The last time Mission District icon La Doña released an EP, she was on the cusp of a national breakthrough. While 2020’s “AlgoNuevo” introduced her incantatory “femmeton” blend of cumbia, reggaetón, and R&B to a wider audience, an extensive tour with her band ended up being preempted by the pandemic. Released last week, her new single, “Paloma No Vuelve Amar,” picks up where “AlgoNuevo” left off, grabbing attention with a sound that’s sensuous and inviting, forthright and commanding.

The song has received a burst of attention, landing just after President Barack Obama included her tune “Penas Con Pan” on his widely watched summer playlist. The track is from her upcoming EP, “Can’t Eat Clout,” which is slated for release Sept. 15. It’s not a song cycle, but the project describes the uplifting trajectory of a young artist coming to embrace herself, her lover and her art, drawing on the Latin music idioms that Cecilia Cassandra Peña-Govea has accumulated since she was a child playing community events around the Mission with her parents and older sister in La Familia Peña-Govea. La Doña plays an early set Friday on the Lands End Stage at the sold-out Outside Lands festival. 

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Speaking of La Doña and the fabulous creative team surrounding her, congratulations to second-generation sign-painter and artist Lauren D’Amato, who was just tapped by the Headlands Center for the Arts for the 2023-24 Tournesol Award, “which recognizes an emerging Bay Area painter in support of establishing and maintaining a career in the region.” The award includes a $10,000 stipend, a private studio, and a culminating exhibition or project of the artist’s choice. Mission Local covered her solo show at House of Seiko in March, and you can watch her in action on La Doña’s irresistible “Dembow y Sexo (Visualizer).”

Music and activism have been inextricably entwined for San Francisco pianist/composer Jon Jang since the beginning of his career. A co-founder of Asian Improv, the record label and arts organization that’s been a primary vehicle for the Asian-American jazz movement, he’s developed an arresting repertoire drawing on traditional Chinese melodies and adventurous post-bop improvisation. 

Jang presents “Civil Wrongs: Music about Black American & Japanese American Incarceration” Thursday at Sha’ar Zahav. Produced by the Community Music Center as part of a series showcasing the organization’s faculty, the free concert commemorates the 35th anniversary of the signing of the federal law granting reparations to Japanese Americans wrongly incarcerated by the U.S. government during World War II. Featuring Erika Oba on flute, Gary Brown on double bass, and drummer Deszon Claiborne, who’s also on the CMC faculty, the program includes Jang’s 1987 composition “Reparations Now!,” which he wrote in tribute to the National Coalition for Redress and Reparations for Japanese Americans. 

The program also features “Meditations on Integration,” an extended work that Charles Mingus wrote in 1964 in response to a newspaper article about detention camps being built to hold protestors fighting segregation. Mingus recorded the piece several times under various names, including as “Meditation (For a Pair of Wire Cutters)” on the live album recorded in North Beach in 1964, “Right Now: Live at the Jazz Workshop.”

“This version is based on the Town Hall recording, a work introduced to me by James Newton,” Jang said, referring to the eminent flutist and composer with whom he worked widely in the 1980s and ‘90s. “We performed as a duo at anti-apartheid events and were ultimately invited to perform at the Arts Alive Festival in Johannesburg right after the election in 1994. The energy was electrifying. We played with two Black South African musicians in the rhythm section, and what was really moving was that they had not been allowed to perform in Johannesburg under.”

Reed maestro Sheldon Brown, who’s been busy recently touring with Cuban pianist Omar Sosa and Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros featuring The Wolfpack, plays a duo show Thursday Aug. 10 at the Red Poppy Art House with guitarist Scott Foster, renewing a collaboration that dates back some 25 years. The concert is presented by Jazz In the Neighborhood, an organization dedicated to getting fair wages for musicians. 

Jazz at the Make Out Room returns on Tuesday Aug. 15 with the protean duo of drummer Scott Amendola and saxophonist Phillip Greenlief, offering  a preview of their upcoming album “Stay With It” on Clean Feed Records. Pianist Motoko Honda, a pianist and composer who combines a wry sense of humor with a knack for startling harmonies, plays a solo opening set. 

Don Malcolm has been plumbing the cinematic shadows for the past decade at The Roxie, and he shows no signs of exhausting the darkness. Kicking off Sunday afternoon, A Rare Noir Is Good to Find offers a double bill, pairing the classic 1950 Mexican “cabareteraAventurera (The Adventuress)” with 1964’s “La muerte siba un blues (Death Whistles the Blues),” about a nightclub singer working undercover at a Caribbean casino. The series runs through Aug. 20. 

