Today I took some pictures on the first day of Muni’s new T-Third service. It was a fun trip; I’d never gotten out to that part of town before, and like Mark, I’m also “a bit of a transit nerd.” Highlights after the jump.
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Local Political Blog Buzz:

Included are links to SF’s Usual Suspects website that has posted a large map graphic by David Latterman showing the percentages of voters in different parts of the city during the last election. The heaviest turnout of over 50% was in the outer avenues, and close to that in most districts where supervisor races were to be decided, and less than 35% in Chinatown & Bayview Hunters Point.

Daniela Kirshenbaum has written a lengthy post election piece for Fog City Journal on some growing disenchantment amongst District 2 denizens with so-called “Mystery Supervisor” Michela Alioto-Pier, who maintains a home in St. Helena and has vague City Hall office hours and a somewhat spotty attendance record for Supe’s meetings.

Of interest to parents with kids in SF’s public schools, “Left in SF”‘s, Kim Knox posts the results from an analysis she did of an official SF school district document handed out this weekend that is showing the trends in the top choices of SF parents to send their kids too…

Word of an emergency Critical Mass scheduled for outside the Mexican Consulate in solidarity with Oaxacan protestors at 4pm Monday has local bicyclists a buzz.

Meanwhile, back in District 5 Diary blogger Rob Anderson’s cyber turf, he continues to take much flack from irked bike nuts & anti-car zealots. Anderson, a former D5 supe candidate in ’04, had an election day victory, not at the polls, but in court in where his lawsuit slowing down SF’s “Bike Plan” was upheld.

Go beyond the jump to read more of the latest hub bub riling up local political bloggers…
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Wednesday Sept 27th 2006 commemorates the 40th Anniversary of The
Hunters Point Riots and the lasting effects of the social
stratification that has long hung over the community.

Brought on by neighborhood outrage over the death of Matthew “Peanut” Johnson, a 16 year old unarmed youth who was shot in the back by the SFPD, the Bayview became a volatile cauldron of tempers that erupted into a disturbance that lasted several days.

That drama may have died down, but the tragic context of the riots, their
impact, and the surrounding events remain as a bleak reminder of a
situation that remains largely unchanged for four decades…

Award winning local documentary filmmaker Kevin Epps ( Straight Outta Hunters Point ) and the
Hunters Point Community Youth Park Foundation present an open discussion of the historical signifigance, and how the situation exists today in the city’s largest African American enclave. The event takes place at 6pm Weds at 200 Middlepoint Road, home of the Hunters Point Youth Park Foundation, where the late Julia “Aunt Bea” Middleton tirelessly served to bring a bright spot into the lives of children raised amidst dilapadated & deprived social infrastructure. To set the tenor of the times, and educate today’s youth who are expected to attend, Epps will show some rarely seen archival news footage of the riots as well, and tape portions of the event for inclusion of a future program on Current TV.

For more background on this issue, and some socio-economic context of race relations in San Francisco in the 60′s til now… read on.
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With the fall womens soccer season just around the corner, our team has been scouring locations around the city for practices. And for the past two weeks, we’ve found ourselves in the one field that always seems to be available, Youngblood in the Bayview neighborhood.

Bayview is a quick commute from my hood which is why I was willing to check this field out. But what got me scurred was the change in lanscape from South Beach to Dogpatch to Bayview. You transition from bright lights and wide streets to littered streets and shadow movements. And at that last turn, there is a well lit soccer field that seems to appear out of the fog. What else could bring a bunch of girls out to Bayview? What other reason would any of us have for going out there late night during the week?

I’m no investigative reporter, but I was surprised at how little, if anything, there is to do in Bayview. Citysearch doesn’t even list Bayview as an option under the neighborhood section. Craigslist revealed a couple of job postings and volunteers needed, but not much in the way of events. Is it easy to assume that an area struggling with poverty, gangs and crime has nothing of interest to the rest of us city dwellers? Gimme the light or show me the light–Bayview can’t be all that bad.

Can I tell you what a cranky mood that I was in on Saturday? Ok, I will. I was hot. I was worn out from a blah night of CrushLab and then Steps of Rome the night before. And I admit that I was having a little pity party about being a single girl who had to drive up to the city that night, once again, all alone.

But as I drove around the warehouses around Hunter’s Point, on the phone with Anna trying to figure out if she was going to make it, I started getting excited about my first Ghetto Gourmet experience.
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The skateboarding world (and San Francisco) lost one of it’s most prolific personalities last weekend. Fausto Vitello died from a heart attack while on a bike ride with his best friend. May he forever rest in peace and continue to inspire generation after generation with his incredible accomplishments.

In the words of his son: “He was skateboarding’s saving grace. When the industry was in the gutter, he gave it mouth to mouth. When corporate types tried to step, he remained independent.”

Read Tony’s (his son) incredible morning after obit.

Having buried my father way too early, I can feel his loss in an incredibly personal way. I grew up skating myself, and the skate culture of San Francisco was a major pull for me in choosing to move here. I proudly live on one of SF’s finest skating hills, 9th Avenue. Thank you Fausto, thank you Dad.
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Maybe you’re wondering, while you sit at work and gaze out at the sunshine, or take a walk to coffee and listen to the birds, what is Caffe Trieste like? Well, here it is.

Oddnesses of life in North Beach: there is a slight brou-ha-ha over the shooting in Coit Tower two weeks ago. Something about how the citizens of Tel-Hi want more police, but neighborhoods like Hunter’s Point need more police with shootings 2Xweek, vs. once a year (tel-hi’s rate). Meeting tonight at the Tel-hi neighborhood center to chat with police and perhaps the Mayor. Will report back if I manage to lift myself off couch and walk the two blocks to the neighborhood center. I was trying to relate the gravity of this Teel-Hi shooting to a sibling in Baltimore, but it just doesn’t really work when, what, 1 in 3 black men in Baltimore under the age of 25 will die. The biggest crime I’m worried about is a tourist falling under a cable car. I mean, those cable cars don’t have brakes the way they careen through intersections.