Meet a Microhood: Mid Riff
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Mid Riff is our latest microhood party. It's happening Thursday, February 9th from 6 to 8 p.m. and will focus on Market Street between 6th and 7th. The area is home to impressive art spaces, one of the most beloved music venues on the West Coast, and great restaurants, bars, and shops. Co-presented by The Luggage Store, Hospitality House Community Arts Program, Camerawork, and the San Francisco Arts Commission, Mid Riff is an evening of discounted eats, complimentary libations, special deals, art openings, and live performances.
We hope you'll come out to for our first microhood of the new year and enjoy special elements courtesy of Satellite 66 Gallery, Show Dogs, Small Potatoes Catering, Huckleberry Bicycles and other great Mid Riff merchants. In addition, the IIDA and the San Francisco Arts Commission will reveal The Windows that night, "a collection of over-the-top, creative, retail window displays" created by local designers. You'll be able to see the displays along Market Street starting at 5:30 p.m.
Blick Art Materials will be offering 20% off all regularly priced merchandise and the chance to win great items from their prize wheel!
Stop by for a beer at Huckleberry Bicycles and peruse their excellent hand-picked selection of bikes, apparel, and accessories for all types of cyclists. Huckleberry will be raffling a cycling jersey and other great accessories during Mid Riff. Get a chance to win just by coming through the doors and another raffle ticket when you make a purchase.
Visit SF Camerawork's new location, 1011 Market Street and explore their show, Allan deSouza's The World Series. DeSouza's photos invokes history to track contemporary pathways through the signage of metaphorical, transcultural, political, and psychogeographic encounters. The World Series was inspired by Jacob Lawrence’s iconic The Migration Series (1941), which portrays the 20th-century migration of African Americans from the Deep South to Northern cities.
Show Dogs will be offering a special discounted "microhood combo" - any of one of their housemade sausage sandwiches, a side order of fries, and an 8 oz draft beer for only $10.
Satellite66 Gallery will be offering complimentary libations and an early preview of their latest show, the 200 Yards Photo Project. 200 Yards is a photography experiment, wherein the participants explore and capture the 200-yard radius directly surrounding the exhibition venue. The exhibition thus becomes a portrait of the neighborhood. This is an especially poignant iteration of the project, as the 200 Yards surrounding Satellite66 is part of a larger effort by many in the city of San Francisco to revive the Central Market and 6th Street corridors through art. 6th Street between Mission and Market has a long-standing reputation as a troubled block, and as various new businesses and arts organizations move in, its future is looking brighter.
Archetype Boutique is the working studio and shop of designer Jarred Garza of Ric Rac Clothing, offering local, handmade clothing, jewelry and accessories. Archetype will be showcasing new handmade jewelry by local designer Venus Superstar. Join them for music, mimosa's and sales from 10 to 50% off selected merchandise.
Starting at 5 pm, Hospitality House Community Arts Program will be hosting the opening reception for Selections: Works from Hospitality House’s Permanent Collection, featuring works created by Tenderloin community artists utilizing the free-of-charge fine arts studio and gallery (temporarily housed at the Luggage Store Gallery). This special retrospective spans more than 43 years, featuring works by notable artists throughout the history of the program.
During Mid Riff, the sidewalk in front of The Luggage Store, Hospitality House and Camerawork will also be transformed into an impromptu stage for a special music performance from Jordan B. Wilson, the street performer, songwriter, inventor, and multi-instrumentalist.
Club 6 will be hosting their free art event, So You Think You Can Paint. Enjoy cheap drinks and free food courtesy of Ike's Place, paint your masterpiece, check out works from other artists, and dig live music courtesy of local bands Capkins, NorthFolk, and Blackout Makeout.
Scoutmob San Francisco and Eventbrite are hosting the Mid Riff after-party at Monarch from 8 to 10 p.m. Enjoy drinks, acrobatics, mustaches, music and more.
At 8 pm, as our microhood party is ending, the Luggage Store is hosting their weekly New Music Night event - a wonderful avant-garde night featuring the electronics of Zachary Watkins and the drone sounds of the bajo sexto by Ernesto Diaz-Infante, celebrating the CD release of "Emilio" on Pax Recordings. Diaz-Infante creates musical compositions that span a broad perspective: transcendental piano, noise, avant-garde guitar, field recordings, lo-fi four-track manipulations, and experimental song. Zachary Watkins received an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College where he studied with Chris Brown, Fred Frith, Alvin Curran and Pauline Oliveros. Watkins has presented works in numerous festivals across the United States and in Berlin Germany.
THE EVENT IS FREE but PLEASE RSVP so we can get a count of how many are coming. Supplies are limited but the fun is not.
All ages are welcome, but most activities are 21+.
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Guttersnipe
I've noticed that microhoods (and the branding of them) has everything to do with real estate values/marketing and is a way to gentrify neighborhoods in this city (and most others).
I live in the Mission (near general hospital). The listings call it "New Media Gulch" and use it to drive up the price of the new loft units that went up in my neighborhood effectively ousting families and artists that have been here a lot longer than "New Media Gulch". It is the Mission, but it doesn't sell as well when called that. This has gone on for over a decade.
The same thing was done in "New Mission Terrace", which is essentially the Excelsior. Again, this was used as a tactic in 1998 to drive up rental prices and real estate values in an historically Italian-American neighborhood that wanted to remain as white as possible and feared that their location would make an ideal setting for those being pushed out of the "trendier" neighborhoods of Noe Valley, etc. due to economics. To head this migration off, the small neighborhood was rebranded.
NOPA is another prime example. NOPA IS Western Addition. It has historically been a black/African-American community. NOPA was branded that way in the beginning 2000s to increase the amount of affluent whites moving into the neighborhood considering "Western Addition" had/has a violence problem. This directly lead to the black/African American flight from San Francisco decimating a strong, historic community that lived here.
All of that said, I do value the revitalization that you are hoping to inspire in sections of the city that do need some revitalizing (such as mid-Market), using arts, retail, and cuisine to bring about that change. Just please be aware that your "microhoods" are also the backbone of gentrification.
housekombucha
@guttersnipe
i hear u. i am a resident of 6th and natoma, the heart of skid row. i started a business out there, House Kombucha, and it is absolutely despicable how land monopoly has created a slum conditions that only other wealthy land monopolists can ever overcome.
the very artists and people that make business flourish in these neighborhoods will ousted by the land owners. its community generated wealth going to private owners. read Henry george, or join my fb page to stay tuned
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Triumph-of-the-Commons/200172070024560
DanSF
Just a quick correction... The Western Addition runs between Van Ness and Divisadero. It was literally a planned addition to the city back when few people lived west of Van Ness. So technically NoPa is not actually the Western Addition. Also, it's only been a black community since WWII. Prior to that, it was largely Japanese. But the Japanese were forced out (and into internment camps) during WWII. Because they had to move quickly, they sold their homes cheaply, which enabled blacks to purchase them (since most blacks were relatively poor). Given how small this city is and how contested much of the space is, it's pretty common for groups to lay "historical" claims to neighborhoods. But it's usually a short view of history. For example, gays and Hispanics trying to preserve the "character" of the Castro and the Mission quickly forget that those were originally Irish neighborhoods. (And they were Ohlone "neighborhoods" before that...) In fact "Castro" is a new brand-- that area was called Eureka Valley until about 30 years ago. That's not to say that we should accept or welcome all changes. But it's wise to remember that, whether you're an artist, a minority, a yuppie or a blue-collar joe, your "group" inevitably moved into someone else's space to make it what it is today, and that someone else probably thought you were ruining their neighborhood too.
Run Your Mouth