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The post A Cultural Mission, La Doña rising and music and justice appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

People in traditional Polynesian clothing at the Holiday Inn at San Francisco International Airport. Photo: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

As you walk through Visitacion Valley and Sunnydale, you’ll immediately recognize the communities that have established themselves in these neighborhoods.

• On one corner you’ll find the Polynesian Island Luau shop with its colorful mosaic of island clothing. A few blocks away is the Samoan Community Development Center, which is showing a documentary about local mental health initiatives.

Why it matters: Pacific Islanders have played a pivotal role in the city’s development since they first arrived on the California coast in the 19th century. San Francisco’s new effort to establish a cultural district for Pacific Islanders aims to recognize their contributions over the past 150 years.

Context: Today, Pacific Islanders make up less than 1% of the city’s 808,400 residents, according to census data. But it wasn’t always like this — by the mid-1700s, Native Hawaiians made up 10% of the population.

• San Francisco experienced a surge in Pacific Islander migration after World War II, when colonization allowed the US military to recruit Pacific Islanders into their ranks.
• When the war ended, they looked for opportunities at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, the Mormon Church, local farms and more.
• In recent years, increasing climate threats have also forced many Pacific Islanders to relocate to the United States

Yes but: “Decades of neglect” have led to high rates of poverty and health inequalities, community leader Faauuga Moliga told Axios.

• Lack of access to sustainable employment, housing and quality education has forced many to leave the city, said Moliga, a former school board member and San Francisco’s first elected Pacific Islander official.
• These inequalities have been exacerbated during the pandemic — as of May 2020, Pacific Islanders had the highest COVID-19 death rate of any racial/ethnic group in California.

Game Status: The goal of the cultural district is to help reverse these trends and “contribute to the fabric of the city,” Moliga said.

• Grassroots founding efforts began in 2017, but getting the community to recognize this opportunity has been a major challenge, noted Gaynor Siataga, director of Pacific Islander Community Resource Hub The Hut.

• “They felt like we’ve never gotten anything from the city before,” she told Axios, “because we never have.”
• After the Board of Directors approved the move last winter, local officials convened a task force to gather data on priorities and needs, which was lacking in the past due to the Pacific Islanders’ AAPI category.
• They are now working to put together an advisory board, award more grants annually, and hold meetings to hear from community members.

What you say: “It feels good to be seen and recognized,” said Moliga.

• “We used to not even sit at the table,” he remarked. The district will “be instrumental in moving the needle,” but the city must commit to making it a long-term investment.
• “Look at our ancestors — this work took years and years and decades and centuries before us,” Siataga added. “It’s about ensuring this longevity for future generations.”

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By Jonathan Brocklebank for the Scottish Daily Mail

13:14 February 21, 2023, updated 15:51 February 21, 2023

She was smart, articulate, and—remarkably given her youth and the sheepish tendencies of many of her peers—a woman of her own. The problem with Kate Forbes, from the perspective of her allies, was her apparent lack of ambition.

When asked in 2020 if she was interested in the top job, she replied that she was “absolutely” not.

When the question came up again the following year, she was just as firm — and more explicit about why it definitely wasn’t for her. “The more I see the job up close,” she said, “the less appealing it is.”

So that’s it. The brightest rising star in the nationalist movement had no interest in replacing Nicola Sturgeon, especially in a political arena she felt “felt more toxic than ever.”

She had just married Ali – Alasdair MacLennan, a chimney sweep ten years her senior, and was adjusting to life as a parent to his three teenage daughters.

Kate Forbes (pictured here in the Scottish Parliament building) is entirely her own wife, writes Jonathan Brocklebank

She became pregnant shortly afterwards and took maternity leave in July last year as the Scottish Government’s first cabinet secretary.

Daughter Naomi is only six months old now.

Just in case Miss Forbes still had an ounce of doubt about keeping her name out of any leadership race, Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation speech could have been almost tailor-made to sweep her away.

Life as First Minister is “relentlessly” hard, she said, and “giving absolutely everything of yourself to this job is the only way to do it”. There is “virtually no privacy” and “a First Minister is never off duty”.

And yet, in her first public statement since Miss Sturgeon resigned on Wednesday, there was a slightly different assessment of the desirability of the post the SNP leader is vacating.

“We need a leader who is bold, courageous and energetic, with a fresh face and ready for new challenges,” explained Miss Forbes in a slick video posted to social media.

“I am that leader.”

Whether the Dingwall-born former chartered accountant is a leader at all remains to be seen. But it’s already emerging that she’s the candidate who will represent the biggest cultural shift since the Sturgeon era.

