When Parking Spaces Become Currency

My latest cover article in the Marina Times:

Signs of dissent on Polk Street; photo by Earl Adkins

NEWS
Polk Street back-and-forth intensifies
By John Zipperer 

Concern over plans by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) to make major changes to Polk Street has stepped up, with more meetings, petitions, and community organizing taking place to sway opinions in the neighborhood and among city leadership.  

SFMTA is planning to remove potentially hundreds of parking spaces along Polk Street and replace them with ...

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The Latest Site for Parking, Biker Clash

Big changes are in store for Polk Street (Photo: BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons)

In which yours truly reports on a meeting about traffic. Bikes. Shopkeepers. City planning. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll maybe read it.

From the April issue of the Marina Times:

NEWS
Polk Street Latest Site for Parking, Biker Clash
By John Zipperer 

Whether they got there by car, bike, bus, or on foot, locals filled the basement hall of the Old First Presbyterian Church on March 18 to discuss plans to remove parking spaces to make room for expanded bicycle lanes on Polk Street. By the time they were done, the head of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) said his organization is “committed to going back to the drawing board to achieve the goals of the project.” 

The proposal, part of an effort by the SFMTA to use Prop. B money to improve streets and safety, set off a heated debate in and around ...

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Living in the Cheap: My Latest Northside San Francisco Column

In the February 2012 issue of Northside San Francisco:

COMMON KNOWLEDGE COLUMN 

Living in the Cheap 

By John Zipperer 

Britain’s Prince Charles rendered his greatest service to his nation in 1987 when he complained about the ugliness of postwar London architecture. “Give this much to the Luftwaffe: When it knocked down our buildings, it didn’t replace them with anything more offensive than rubble. We did that. Clausewitz called war the continuation of diplomacy by other means. Around St Paul’s [Cathedral], planning turned out to be the continuation of war by other means.” 

Those tough comments by the heir to the British throne were pretty widely denounced by the modernists who rule the architectural criticism world. But give the man credit for bravery; he made his speech about the sins of urban planners to a meeting of the London planning committee.

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Architectural TV: Chicago Temple (First United Methodist Church) on WTTW Tonight

One of the treats of living in Chicago during the 1990s was that I got to be surrounded by some stunning architecture. From the bridges to the parks to the monumental museums, there was inspiring work all around.

I was a member of the First United Methodist Church during my time in that city, and I've told people since then that that church ruined me for other churches. If I don't explain, they might get the wrong idea, thinking that the church was a bad influence or terrible experience. In fact, between the friendly, diverse congregation and the wonderful pastors (led by the incomparable and now-retired Dr. Eugene H. Winkler – still the best preacher I've ever had the pleasure of hearing), First Church simply set the bar too high for any other church to meet, as far as I'm concerned.

Today, I certainly wouldn't pass a litmus test for believers, but if I lived in Chicago, I'd still be a member of this wonderful church. It is located in a historic skyscraper in the heart of the Loop (if you've seen Blues Brothers, the church is briefly visible at the very end in a scene of various police cars converging on City Hall) and is an architectural marvel. The building itself is called the Chicago Temple (which leads some people to assume the congregation is Jewish, then they get confused with the Methodist Church bit) and it is the oldest congregation of any faith in Chicago. It's even in the Guinness Book of World Records as the tallest church in the world.

Sorry. I could go on and on, because I have too many great memories of my time at the Chicago Temple. The memories were spurred by a Facebook post by the Temple that the building will be featured tonight (November 29) at 7:30 pm Central time on Chicago station WTTW. Below is a short video excerpt that will give you a taste of the WTTW program and of the building.

(If the video below doesn't work, you can see it on WTTW's website.)

Daniel Libeskind on the Fire at the Berlin Philharmonie

Famed architect Daniel Libeskind answered questions from the audience at an appearance today at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club of California. One question was whether the building of the Berlin Philharmonie (Berlin Philharmonic) should retain its original, 1960's modernist look in any reconstruction. Libeskind says it should, in a short response.