Portal:San Francisco Bay Area

WELCOME TO THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA   BAY AREA CITIES   RECOGNIZED BAY AREA CONTENT The San Francisco Bay Area Portal The San Francisco Bay Area (referred to locally as the Bay Area) is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses the major cities and metropolitan areas of San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland, along with smaller urban and rural areas. The Bay Area's nine counties are Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. Home to approximately 7.68 million people, the nine-county Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a network of roads, highways, railroads, bridges, tunnels, and commuter rail. The combined statistical area of the region is the second-largest in California (after the Greater Los Angeles area), the fifth-largest in the United States, and the 43rd-largest urban area in the world with 8.80 million people. The Bay Area has the second-most Fortune 500 companies in the United States, after the New York metropolitan area, and is known for its natural beauty, liberal politics, entrepreneurship, and diversity. The area ranks second in highest density of college graduates, after the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and performs above the state median household income in the 2010 census; it includes the five highest California counties by per capita income and two of the top 25 wealthiest counties in the United States. Based on a 2013 population report from the California Department of Finance, the Bay Area is the only region in California where the rate of people migrating in from other areas in the United States is greater than the rate of those leaving the region, led by Alameda and Contra Costa counties. (more...) Selected article Levi Strauss & Co. /ˌliːvaɪ ˈstrɔːs/ is a privately held American clothing company known worldwide for its Levi's brand of denim jeans. It was founded in 1853 when Levi Strauss came from Buttenheim, Bavaria, to San Francisco, California to open a west coast branch of his brothers' New York dry goods business. The company's corporate headquarters is located at Levi's Plaza in San Francisco. Levi Strauss started the business at the 90 Sacramento Street address in San Francisco. He next moved the location to 62 Sacramento Street then 63 & 65 Sacramento Street. Jacob Davis, a Latvian Jewish immigrant, was a Reno, Nevada tailor who frequently purchased bolts of cloth made from denim from Levi Strauss & Co.'s wholesale house. After one of Davis' customers kept purchasing cloth to reinforce torn pants, he had an idea to use copper rivets to reinforce the points of strain, such as on the pocket corners and at the base of the button fly. Davis did not have the required money to purchase a patent, so he wrote to Strauss suggesting that they go into business together. After Levi accepted Jacob's offer, on May 20, 1873, the two men received U.S. Patent 139,121 from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The patented rivet was later incorporated into the company's jean design and advertisements. Contrary to an advertising campaign suggesting that Levi Strauss sold his first jeans to gold miners during the California Gold Rush (which peaked in 1849), the manufacturing of denim overalls only began in the 1870s. The company created their first pair of Levis 501 Jeans in the 1890s, a style that went on to become the world's best selling item of clothing. (more...) Selected biography Willie Lewis Brown, Jr. (born March 20, 1934) is an American politician of the Democratic Party. He served over 30 years in the California State Assembly, spending 15 years as its speaker, and later served as the 41st mayor of San Francisco, the first African American to do so. Under the current California term-limits law, no Speaker of the California State Assembly will be permitted to have a longer tenure than Brown's. The San Francisco Chronicle called Brown “one of San Francisco’s most notable mayors” who had “celebrity beyond the city’s boundaries.” Brown was born in Mineola, Texas and attended a segregated high school. He moved to San Francisco in 1951, attending San Francisco State University and graduating in 1955 with a degree in liberal studies. Brown earned a J.D. from University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1958. He spent several years in private practice before gaining election in his second attempt to the California Assembly in 1964. Brown became the Democrats' whip in 1969 and speaker in 1980. He was known for his ability to manage people and maintain party discipline. According to The New York Times, Brown became one of the country's most powerful state legislators. His long tenure and powerful position were used as a focal point of California's initiative campaign to limit the terms of state legislators, which passed in 1990. During the last of his three allowed post-initiative terms, Brown maintained control of the Assembly despite a slim Republican majority by gaining the vote of several Republicans. Near the end of his final term, Brown left the legislature to become mayor of San Francisco. (more...) Selected city Emeryville is a small city in Alameda County, California, in the United States. It is located in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, extending to the shore of San Francisco Bay. Its proximity to San Francisco, the Bay Bridge, the University of California, Berkeley, and Silicon Valley has been a catalyst for recent economic growth. It is home to Pixar Animation Studios, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Jamba Juice and Clif Bar. In addition, several well known biotech and software companies have made their home in