The pair are far from each other on almost everything except the independence goal itself. Regarding abortion, one of them is pro-choice, the other pro-life. One is for gender reform, the other against. One is a bright social progressive, the other a social conservative. One speaks of hating the Tories and the other of loving Jesus.

One is a lowland city dweller with an equally compact inner-city constituency, the other a highland countryman whose territory spans thousands of square miles.

If Humza Yousaf considers herself Nicola Sturgeon’s continuity candidate, Miss Forbes is certainly the screeching halt in her predecessor’s direction of travel. The gaping chasm between them is the fault line that runs right through their group.

In short, the newest entrant to the leadership race is the Sturgeonistas’ worst nightmare. Would she overthrow the party to the right? Break Parliament from its commitments to gender reform? Maybe even work constructively with the Tories in Westminster?

Hear the SNP’s obviously nervous Mhairi Black about the prospect of a new party leader who deviates from the hard left’s agenda of the last eight years: “Any attempt to move to the right would destroy the main motivation for many activists, the doors open,” she called.

“If you take that reason away, you won’t find anyone under the age of 35 willing to deliver your leaflets very quickly.”

Well, Miss Forbes is 32 – and handing out leaflets is where it all started for her at SNP.

When she first began helping with local party campaigns, she had spent several of her childhood years in India, where her parents were missionaries.

Fluent in Gaelic and a member of the Free Church of Scotland, she made no attempt to downplay her from the start of her political journey.

“To be honest, I believe in the person of Jesus Christ,” she explained in 2021. “I believe that he died for me, he saved me and that my calling is to serve and love him and me to serve and love his neighbors with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. Politics will pass. I am a person before I became a politician and that person will continue to believe that I am made in the image of God.’

In a party whose statements by members often appear interchangeable, this was anything but usual.

This politician could obviously imagine things that were more fundamental to her than independence.

From Dingwall Academy she went not to a Scottish university, as aspiring SNP politicians almost always do, but to Cambridge University to study history.

The newest entrant to the race for the lead is the Sturgeonistas’ worst nightmare

Upon returning to Scotland, she completed an MSc at the University of Edinburgh in diaspora and migration history – subjects dear to her heart after learning how the Highland Clearances drove her ancestors from the Applecross Peninsula in Wester Ross.

She later studied to be an accountant and spent two years with banking giant Barclays.

She then became an assistant to MSP David Thomson before – almost by accident – at the age of just 26 she landed on the spot he vacated in 2016.

Despite many urging her to run, she said, “I looked at myself and thought, ‘Too young, too immature, too little life experience’.”

The fact that she was back in her childhood bedroom at the family home in Dingwall only seemed to underscore her youth.

But she prevailed, increasing the SNP’s majority in the constituency of Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch – and she remained in the family home for months after her election.

Her real coming of age in politics, however, came at age 29, when she was asked at the very last minute to deliver the SNP budget after Treasury Secretary Derek Mackay, it turned out, resigned out of favor, according to News to a Teenage Schoolboy.

It seemed like an impossible question. It was 7 a.m. on the day of the testimony when the call came from Miss Sturgeon’s office. Miss Forbes had to go through 283 pages of budget plans before she could deliver it.

She recalled, “In that moment, you don’t have the luxury of thinking too hard about what you’re asking of you, you just do it.” And she did it with more aplomb than the shamed Mr. Mackay had ever mustered.

From that day on she was traded as a possible successor to Miss Sturgeon. In fact, the party leader is said to have privately admitted that of all the possible candidates for her successor, Miss Forbes was the most talented.

Less than two weeks after taking office, she was appointed Treasury Secretary, becoming the youngest person ever appointed to the role and the first cabinet secretary born in the 1990s.

However, the intervention that Miss Forbes made last year was less remembered.

She was one of three government ministers to sign a letter raising concerns about the potential impact on women of allowing people to self-identify their gender and urging the Scottish Government to delay its controversial gender reforms .

Ash Regan, who is also challenging for the SNP leadership, was another.

In January last year, Miss Forbes confirmed that her position on the matter was unchanged and expressed fears that the Gender Recognition Reform Act (Scotland) could be a “bad law”.

If not for her maternity leave, she would have had to either vote for this “bad law” or leave her government post, as Miss Regan did last year.

Perhaps, by Miss Sturgeon’s reckoning, that same maternity leave would put Miss Forbes out of the leadership race if she snapped it up fast enough.

If that was the plan, it surely failed.

