The Source
By Steven Short on Jul 11 2011 - 8:54am
San Francisco, as we all know, is densely populated. So the possibility of finding any open space for a new, and substantial, “wilderness trail” is next to impossible. Yet, that’s exactly what has happened. The Interior Greenbelt Park opened in the heart of the city earlier this month, on San...
By Steven Short on Dec 14 2010 - 4:42pm
A survey team in the 1970s asked residents of Santa Rosa to name their best-remembered or most important resident. The uncontested winner was Frank P. Doyle, even though Doyle had been dead for a generation.
Today Bay Area motorists outside of Santa Rosa may know Doyle’s name from the Golden Gate...
By Steven Short on Dec 14 2010 - 4:12pm
You can’t talk transportation in the Bay Area without talking about bridges. Everybody knows the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, but if you’re driving between the two, you travel on another bridge: an elevated and windy two-lane road through the Presidio called Doyle Drive.
REPORTER: In some...
By Steven Short on Oct 13 2010 - 4:00pm
In the current era of electronic transfers and bank cards, it's easy to forget that people used to go home at the end of the week with a pay envelope filled with ... money! In fact, the name of one Bay Area neighborhood is based upon that old practice. That's the topic for today’s episode of The...
By Steven Short on Sep 21 2010 - 1:48pm
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}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: black; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }At the beginning of each Crosscurrents we feature...
By Steven Short on Sep 16 2010 - 9:14am
Have you ever been to the little town of Bolinas, near Point Reyes National Seashore? Have you ever wanted to go, but couldn’t find the turn-off from the highway? Well, that’s not by accident. It has been said that if Bolinas had a welcome sign – which it doesn’t – it could read: “Welcome to...
By Steven Short on Aug 25 2010 - 3:43pm
It’s always nice to live in an area with an attractive name. For example, various neighborhoods throughout the Bay Area have “Park” or “Heights” or “Vista” attached to them.
But there’s always an exception to the rule – and Dogtown in Marin County may take the prize for Least Attractive Name, as...
By Steven Short on Aug 25 2010 - 12:35pm
Drive slowly north from Bolinas, CA, and you may notice a hand-painted sign nailed to a tree telling you that you’re entering Dogtown. Drive quickly and you’re likely to miss it – the sign and the community, too.
It wasn’t always this way. According to Elia Haworth of the Bolinas Museum, the...
By Steven Short on Jun 23 2010 - 9:47am
As we all know, many of California’s current place names owe their origins to the Spanish explorers of the 1500s. And that’s also true of the name “California” itself. But “California” is not a Spanish word. KALW’s Steven Short traces the unexpected origin of our State name in this...
By Steven Short on Jun 1 2010 - 5:41pm
As reported in our episode of The Source on San Francisco’s Mt. Sutro, there have been various names given to that hill (which doesn’t actually qualify as a mountain). But there have also been many uses for it besides the current major one, which is hiking.
Residents today might be surprised...
Misisipi Mike
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