Emeryville: Electronic Arts' Maxis Software division, LeapFrog, Sendmail, MobiTV, Novartis (formerly Chiron before April 2006), and BigFix (now IBM). The population was 10,080 as of 2010, although it swells considerably on weekdays due to the city's position as a regional employment center. Emeryville has some features of an edge city; however, it is located within the inner urban core of the Oakland/greater East Bay and was heavily industrialized before the First World War. (more...) Selected image porcelain cranes, Japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park image credit: PeteBobb The Bay Area by year 2018 January Starting January 1, with the Adult Use of Marijuana Act going into effect statewide, Harborside Health Center, The Berkeley Patients Group, and many other Marijuana dispensaries in the Bay Area begin retail sales of Marijuana to the general public [1] (public performer on 2016 Independence Day pictured) Parks in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, including Muir Woods National Monument and Fort Point National Historic Site, experience partial or total closure, due to the United States federal government shutdown of 2018 [2] More than 150,000 people attend 2018 Women's March protests across the Bay Area, adding the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements to the protests against President Donald Trump (San Francisco event pictured) [3] The San Francisco Board of Supervisors votes to replace acting mayor London Breed with an interim mayor, former supervisor Mark Farrell (pictured), amid accusations of racism [4] San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo resigns from the Federal Communications Commission Broadband Advisory Board, citing undue influence from telecommunications companies [5] San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón announces his department will begin to retroactively apply Proposition 64, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, which legalized the possession and recreational use of marijuana for adults ages 21 years or older, to misdemeanor and felony convictions dating back to 1975, recalling and re-sentencing up to 4,940 felony marijuana convictions and dismissing and sealing 3,038 misdemeanors [6] February The Berkeley City Council declares Berkeley a "sanctuary city" for recreational cannabis sales, prohibiting the use of city resources to assist in enforcing federal marijuana laws or providing information on legal cannabis sales, the first city in California to do so [7] Marin County is ranked worst among all California counties in racial disparity, according to Race Counts and Advancement Project California, with a spokesperson for the groups stating, "We were surprised, and were not expecting Marin to be the number-one county in terms of disparity...It’s not that progressive counties have it all figured out" [8] Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley announces that her office will review thousands of marijuana convictions, dating back to 1974, for possible dismissal under Proposition 64, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, guidelines, following closely after San Francisco announced a similar plan (above) [9] Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf alerts city residents to imminent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, earning criticism from some federal authorities. She responds, "I was sharing information in a way that was legal and was not obstructing justice, and it was an opportunity to ensure that people were aware of their rights." [10] March A man with a rifle enters the Veterans Home of California Yountville, the largest veterans home in the United States, holds employees hostage, and is found dead, along with 3 hostages [11] May Two studies conclude that the housing crisis in the Bay Area and California is reaching emergency proportions, with one study estimating that two counties alone, Santa Clara and Alameda, will need more than 50,000 new homes to meet the demand for affordable housing for lower-income residents, while homelessness increased by 36% in Alameda County from 2016-2017[12] The father of some of the ten children that were removed from a home in Fairfield, where they were living in conditions of severe neglect and abuse, is arrested and booked on seven counts of torture and nine counts of felony child abuse [13] A nine-story electronic sculpture, "Day for Night", created by artist Jim Campbell, that features low resolution, abstract videos of San Francisco, debuts at the top of Salesforce Tower [14][15] June San Francisco voters pass an ordinance banning the sale of flavored tobacco products, due in part to concerns that candy-flavored products may lure teenagers into nicotine addiction [16] Santa Clara County voters remove Santa Clara County Superior Court judge Aaron Persky, who came to national attention in 2016 when he sentenced a Stanford University student to just six months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman [17] London Breed (pictured) is elected Mayor of San Francisco in a special election, defeating close rival Mark Leno [18] Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes, and former president and COO Ramesh Balwani are indicted on charges of wire fraud, accused of carrying out a multi-million dollar scheme to defraud investors, doctors and patients. Theranos announced that Holmes would resign as CEO, but retain her position as chairwoman of the board [19] Hanabiko "Koko", a female western lowland gorilla born at the San Francisco Zoo, who was known for having learned a large number of hand signs from a modified version of American Sign Language. dies at her home in Woodside, California [20] July The West