The next-generation ‘fresh’ candidate has Bute House in her sights – and should she get there, her predecessor’s legacy could be the first to be shredded.

The post Why Kate Forbes represents the largest cultural shift from the Nicola Sturgeon period appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The Castro Theater opened on Castro Street in 1922, and Pflueger later designed famous movie theaters like Oakland’s Paramount Theater and famous San Francisco cocktail lounges like the Top of the Mark.

“The Castro is sort of a grab bag of Beaux-Arts, Spanish Baroque, Renaissance and a variety of other styles,” said architectural historian Gerard Koskovich, “including some Art Deco elements.”

This mix of styles creates a whimsical setting designed to transport audiences into a world of fantasy and cinema.

The interior of the Castro Theater in 1927. (San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)

In the beginning, the Castro showed silent films, often accompanied by live music from a variety of instruments, most famously Castro’s Wurlitzer organ. The Castro catered primarily to the working-class community in the Eureka Valley, then considered a remote suburb outside of bustling San Francisco.

“Back then, people expected to see a mixed program … some short films, maybe a newsreel, and then a feature film,” Koskovich said.

When the film’s sound arrived, the Castro received speakers installed in a large burlap-lined hole in the wall behind the square cinema screen. When film went wide screen, so did the Castro: another screen was built just a few yards in front of the original screen and proscenium, and over time the old, golden square faded into oblivion. It remains visible in the Castro backstage if you can climb the stairs.

With its 1,400 seats, the Castro was considered small for the time. In San Francisco alone, there was competition from giants like the El Capitan on Mission Street; Now a parking lot, the Cap had twice as many seats as the Castro. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “The World’s Finest Theater,” Fox Theater on Market Street (on the site where Fox Plaza is now located) had 4,651 seats.

The average cinema in 2023 has around 150 seats.

The larger theaters like Fox and El Capitan showed the big blockbusters or premieres, while Castro’s repertoire consisted mostly of second or third screenings—films that had already been played in the larger theaters.

The interior of the Castro Theater in San Francisco on August 10, 2022. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

The gay Castro

De-industrialization and white flight changed the composition of the Castro in the 1950s and 1960s. Then the gay community moved in. By all accounts, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon — a lesbian couple who became longtime community activists — were the first openly LGBTQ people to move into the Castro in 1953.

“In the 1950s, this declining working-class neighborhood began to evolve into a gay enclave,” Koskovich said. The Castro’s first gay bar — dubbed the Missouri Mule — opened in 1963. “And in the early ’70s,” Koskovich said, “the Castro was very clearly labeled as a gay neighborhood.”

Mel Novikoff was then a programmer for the Castro Theater and quickly discovered a strategy to bring the neighborhood’s fast-growing gay community to the theatre:

“Bringing back old film, mixing it with art house films and foreign films,” Koskovich said. This is key to understanding this emerging urban public, he added: “These were people who had fled their gritty, monochromatic hometowns and moved to San Francisco because they wanted to pursue a sophisticated, exciting, cosmopolitan cultural life.” Novikoff has understood that.

“And what came out at the Castro Theater,” Koskovich said, “was the fact that there were a lot of crazy movie queens in San Francisco. You just had to watch a double bill of The Women and What Happened to Baby Jane? often dressed like their favorite characters or dressed to mock some of the characters, often reciting the best lines of dialogue.

In the outside world, it wasn’t necessarily safe to be openly gay. But in the Castro Theater, gay people — mostly gay white men — felt safe to express themselves.

In 1977, the Castro Theater was recognized as a beacon for the LGBTQ community when it became San Francisco’s 100th historic landmark, protecting the exterior from demolition or alteration.

What are you wondering about the Bay Area, its culture, or people that KQED is designed to study? Ask Bay Curious.

A sanctuary

“Before there were effective treatments around 1996, staying in the community as an AIDS sufferer was impossible,” Koskovich said. In San Francisco alone, nearly 20,000 people died during the AIDS crisis — “the overwhelming majority of them gay men under 50,” Koskovich added, with the majority of them living within two miles of the Castro District. “So imagine the impact of this epidemic, not just on the city but also on this particular neighborhood.”

The Castro Theater became the chapel of a community mourning the loss of a generation of young men.

“It was a place to go after you finished the two memorial services that week for people you knew,” Koskovich recalled. “You could spend a few hours escaping to a movie or a live show. They could bring sick people and they could sit quietly in a safe, secure and comfortable place knowing that if they have any signs they will not be excluded [of AIDS], such as Kaposi’s sarcoma lesions. That people would not withdraw from them. They could remain part of the community that had been built there.”

