dajo9 said:

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concordtom said:

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dajo9 said:

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When I was at Cal in the 90s I avoided Oakland because I wasn't familiar with it and I considered it unsafe. Only went in maybe twice.

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Where did you grow up?

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San Bernardino CA which was extremely unsafe and prone to to crime

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I lived in Montclair from 3-7 grades.
We would take AC transit to Berkeley to play video games at the Silver Ball on Durant.

Oakland not so scary.
You just need to know where, and where not.

I didn't know that about SB !

So that's where the liberal guilt comes from.

movielover said:

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dajo9 said:

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Eastern Oregon Bear said:

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movielover said:

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Market Street is worse; The Mission was far better in the 1970s

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The Zebra Killers would like to discuss this with you.

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I never heard of the Zebra Killers before but holy hell !!

Crazy when people talk about crime now being anything like the 70s - 90s.

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I wrote 70s, not the crack, cocaine, & PCP 80s before Clinton put "predators" behind bars in major urban cities.

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The Zebra Killings took place in 1973 and 1974. 15 dead and 8 wounded including future San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos. I was commuting back and forth across San Francisco on the Muni to high school back then. Fun times.

movielover said:

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So that's where the liberal guilt comes from.

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I have know idea what you are talking about.
But go on, I'd love to be entertained by your armchair psych analysis of me.

bearister said:

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concordtom said:

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I lived in Montclair from 3-7 grades.
We would take AC transit to Berkeley to play video games at the Silver Ball on Durant.

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We had this discussion a few years ago. A couple of questions:

1. Was Silver Ball upstairs from Leopold's Records?

2. Was there a mural on the wall going up the stairs of Roger Daltrey as the Pinball Wizard? If so, do you have any photos of it?

I was at Cal from 1972-1976 when that mural was there.

I found this photo on Google Image:



*When I was in law school the space down that staircase was The Come Back Inn pub.

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This would have been like 1980 or early 81.
Your photo is correct location. La Val's pizza. Some bar downstairs. Go up the street just a smidge and I guess it would be on top of La Val's (?) there was. A skinny staircase that went up. If there was a Roger salary mural I couldn't say. My memory has it painted dark. Once above, a door and then you entered the room with video games.

The most memorable thing was that game called Ooops. It was like a college student created it. A one-of-a-kind. I explained this before. It was like asteroids but the ship couldn't fly around, and instead of a ship you controlled a syringe that spun in a circle over an ovum, guarding it. Instead of boulders coming at a ship, lots of speed would come toward the egg. The syringe fired a gel that would wipe out the swimming sperm.

Across the street was that little inlet of businesses. I forget what they call that.
I just went on my phone's map street view and where Thai Basil restaurant is there used to be a place called Kings Cards. We'd look through his binders of football cards, mostly.

I spun the camera around to see the La Val's building. I see the stairs going down but no stairway up to where silver ball was. I'm guessing they remodeled and removed it.

Seems like yesterday.

I guess they call it Durant Food Court

https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/2519-Durant-Ave-Berkeley-CA/29395286/

And HOLY COW. LOOK AT THIS

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Ball_Gardens

In the late 1970s, Silver Ball Gardens was purchased by Masayoshi Son and Hong Lu, two entrepreneurs running an arcade-game importing business in Berkeley.[4] Son would go on to found SoftBank Group in 1981, and Lu to found UTStarcom in 1995.


Masayoshi Son bought Ziff Davis when my wife worked for one of their magazines and tv shows circa 1997

In 1975-1976 Big Arts bar/club was down that court. Held about 50 people (or less). I saw Eddie Money, Arm n Hammer, Delta Wires and Grayson Street play there.

Franklin Mieuli played foosball at the table in the alley in his Sherlock Holmes hat.

Tom Bates and his security goons threatened me and my friends there when he imposed an impromptu stump speech on us when he was running for state assembly….and our mouths were dry so we knew we were plenty high.

Masayoshi Son
Born: Masayoshi Yasumoto

When he went to the United States at 16 to attend high school and then the University of California Berkeley.

"If I had stayed all the time in Japan, Mr. Son said, I probably would have become much more conservative, just as other Japanese."

