If you have ever been to San Francisco, then some part of you—or some former part of you—has almost certainly passed through the city’s Southeast Wastewater Treatment Plant. But, considering how utterly vital it is to the city, the wastewater plant is also very much invisible, tucked away in a neighborhood no tourist would have heard of. Bright and early one recent Saturday morning, Gizmodo went to see what San Francisco’s sewage plant is really like.
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San Francisco, as everyone who lives there knows, is a city desperate for more space. But making due with a small lot can sometimes lead to amazing things—like this 1,900-square-foot home designed by Craig Steely.
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At 977 feet tall and situated atop the peak of San Francisco’s biggest hill, the three-legged Sutro Tower dominates the city’s skyline. But this isn’t some grand scale art installation like Cupid’s Span; this massive structure acts as a vital part of San Francisco’s communications infrastructure, bouncing radio waves over Twin Peaks and all the way out to the ocean.
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Boudin’s sourdough bread’s unique tangy taste and chewy center has been a hit with San Francisco residents since the bakery first opened in 1849. A big part of brand’s success has been due to its unyielding consistency—a feat only accomplished because the company is still using the same yeast culture that Isidore Boudin collected 160 years ago.
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The five-alarm fire that destroyed a San Francisco apartment building this week put the city’s municipal water supply to the test: When water pressure began to dwindle, firefighters tapped an emergency system that was built below the city—all the way back in 1913.
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Despite the whimsical nature of her drawings, make no mistake: San Francisco artist Wendy MacNaughton is a gifted urban anthropologist. Her newest book, Meanwhile in San Francisco: The City In Its Own Words, is an insightful, illustrated compendium of contemporary city life.
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Is Google Glass really "killing cities" or just the douchebags who wear them? Are mines bringing cities down—literally? Is the Bowery doomed? Is Berlin really over? We examine these questions and more, in this week’s edition of What’s Ruining Our Cities.
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San Francisco wants to cut its landfill waste down to absolute zero by 2020. While a city-wide plastic bag ban has been in effect for a few years, new legislation approved by the Board of Supervisors this week sets its sights on the bane of tap-water enthusiasts and thirsty environmentalists alike: Bay Area, say goodbye to the plastic water bottle.
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In this week’s landscape reads, we rediscover the future of steampunk energy, we walk the radioactive shores of a manmade island in San Francisco, we climb to the top of California’s surreal palm tree economy, and we look back with both amusement and horror at pest control in communist China.
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They’re being targeted as harbingers of evil as their buses chug through otherwise inaccessible, gentrified neighborhoods. Now San Francisco’s tech workers are fighting back with a networking event called the Tech Workers Against Displacement Happy Hour, that, in addition to sounding like a whole lot of fun, hopes to gather attendees who are "sick of being blamed for SF’s housing crisis."
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