During the ’90s and 2000s, Castro Theater’s involvement and visibility in the LGBTQ community continued to grow under the watchful eye of programmer Anita Monga. She ushered in the era where film festivals like Frameline were held in theaters, as well as major film premieres.

In 2008, the Harvey Milk biopic Milk, much of which is set at the Castro, had its world premiere at the theater. In preparation for the event, the film studio funded a facelift for the Castro’s exterior, giving it a 1970s shine.

Atmosphere at the world premiere of “Milk” at the Castro Theater on October 28, 2008 in San Francisco. (Steve Jennings/WireImage)

The future of an icon

During the COVID-19 pandemic, theaters and concert halls have been closed. Although still owned by descendants of the original Nasser brothers, the Castro Theater came out in 2020 under new management, a company called Another Planet Entertainment. APE is a locally owned concert production company founded in 2003, which also manages the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, Fox Theater in Oakland and the Outside Lands Festival.

APE announced plans to refurbish the Castro Theater, including removing the cinema-style fixed seating and adding tiered areas for standing room concerts. The reaction of the film community was quick and determined.

The Castro Theater Conservancy, a community organization whose mission, according to its website, is to protect the theater “as a cultural and entertainment venue for films and live performance,” announced the creation of the Save the Castro Theater campaign in response.

Michael Petrelis holds a sign that reads “Save the Seats” during a town meeting about Another Planet Entertainment renovations at the Castro Theater on August 11, 2022. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

What followed were rallies, the online #SaveTheSeats campaign and hundreds of chain emails sent to officials asking that the seats and their layout at a tourist attraction be given special protection.

The Historic Preservation Commission accepted public comments for and against the proposed land marker on February 1, 2023 at San Francisco City Hall. More than 100 people lined up and waited for hours to speak. A majority of public comments opposed proposed changes to the Castro Theater seating.

The HPC voted to recommend the Castro Theater as a landmark, but came close to specifically naming the seats in its recommendation to the San Francisco board of directors. The Castro Theater will have seating, but how many and what type is still up in the air.

Some members of the film community see the changes proposed by APE as destroying a cultural space. On the other hand, there are people who imagine a future in which queer concerts play just as much a role as queer cinema. Either way, the iconic Castro Theater will remain a part of the San Francisco experience for generations to come, whether as a beloved community space or an aging relic of a bygone era.

A final decision on his fate could be made at a board meeting on Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at San Francisco City Hall.

The post San Francisco’s Castro Theatre: A Cultural ‘Temple’ Dealing with a Combat for Its Future appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the city’s 10th cultural district on Tuesday, a move that will recognize Pacific Islanders in Visitacion Valley and provide resources to support the dwindling community’s growth.

“People will be able to go somewhere they belong, somewhere people understand them, somewhere where they have all the same access to resources as every other community,” said Gaynor Siataga, the director of San Francisco’s Pacific Islander Community Hub and a leading advocate for the cultural district. “This will give them a sense of identity and belonging here in this wonderful city.”

Pacific Islanders’ roots in San Francisco date back to when it was still a settlement. But the community has steadily decreased in size — from more than 8,600 residents in 1990 to about 2,150 last year, or roughly 0.4% of the city’s population. Strong socioeconomic challenges, including high levels of poverty, unemployment and chronic health conditions, contributed to the community’s decline and intensified during the pandemic.

Around the same time that several Pacific Islander community-based organizations teamed up to respond to the population’s high rates of COVID-19 illness and death, planning for the cultural district started in earnest.

Tuesday’s 11-0 vote was seen as a culmination of those years-long efforts, but not an end point to them.

“We have folks who really want to come back to the city,” said Tino Felise, the neighborhood program coordinator at the Samoan Community Development Center and one of those behind the effort to create the cultural district. “Hopefully, establishing this cultural district will help us re-establish our population, and make sure this is a place Pacific Islanders can continue to call home.”

In coming months, the office of Supervisor Shamann Walton, who represents the area where the new district will be established, will work with Pacific Islander community leaders to cement the exact geographic boundaries of the district and solidify plans to protect and support the Pacific Islander community . This begins with the creation of a three-year strategic plan, according to the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, and the hiring of a cultural district staff.

Once finalized, the area will be awarded the annual funding provided to each district: $230,000 of hotel tax funds to plan for the services, resources and programs, all of which will be designed by a new cultural district advisory board and the city.

“I think the cultural district will really begin to allow everyone to see the specific needs of the Pacific Islander community, and focus on strengthening the solutions to supporting them,” Walton said.

