Shaping San Francisco is a living archive of the city providing people with access to its lost history. Hundreds of people have contributed stories, photos, video oral histories, and more. Through our unique approach to community history, we focus mainly on labor, ecology, transit, and dissent and how they have changed the landscape of San Francisco since the 1850s. Our projects attempt to show that history is much more than Richter scales and gold rushes.

Programs:

Ongoing series of Talks at CounterPULSE three Wednesdays every month, recorded and uploaded as podcasts (archived here)

San Francisco Bicycle History Tours are offered 8 -10 times a year.

Shaping San Francisco, founded in 1994, is one of CounterPULSE’s most publicly known projects, and was converted to the web as a media-wiki format and it’s open at FoundSF.org!

Opportunities:

Shaping San Francisco is looking for a volunteer web designer who can help us revamp our website. We’ve outgrown our basic site and have a new book coming out, and we want to make our presence a little more functional. We currently self-administer the site, shapingsf.org, which houses weekly and periodic event notices, audio/podcasts from four+ years of public talks, and now a directory related to our book. The book will be published in June, and we’re looking for someone to take on a short-term project (in the next few weeks) to give us a fresh look. Is that something you’re interested in? We have some ideas, but need someone to help make it happen!

Shaping San Francisco, a project of CounterPULSE, focuses on participatory and overlooked history of the City by the Bay, and has been a volunteer-driven project for the past 17 years. Give our site a look and let us know what you’d do to make things work and look better for us!

Please contact Chris and LisaRuth at foundsf [at] yahoo [dot] com.

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And as for CounterPULSE’s past…

 

This image is of the corner of 9th and Mission where CounterPULSE sits today (CounterPULSE would be on the sand dune that rises at the right side of the picture).

 

Mission Street southwest at 9th, 2007

Shaping San Francisco has been going for almost a decade on a shoestring.

Donations to Shaping San Francisco can be made by sending a check made out to “CounterPULSE” and earmarked for Shaping San Francisco to 1310 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103. Or you can visit the Shaping San Francisco website and donate via our paypal donation button right on the home page.