More detail:
https://usjapantomodachi.org/about-us/donors/masayoshi-son/

Eastern Oregon Bear said:

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The Zebra Killings took place in 1973 and 1974. 15 dead and 8 wounded including future San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos. I was commuting back and forth across San Francisco on the Muni to high school back then. Fun times.

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I went to a couple of shows at Winterland during the Zebra Killers reign of terror. They killed a few people in that vicinity (Fillmore District). Papers said they drove a black El Dorado Cadillac. I remember once when we were lit and walking to our car we thought we spotted their Caddy and we dove behind a parked car. My memory is we saw War and Dave Mason.




The Who at Winterland, 1976

bearister said:

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Eastern Oregon Bear said:

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The Zebra Killings took place in 1973 and 1974. 15 dead and 8 wounded including future San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos. I was commuting back and forth across San Francisco on the Muni to high school back then. Fun times.

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I went to a couple of shows at Winterland during the Zebra Killers reign of terror. They killed a few people in that vicinity (Fillmore District). Papers said they drove a black El Dorado Cadillac. I remember once when we were lit and walking to our car we thought we spotted their Caddy and we dove behind a parked car. My memory is we saw War and Dave Mason.




The Who at Winterland, 1976

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See, Unit2...look how good the Winterland area looked in the mid 70s.

That Tommy mural was connected to the release of the movie in 1975. It was probably long painted over by the time you got there.

82gradDLSdad said:

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bearister said:

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Eastern Oregon Bear said:

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The Zebra Killings took place in 1973 and 1974. 15 dead and 8 wounded including future San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos. I was commuting back and forth across San Francisco on the Muni to high school back then. Fun times.

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I went to a couple of shows at Winterland during the Zebra Killers reign of terror. They killed a few people in that vicinity (Fillmore District). Papers said they drove a black El Dorado Cadillac. I remember once when we were lit and walking to our car we thought we spotted their Caddy and we dove behind a parked car. My memory is we saw War and Dave Mason.




The Who at Winterland, 1976

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See, Unit2...look how good the Winterland area looked in the mid 70s.

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I don't think I started the 70's discussion. That was 50 years ago. I read that people complained about crime but that's about it. I do know the 90's were far worse than today and even the early 2000's were more dangerous. Much of the city has gentrified, but not the loin.

None of this is relevant to the conservative agitprop intended to slam SF to make red staters feel better.

Could Florida steal Hollywood?

Sylvester Stallone tells his family they’re leaving California and moving to Florida

pic.twitter.com/yvQJ0nXyhI

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) February 23, 2024

You missed my winky thingy I put at the top of my post. I'm well aware of how bad things were in most of the decades I've been alive in SF. We are going to have to disagree on our opinions of how much better things are in SF these days. That's ok. You live there. I just walk there. It can't be that bad which is good.

movielover said:

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Have you had your first bowl?

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Of corn flakes? Oatmeal? Clam chowder? Potato chips? Sticky icky?

Please be more specific with your rando nonsense questions.

82gradDLSdad said:

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You missed my winky thingy I put at the top of my post. I'm well aware of how bad things were in most of the decades I've been alive in SF. We are going to have to disagree on our opinions of how much better things are in SF these days. That's ok. You live there. I just walk there. It can't be that bad which is good.

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Ah, yes, missed that. You are probably more aware of SF through the ages and various neighborhoods than anyone else here and I always appreciate your takes, even if we don't see eye to eye.

San Francisco has been alternately crumbling and booming throughout most of its history. I see no reason to think that cycle has suddenly halted. The recent tech boom has faded; something else will take its place.

sycasey said:

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San Francisco has been alternately crumbling and booming throughout most of its history. I see no reason to think that cycle has suddenly halted. The recent tech boom has faded; something else will take its place.

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The Big Quake is right around the corner!

Someone should propose how to rebuild the city after it's destroyed.

First thing I'm doing is building a triangular crosstown freeway:
Bay Bridge to Golden Gate Bridge to 280.

Oh wait. Those bridges will be gone. Hmmm.

Quick question before you jump back in the clown car:

What is the intended reaction to your posting of this story. Do you think we should cheer?

74-year-old Chong Chon dies trying to stop retail theft.

Make Buckshot Great Again.

https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/74-year-old-georgia-woman-dies-month-after-being-pushed-by-shoplifter/62PT2PFN2FCFLN3IRBXRJMXMMQ/