Julia Sabory, who manages community planning and cultural districts at the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, said cultural districts can elevate a community’s voice at the policymaking table while promoting programs that are created with and for the populations they serve.

“It’s not so much about the numbers and the masses of residents,” Sabory said. “It’s about addressing the systemic exclusion of groups, and trying to include them into processes and opportunities to improve that community’s quality of life.”

“Getting the cultural district approved is just the beginning,” said Siataga. “The work — the deep-rooted work — starts after.”

Elissa Miolene is a freelance journalist based in San Francisco. Twitter: @elissamio

The post San Francisco simply created its tenth cultural district. Can it cease Pacific Islanders from leaving the town? appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

City leaders, arts organizations and community groups celebrated today the grand opening of Brookfield Properties’ transformative 5M mixed-use cultural arts district with ceremonies at The Parks at 5M, downtown San Francisco’s newest park.

“I am so excited to open 5M just as we are seeing more residents, workers, and visitors coming together as our City bounces back from the COVID-19 pandemic,” said San Francisco Mayor London Breed. “From affordable housing to new outdoor space and cultural programming, this community-led project addresses a wide range of neighborhood needs that for too long have been neglected. I want to thank Brookfield Properties and the entire SoMa community for their continued work and commitment to the future of this neighborhood.”

The George

Since 5M’s groundbreaking in 2019, the billion-dollar development has transitioned four acres of underutilized parking lots in the SoMa neighborhood at 5th, Mission and Howard streets into a pedestrian oriented hub of creativity, commerce, and community. Developer Brookfield Properties has completed construction of the 25-story 415 Natoma office building, The George apartment building with 302 rental units, and The Parks at 5M. Additionally, two historic buildings were restored; the Camelline Building that is earmarked for retail and nonprofit uses and the Dempster Building, which Brookfield Properties donated to CAST (Community Arts Stabilization Trust) for arts and cultural uses.

The grand opening celebration marked the completion of construction of Brookfield Properties’ components and the opening of The Parks at 5M to the public.

Community Programming Begins this Spring at The Parks at 5M

A major community benefit is the new $20 million privately-owned public park that features a performance area, undulating landscaped knolls patterned after Northern California landscapes, a children’s playground, and a dog run framed by the new and historic buildings. Two striking 30-foot-tall 3-dimensional sinuous steel canopies serve a dual purpose as works of art and to calm breezes. The Parks at 5M are the City’s largest ground-level privately-owned public open space (POPOS) at 26,100 sq. ft. — nearly the size of six basketball courts. Brookfield is providing security on site 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Beginning this spring, community programming for the Parks at 5M will feature a mix of events, performances, art and food curated by Brookfield Properties, arts and cultural nonprofits and other innovators such as CAST, Kultivate Labs and, Off the Grid. Film screenings, performance art, dance and fitness classes, live music, art exhibits, and Filipino cultural celebrations are among the activities being planned.

“The Parks at 5M help fulfill a civic need for more open spaces in the neighborhood for residents to play, socialize and celebrate,” said San Francisco Supervisor Matt Haney, who represents this area of ​​SoMa. “The diversity of offerings and opportunities here created a special place that benefits people of all ages and backgrounds.”

“5M underscores our commitment to the neighborhood and our belief in how melding creativity, cultural arts and commerce in unique ways builds stronger communities,” said Swathi Bonda, Sr. Director, Development for Brookfield Properties. “It is a place that binds us together to relax, have fun, learn and work — grounded in programming for the arts, music and cultural activities.”

Bonda said that new tenants, programming and residents will bring energy to the site. The Dempster Building at 447 Minna Street is home to arts nonprofits PUSH Dance Co. and Women’s Audio Mission. The Dempster Building also has a floor for Pop Up Art projects and a black-box theater. Thumbtack, the modern home management platform, recently signed a lease at 415 Natoma and residents are moving into The George. Brookfield Properties said that it expects to announce new leases involving food, nonprofits and local retailers in the near future.

Today’s ceremony featured a ribbon cutting and performance by PUSH Dance Co.

“Arts and culture play a central role in preserving the fabric of a neighborhood,” said CAST CEO Moy Eng. “CAST is pleased to be partnering with Brookfield in this effort to secure and steward a cultural space where artists and creatives can continue to thrive in SoMa. Arts and culture organizations—groups like Women’s Audio Mission and PUSH Dance—are so essential to our city because they’re pushing the boundaries of creativity and equity while also creating community cohesion. At 447 Minna, we want to ensure artists have a place to grow within the community, to interact with local residents, and add to the neighborhood vitality as a whole.”

