In December, we filmed at the Granada Hotel in San Francisco's Lower Nob Hill. Legacy residents—mostly seniors and people with disabilities—said safety and cleanliness at the site had gone dramatically downhill since it was transitioned to supportive housing for the formerly homeless in Nov. 2020.
In October, we profiled the state of downtown San Francisco. Offices were empty. Workers were mostly gone. And hundreds of downtown merchants were hanging on by a thread.
Also in October, we took a look at a San Francisco baseball team duking it out at Golden Gate Park using rules, uniforms and equipment authentic to 1886, and learned what the sport means for the players.
In July, in the backdrop of fears around brazen retail theft, we spoke to a security guard at a San Francisco Target store about what it was like to work that job day in and day out. Ultimately, the guard chose to quit—and we chronicled his decision on camera.
In August, we met up with store owner Jack Epstein, whose extraordinary Noe Valley chocolate shop boasts a photographic history of San Francisco in the form of thousands of blue tin boxes.
Over the course of the summer, we debuted a series about three San Francisco neighborhoods and how they handled the pandemic and built back stronger. In the Outer Sunset, an explosion of creativity and new beginnings took place where the sea meets the city.
In April, we traveled to the Bayview to speak with visionary artist Michelle Browder about her latest project. After learning about the "father of gynecology" J. Marion Sims' place in history, Browder set off to create a sculpture honoring the enslaved women he experimented on without anesthesia or consent—the 'mothers of gynecology,' as she called them.
Video by Jesse Rogala
Joel Aguero contributed additional reporting for this story.
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The rapid retreat of home insurers from California may hit you in the pocketbook and make it harder to buy a home. And you probably haven’t heard much about it.