County Detention Center severs ties with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and will no longer incarcerate undocumented migrants at the Contra Costa County facility. [21] Nia Wilson, an African American woman, is killed while exiting MacArthur BART station, when a white male attacked her and one of her two sisters with her, with strong suspicions that this was a racially motivated hate crime [22] Ron Dellums (pictured), former East Bay US Representative and mayor of Oakland, known for his fiery anti-Vietnam War oratory and progressive politics, dies at his home in Washington, D.C. [23][24] August Apple Inc becomes the first company in history to reach $1,000,000,000,000 in value [25] The Transbay Transit Center opens in San Francisco, initially as a hub for bus lines including MUNI and AC Transit, and eventually nearly a dozen other transit agencies, including BART and CalTrain [26] A study by the California Association of Realtors shows that only about 1 in 5 Bay Area residents can afford the median purchase price for a home, with state home affordability rates at a 10 year low [27] A jury in San Francisco awards 46-year-old former school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson US$289m in damages against Monsanto, after alleging that it had spent decades hiding the cancer-causing dangers of its Roundup herbicides [28] Selected historical image Promotional poster for Mantra-Rock Dance 1967 musical event image credit: Harvey W. Cohen Did you know... San Francisco Bay Salt Ponds ... that the vivid colors of the San Francisco Bay Salt Ponds (pictured), ranging from magenta to blue-green, come from the brine shrimp and microorganisms that thrive in the water? ... that the Laguna Creek watershed debouches into the San Francisco Bay near the site of the ghost town of Drawbridge? ... that the chase scene from the 1968 Steve McQueen film Bullitt starts on Cesar Chavez Street (then Army Street) before continuing through San Francisco? ... that the title of There There, a 2018 novel about urban Indians in Oakland, California, mirrors Gertrude Stein's quip about the city that "There is no there there"? Previous Did you know... ... that a 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon from Stag's Leap Wine Cellars (pictured) in Napa Valley won a blind taste test at the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976? ... that the Port of Oakland was the first major port on the West Coast to handle container ships? ... that craigslist was founded in 1995 by Craig Newmark and, since 2004, has been partly owned by eBay? ... that colonies of the San Bruno elfin butterfly, an endangered species, are located on San Bruno Mountain and near the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve? December 2006 Selected periodic event The Gilroy Garlic Festival is one of the largest food festivals in the United States, held annually in Gilroy, "The Garlic Capital of the World", on the last full weekend in July. The festival is famous for delicacies such as garlic ice cream (pictured). The nonprofit festival was founded in 1979. Quote “ Every city on earth has its special sink of vice, crime and degradation, its running ulcer or moral cancer, which it would fain hide from the gaze of mankind ... San Franciscans will not yield the palm of superiority to anything to be found elsewhere in the world. Speak of the deeper depth, the lower hell, the maelstrom of vice and iniquity – from whence those who once fairly enter escape no more forever – and they will point triumphantly to the Barbary Coast, strewn from end to end with the wrecks of humanity, and challenge you to match it anywhere outside of the lake of fire and brimstone. ” ~ Colonel Albert S. Evans, 1873 *more quotes about San Francisco from Wikiquote Selected multimedia file Teddy Roosevelt visiting San Francisco in 1903 credit: Library of Congress Bay Area regions, geographic features and protected areas Regions East Bay North Bay Peninsula Santa Clara Valley Silicon Valley Wine Country West Marin Geographic features San Francisco Bay San Pablo Bay Suisun Bay Islands of the Bay Marin Headlands Diablo Range Berkeley Hills Santa Cruz Mountains Protected areas Golden Gate Recreation Area Farallones Marine Sanctuary Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge Point Reyes Seashore Mount Tamalpais State Park Henry Coe State Park Midpeninsula Open Space East Bay Regional Parks Related Portals WikiProject You are invited to participate in the San Francisco Bay Area task force, a task force dedicated to developing and improving articles about the San Francisco Bay Area. Things you can do *Write an article on a Bay Area-related subject *Propose new material or features for this portal *Add new selected articles *Add new selected biographies *Add new selected cities *Add new selected images *Add new selected historical images *Add new selected events *Add new selected multimedia files *Add new quotes *Add new historical events *Add new selected panoramas Selected panorama San Francisco from Twin Peaks image credit: Christian Mehlführer San Francisco Bay Area categories Bay Area | San Francisco Bay | San Francisco | San Jose | Oakland | Cities | Census-designated places | Historic Places | National Landmarks | Counties: Alameda | Contra Costa | Marin | Napa | San Mateo | Santa Clara | Solano | Sonoma Architecture | Attractions | Books | Culture | Economy | Education | Environment | Events & Festivals | Geography | Government | History | Landmarks | Law | Mass media | Military | Music | Organizations | Parks | People | Politics | Science | Sports | Transport Full category tree Select [►] to view the full category tree. 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