415 Natoma, San Francisco Kohn Pederson Fox Architects

The unique configuration of 5M’s parks and buildings are designed to bring people together in an exchange of ideas. The expansive lobbies for 415 Natoma office building and The George open to the parks to promote lively street level interaction.

“5M is inspired by SoMa and its network of alleys, 5M’s design weaves together a tapestry of neighborhood history, arts, and business with new public space at the center,” said SITELAB urban studio Principal Laura Crescimano, which partnered on the master planning for 5 M.

The 415 Natoma 640,000-square-foot Class A office building features a “hospitality-driven” wall-less lobby with curated retail, food and beverage options; large floor plates; and over 27,000 square feet of outdoor terraces. The building was designed by renowned architect KPF.

“415 Natoma welcomes the public at its base with an open lobby, integrating seamlessly into the ground plane. The layered and split massing of the towers addresses the surrounding built context with a façade that employs a variety of textures, patterns, and colors,” said Trent Tesch, AIA, KPF Design Principal.

Image by Steelblue

Brookfield Properties began leasing units at The George in January. The new 20-story rental apartment building features 302 apartments, including 211 market rate and 91 BMR middle-income homes. The George has the highest percentage of middle income BMR units on site in City history. It features a double-height public lobby with integrated retail and co-working library; artwork in common areas by local women, BIPOC artists and other artists; 24/7 concierge service; a 16th-floor profitable clubroom and open-air amenity deck with sweeping views of Potrero Hill and the San Francisco Bay; state-of-the-art gym; and much more. More than 4,600 SF of retail is planned in a cafe zone along pedestrian-only paseo on North Mary Street.

Overall, 5M will create approximately 856 total new residential units onsite and in the neighborhood, including 245 affordable residential units for middle-income households, seniors and formerly homeless families.

Brookfield Properties worked with exceptional organizations to advance the project during the pandemic. In addition to KPF and SITELAB, !melk and Cliff Lowe Associates designed the open spaces at 5M. The George residential building is designed by architectural firm Ankrom Moisan and constructed by Build Group Inc. Architectural Resources Group led the rehabilitation of the historic Dempster Building. For the 415 Natoma office building, House & Robertson Architects is the executive architect and Swinerton Builders constructed the building.

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December 15, 2021

In the first two weeks of February, around 100,000 research volumes will travel 3,000 miles across the country to reach their final destination – Boston College.

The Ricci Institute for Sino-Western Cultural History is expected to open in BC in February 2022, according to a communication from the university.

The internationally renowned research center, bringing rare books, manuscripts and unique works of art from East Asia, is housed in the Creagh Library on the Brighton campus.

The institute moves from the University of San Francisco, where it was founded in 1984 by Rev. Edward Malatesta, SJ. Malatesta named the institute after Matteo Ricci – a 16th century Italian Jesuit missionary who created the first cultural bridge between the East and West – after Rev. M. Antoni J. Ucerler, SJ, director of the Ricci Institute.

“[Ricci] was a missionary but also built this cultural bridge between… Europe and China, ”Ucerler said in an interview with The Heights. “So Father Malatesta decided to give that name … because it’s not just about philosophy or theology. It is really through Christianity and this meeting of missionaries how East and West met. “

Ucerler said that in addition to philosophy and theology, the institute also covers the history of science, art and cultural exchanges between Asia and the West from the 16th theological faculties.
Professors will bring their classes to exhibitions and students will be able to use resources for research projects, Ucerler said. He also hopes students will enjoy having physical objects, not just digital resources, available.

“One of the things I’ve found in students is that you see reality is something else,” he said. “I love digital technology. I use them a lot, but one thing is… to see works of art or something rare on the screen. Another thing is to see what is real and even to hold or touch it. “

It is important to study Sino-Western cultural exchange, said Ucerler, because it enriches knowledge of the world and of oneself.

“By looking at someone who has a different experience, a different background, speaks a different language, and has a different cultural experience, you learn not only about the big wide world, but also about yourself and who you are. ” he said.
Ucerler said the institute works regularly with people from around 20 different countries around the world.

“We’re going to bring the world to BC – people come here who might not otherwise have come – and I think that will give both faculty and students the opportunity to interact with more people,” he said. “At the same time, we will take the work we do as members of BC into the world.”

Diversity, according to Ucerler, depends on openness and the desire to get to know and appreciate other people and cultures. That’s what drives the institute, he said.
“What the Ricci Institute really loves is bringing these different people together,” said Ucerler.

