Making a Difference

         Rare is the city or village where some are not unhoused, homeless, or living on the margin.

      In San Francisco we saw something transformative, and it is on the way to Los Angeles. All cities should take note.

        The gentlemen in the vest is part of something making a difference, Urban Alchemy

        Founder Dr. Lena Miller calls it a workforce development program that is a transforming force as a social enterprise.

        Men and women wearing the Urban Alchemy colors are visible in several neighborhoods.

        

        In three years Miller's "troops" have turned around once troubled neighborhoods through attention to detail and a full on presence.

            

Photo from SF Weekly

        When an area begins to look like the frame above,  beset with crime, filth, drug dealers and or homelessness, Urban Alchemy takes it on.

     Miller says it where a job meets the homeless, mental illness, addiction, merchants, residents and tourists.

            Urban Alchemy teams tend to the needs of the unhoused, do CPR, rescue drug overdoses, and assist those with mental crises.

        Other teams hit the alleys and streets, cleaning up, getting rid of needles, trash, human waste. 

        They've developed and care for public toilets and rest stations.

        They have created safe zones, safe walking areas and even parks.

        As one of the urban alchemists told me they are "here for everyone, just making it good for everyone."

        They try, as they say, "to hold the space" so it is safe and clean. They are guardians, clean up crews, ambassadors.

               

photo Upshot Stories

Photo San Francisco Examiner

        Urban Alchemy hires long time offenders, released on completion of sentences. Millar says they are people "with barriers to employment."

        They are men and women with street smarts who are given a job and income with the ability to earn an honest living and provide for themselves and families. She says she has seen many success stories in people who might have ended up homeless too. Her staff has a special relationship with the homeless.

        "They feel a special bond. They know what it means to be dismissed and disrespected."

        The Urban Alchemists evince a pride in the work they do. As they transform neighborhoods, bringing civility, caring, cleanliness, Miller says they too are transformed. She says there is a sense of mission and a kind of spirituality in this mix.

       As unhoused people try to survive in cities, living rough, it creates challenges and changes in the chemistry of urban life and commerce. Urban Alchemy has a balm for that.

        See you down the trail. 

        

City Takes # 2 -Lines and Rhythm

                                    

                        San Francisco has an elegance.

Even as the city morphs and changes, there is a fusion of linear forces that vivifies.

We mourn the loss of the old places, and funky personality.

Economics, largely driven by tech, disrupts, it is true.

        

     As in any city with real imagination, the architecture is a kind of code; who we have been, and who we are becoming. 

    It is not about architecture only though, at least to those of us with cameras. It is also how it all comes together; angles, spaces and the juxtaposition of style and line.

        

    This post tries to celebrate those LINES AND RHYTHM.

    

Old and new, edged and rounded, light and space

creating feel and flow.

 

After a year and half of pandemic restrictions, we were excited just to see The City.

     As a kid, when westerns were the fare on television, my midwestern sense of the West was Dodge City, Tombstone, Boot Hill and such, until Have Gun Will Travel changed all that. 

    Paladin, a sophisticated well tailored bon vivant, graduate of West Point, a Chinese martial arts specialist, president of the San Francisco Stock Exchange Club, chess player, and swordsman made his home a city that appeared as exotic as the problem solving hero. No Roy Rogers or Marshall Dillon, he.

     In 1957 that was a mind blowing concept-a gentleman gun fighter private eye who quoted literature. 

                "Wire Paladin San Francisco."

    After that the old west was, old and primitive, but San Francisco locked in my mind as, exotic, unique, a place where Asian and Western culture mixed and in a place that looked unlike anywhere else.

        There is something else in this city that deserves a look,

Urban Alchemy. That is coming in a future post.

     See you down the trail.

City Takes-Emotion and Vibe

 

        San Francisco is full of texture and emotion. This post tries to capture some of that vibe in this age of pandemic.

        Not since our pre pandemic visit to Dublin, Edinburgh and Glasgow have we been in a city. So here from a recent trip is COLOR AND NUANCE, the first post of an urban celebration of "The City."

        I hope you'll give yourself a couple of minutes to look at these frames, their color and detail, the larger the screen the better. 

        Taken in total or block by block San Francisco is a artful, arty and visually entertaining.

     

    

       

        I'm always fascinated by how people interact in public spaces. These shots capture the social distancing with dashes of California color and irony.  Create your own dialogue for the couples.

        San Francisco has stunning structure and architectural rhythm. That is coming in a future post. 

        Look around where you live and notice what you see that others may not.

     See you down the trail.