories from the back room at Cafe Babar, including his first time to read poetry in front...

In this podcast, Dave the Butcher picks up where he left off in Part 1. He started traveling to Europe every year, and eventually moved to Berlin. While living there, he traveled to Spain and then over to Morocco. Dave came back to San Francisco and worked at Falletti Foods for a short time, then got a job as manager at Marina Meats in 2007, where he works to this day. As butchery exploded, Dave s...

Dave Budworth's great-grandfather, who trained in Allsace, had a butcher shop in San Francisco at Polk and Green more than a century ago. In this episode, Dave the Butcher , as he's known, talks about growing up in Santa Rosa. His mom exposed him to culture, but also dog shows, which formed the backdrop of Dave's first impressions of San Francisco. Dave tells stories of a trip to Australia when he...

Jesus Barragan is a fighter. He left his job at the VA after he was victorious in suing them. From there, he went to Child Protective Services in The City, where he caught mistranslated material that discriminated against Spanish-speaking parents. After he retired, Jesus met David Campos and started volunteering in Campos's office at City Hall, which is where he met  Hillary   Ronen . He stayed on...

Jesus Barragan was born in the segregated town of Glendale, Arizona, and grew up with bigotry all around him. In this podcast, Jesus talks about his move to San Jose as a young boy and the education systems of Arizona vs. California, where he quickly encountered difficulties. He moved to San Francisco in 1975, but he ran into prejudice and discrimination at the jobs he got here, both directed at h...

In this podcast, Kevin picks up where he left off in Part 1 , talking about various bars he worked in all around San Francisco. He and his wife loved Emmy's Spaghetti Shack in Bernal Heights, and got to know Josey (host) and Sarah (chef). A few years later, Josey and Sarah asked Kevin to open a restaurant with them, and that's the story of how The Front Porch got started. Kevin shares the history...

Kevin Cline grew up in Florida, but he got out just about as soon as he could. In this podcast, Kevin, who co-owns  Front Porch restaurant in Bernal Heights, shares stories of journeys that led him to San Francisco. First was a trip from Boston to Los Angeles, then from LA to San Francisco on bicycle. Then, based on what a good time he had in The City during that first visit, he decided to ride hi...

In this podcast, Nico picks up where she left off in Part 1 , with some office jobs she had when she first moved here before switching to screenprinting full-time. She met the folks who run Workshop SF , and starting screenprinting and teaching classes there. Through Workshop, she also started connecting with more creative, "work hard, play hard" types, which whom she identified. She decided to op...

Coldwater, OH, has seven stoplights, by Nico Schwieterman's last count. In this podcast, Nico, who opened and owns  Fleet Wood  in the Tenderloin, shares stories of growing up in the small town of Coldwater. Her dad ran a shop where, as a kid, she helped him print shirts. She was your fairly typical teenager, and ended up going to college in Cincinnati. A college internship in 2004 brought her to...

One of Uncle Damien Posey's favorite things to tell people is that he's "not a role model, he's a real model." We checked in with our Season 2, Episode 38 storyteller last week to see how he's doing and how he's feeling about the current uprising for racial justice. In this special podcast,  Damien  shares some of his own experiences with racism in The City, his thoughts on the current uprising an...

In this special episode, S2E49 storyteller Chloe Jackman shares her perspectives on race and the current uprising for racial justice. The daughter of a Black man and a white woman, she was often made to feel "not Black enough." But over time, she was able to defy those norms and embrace the entirety of her identity. One of Chloe's main hopes coming out of the worldwide and ongoing protests is that...

Thea Matthews is a powerful poet. In this podcast, Thea picks up where she left off in Part 1 , talking about the early days of her writing and performing poetry. She helped established the Black Student Union at City College and later went to UC Berkeley, commuting the whole time from her home in The City. Later in the episode, Thea reflects on the current uprising for racial and social justice....

Poet, activist, and scholar Thea Matthews grew up in the Excelsior, which to this day is still a largely ungentrified, working-class neighborhood in San Francisco. In this podcast, Thea talks about growing up as a Black/Mexican/Indigenous kid with a single mom in San Francisco in the 1990s. Most of her childhood experiences with her Blackness were negative, but they later formed a backdrop to her...

In this special episode, we listen to artist William Rhodes talk about his arrival in San Francisco back in 2008. It wasn't exactly the city he had imagined. Together with other Black artists here, he helped found the Three Point Nine Art Collective , and that helped William feel grounded in community and what he loves to do. But it of course didn't stop the racist micro-aggressions he experienced...

Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez dove head-first into a career in journalism in his hometown of San Francisco. In this podcast, the young veteran reporter takes us through the later days of his time in City College's journalism program. After a brief stint at SF State, Joe got hired to write for the SF Bay Guardian, and rode it out until that weekly folded. He soon found work as a reporter and opinion col...

Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez grew up in Cow Hollow, and he'd like you to know what that means. In this podcast, the prolific San Francisco journalist tells the story of how his parents met (it involves his mom and uncle hitchhiking from Los Angeles to San Francisco). He talks about the neighborhood where he grew up and all the misconceptions that surround it. An influential neighbor he had back then l...

In this podcast, District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen picks up where she left off in Part 1 , talking about her work at La Raza Centro Legal in the Mission. She goes on a verbal tour of places in the Mission she hung out (hello, margaritas at Latin American Club!). She applied for and got a job as a legislative aide to then-D9 Supervisor David Campos. Fast-forward to 2016, when she was tapped to ru...

In this podcast, District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen tells the story of how her parents, one from Israel, one from Milwaukee, met in Los Angeles, where she grew up. She went to college at UC San Diego and engaged in activism on the state level, fighting props 187 and 209 . After graduation, she wanted to learn Spanish, and she spent a couple of years in Barcelona. She came back to the states to go...

In this podcast, JoEllen goes into detail about her various roles at Blue Bottle, including a brief stint in New York City. When she returned to San Francisco in 2012, she started formulating a business plan. With the support of her bosses at Blue Bottle, that plan ended up being Pinhole Coffee , which opened in Bernal Heights in 2014. Pinhole is open with reduced hours and a smaller menu during s...