The institute will offer scholarships that bring graduate and postdoctoral students from around the world to study in BC, Ucerler said. As a Research I University, BC offers the highest degree with which one can become a nationally and internationally recognized expert in this field.

Ucerler said the main reason the institute moved from the University of San Francisco to BC was because USF does not have a Ph.D. Humanities or social science courses.

“We have worked with these young researchers from all over the world and we know that it will be difficult to really develop this program unless you are in a place that has these programs,” he said.

If all goes well, the collections will be relocated to BC in the first two weeks of February, according to Ucerler. Ucerler hopes that the institute will be available to the BC community as soon as possible.

“I really, really, really want to open the doors and have students, faculty, and other BC members [and] Employees are coming to use our collections for their theses before the end of the academic year, “he said.

Ucerler said he was amazed at the warm welcome the institute received and the excitement it generated in the BC community. Most of all, however, he is excited to expand the institute’s presence both in the BC community and around the world.

“I am happy to be able to dream big dreams and to be able to carry out our activities in collaboration with even more people, even more universities, [and] have an even greater reach across the BC community and around the world, “he said.

This story was originally published by The Heights, the student-run news publication at Boston College.

The post Ricci Institute For Chinese language-Western Cultural Historical past Shifting To BC appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

In the first two weeks of February, around 100,000 research volumes will travel 3,000 miles across the country to reach their final destination – Boston College.

The Ricci Institute for Sino-Western Cultural History is expected to open in BC in February 2022, according to a university release. The internationally renowned research center, bringing rare books, manuscripts and unique works of art from East Asia, is housed in the Creagh Library on the Brighton campus.

The institute moves from the University of San Francisco, where it was founded in 1984 by Rev. Edward Malatesta, SJ. Malatesta named the institute after Matteo Ricci – a 16th century Italian Jesuit missionary who created the first cultural bridge between the East and West – after Rev. M. Antoni J. Ucerler, SJ, director of the Ricci Institute.

“[Ricci] was a missionary, but he also created this cultural bridge between… Europe and China, ”Ucerler said in an interview with The heights. “So Father Malatesta decided to give that name … because it’s not just about philosophy or theology. It is really through Christianity and this meeting of missionaries how East and West met. “

Ucerler said that in addition to philosophy and theology, the institute also covers the history of science, art and cultural exchanges between Asia and the West from the 16th theological faculties.

Professors will bring their classes to exhibitions and students will be able to use resources for research projects, Ucerler said. He also hopes students will enjoy having physical objects, not just digital resources, available.

“One of the things I’ve found in students is that you see the real thing is something else,” he said. “I love digital technology. I use it a lot, but one thing is… to see artwork or something rare on the screen. Another thing is to see the real thing and even to hold or touch it. “

It is important to study Sino-Western cultural exchange, said Ucerler, because it enriches knowledge of the world and of oneself.

“By looking at someone who has a different experience, a different background, speaks a different language, and has a different cultural experience, you learn not only about the world, but also about yourself and who you are. ” he said.

Ucerler said the institute works regularly with people from around 20 different countries around the world.

“We’re going to bring the world to BC – people come here who might not otherwise have come – and I think that will give both faculty and students the opportunity to interact with more people,” he said. “At the same time, we will take the work we do as members of BC into the world.”

Diversity, according to Ucerler, depends on openness and the desire to get to know and appreciate other people and cultures. That’s what drives the institute, he said.

“What the Ricci Institute really loves is bringing these different people together,” said Ucerler.

The institute will offer scholarships that bring graduate and postdoctoral students from around the world to study in BC, Ucerler said. As a Research I University, BC offers the highest degree with which one can become a nationally and internationally recognized expert in this field.

Ucerler said the main reason the institute moved from the University of San Francisco to BC was because USF does not have a Ph.D. Humanities or social science courses.

“We have worked with these young researchers from all over the world and we know that it will be difficult to really develop this program unless you are in a place that has these programs,” he said.

If all goes well, the collections will be relocated to BC in the first two weeks of February, according to Ucerler. Ucerler hopes that the institute will be available to the BC community as soon as possible.

“I really, really, really want to open the doors and have students, faculty, and other BC members [and] The staff come to us and maybe even use our collections for their theses before the end of the academic year, ”he said.

Ucerler said he was amazed at the warm welcome the institute received and the excitement it generated in the BC community. Most of all, however, he is excited to expand the institute’s presence both in the BC community and around the world.

“I look forward to dreaming big dreams and our activities in collaboration with even more people, even more universities, [and] have an even greater reach across the BC community and around the world, ”he said.

Selected image courtesy of Rev. M. Antoni J. Ucerler, SJ

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