The commercial core of a region or city, like any market itself, will fluctuate. Historically, Montgomery Street in downtown San Francisco was the city’s waterfront, and also where gold from the mountains was brokered into cash and deeds. As the bay shore got filled up, buildings rose and pushed further east, as well as “south of the slot,” as Jack London immortalized it.
Just as South of the Slot became South of Market, which to many is now simply SoMa, so much has been transformed — from warehouses, light-industrial spaces, and leather scenes to open-floor plans, world-class museums, malls (let’s try not to forget the Meh-treon), and professional baseball, along with, of course, bespoke offices for technologists and professional services. (Not everything has been repurposed. The Stud has been saved; the Eagle is still doing its beer bust. Folsom Street continues to be randy.)
Nevertheless transportation continues to drive the neighborhood’s changes. The latest is the new, sprawling Transbay Transit Center at 1st and Mission Streets. Someday it may be a hub for the Bay Area’s transit systems, including California high-speed rail. (I say “may” because the powers that be still haven’t gotten the funds to extend rail service from the current Caltrain terminus at 4th and King.) Basically Transbay will open as a really swanky bus station early next year, topped by the whopping Salesforce Tower, which at 1,070 feet will be the tallest building in San Francisco. It’ll be more than 200 feet taller than the Transamerica Pyramid, and the second-highest skyscraper west of the Mississippi River. There also will be a park on top of the new terminal, five acres of open space in a neighborhood that hasn’t had much.
Transbay and its park bring more amenities to South of Market, already well stocked with restaurants and other service businesses, especially for the blocks walkable to the Financial District across Market Street. But should this new urban core be called Transbay by association? Here’s what’s happening on that front: To highlight an area undergoing transformation and mark it as being on the way up, nearby business and property owners have banded together to raise money (what’s known as a “community benefit district”) and rebrand themselves — not as the South Financial District or New Rincon Hill, but as the East Cut. By their measure, the new name would demarcate the blocks from 2nd Street east almost to the waterfront, and from Mission south to the Interstate 80 flyover.
The East Cut has started to get around as the new kid on the block. Its backers have a glossy video devoted to the new name. (Everyone’s a publisher these days.) SF Chronicle architecture critic John King also gave the name some play. But most important, they’re turning people on to art.
The Frisc has found there is public art popping up at 3rd and Mission, on the outdoor terrace of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The East Cut is looking to establish its own sense of place with Third Fridays events, showcasing an arts collective at a large space at 302 Folsom. The collective is Beyond Beyond, and it has access to the unfinished space at least through March of next year.
Bre Arder, co-curator of Beyond Beyond, says its collaboration with the East Cut reflects the interests of the growing population in the neighborhood, as surveyed by the CBD. The timing was fortuitous for tragic reasons: “There’s been a noticeable decline in spaces available after Ghost Ship fire” to showcase art, she says. (The Ghost Ship, an Oakland space that also included makeshift dwellings, went up in flames almost a year ago and 36 people were killed. Greater safety scrutiny shut warehouses and studios down.)
The privately owned 302 Folsom was vacant, according to Andrew Robinson, executive director of the East Cut Community Benefit District, and there was an opportunity to support artists and get neighbors together. “There is a lack of affordable, accessible community spaces. We’re very fortunate with the property owner to allow us to do this with Beyond Beyond,” he says. “In a city known for its neighborhoods, the East Cut wants to be authentic in the fabric of San Francisco, and arts and culture are essential.”
There was a good crowd out the first Third Friday in October, featuring mixed media and sculpture from six artists. Some attendees came from work nearby; others were connected to the artists and Beyond Beyond. As I milled around, Arder introduced herself and brought me to her fellow collaborators. I visit galleries, museums, and art spaces often, and seldom witness that level of media-radar sensitivity.
More than 10,000 people already live within the CBD’s boundaries, and 3,000 more units are under construction, says Robinson, who stresses that these aren’t all luxury condos. “I don’t think many people realize how much below-market housing is here and is being built here,” he adds, pointing out that a project two blocks away from 302 Folsom is to be 40% affordable, and two others are slated as 100% affordable.
“We’re showing we can deliver, get people to turn out,” Robinson went on. “We won’t have succeeded if we only cater to a small niche” of businesses or property owners.
Our changing city seems to have no qualms about making art accessible even with the spate of new projects and shiny, sterile office buildings. YBCA’s orange-walled terrace at Third and Mission is right across from the très swanky St. Regis.
Arder, a native of Michigan who lives in West Oakland, says Beyond Beyond’s January show at 302 Folsom will be devoted to themes of homesickness and longings for another time and place. “I’m so conscious of not being from the Bay Area,” even as she’s busy working, making connections, and living here, she says.
Neighborhoods get redrawn, redefined, and rebranded, and cities adapt and cope. It’s a dynamic that can often be driven by real-estate interests, and San Francisco might be resistant to it, but certainly not immune. Let’s be clear, though: Folsom in the East Cut isn’t like Divisadero in the Western Addition. (NoPa, anyone?) Recent history didn’t have many residents calling Rincon Hill and the old Transbay blocks home. Well, now they’re there.
That, in a significant way, is the story of San Francisco: Owners, tenants, merchants, artists, art lovers, and everyone else can come, and if home is what they make of it, they can call it anything they want.
Follow Anthony Lazarus on Twitter: @Sr_Lazarus