Jim Albright was the last person to leave Alcatraz the day it closed as a federal penitentiary. Given the choice, though, he’d go back.
The 77-year-old former prison guard started his career on The Rock and learned many things there, including how to be aware of prisoners slipping one another potential material for weapons and how to ignore the lure of prisoners’ stories. He enjoyed life on the island and the structure of his job.
“I loved it here,” Albright said. “If all prisons were on an even playing field, and Alcatraz reopened, I’d come back.”
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The popular urban farm located on a 2.2-acre plot on Laguna Street between Fell and Oak streets is leaving the property to make way for a condo development.
Farmers have already begun packing up.
“I’m not sad. It’s a celebration of so much happening that wasn’t an option three years ago,” said Jay Rosenberg, co-director of the farm. “We’re using this as a launching point for amazing projects. I’m looking forward to getting to work on those.”
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The San Francisco Unified School District mailed roughly 14,250 school assignment letters to families last week, with roughly 60 percent of them receiving their top choices.
According to district data, more families applied this year than last to place their children in kindergarten, sixth grade and ninth grade.
This year, 4,968 families applied for a kindergarten spot compared to 4,799 last year. At the sixth-grade level, 3,484 families applied for placement, up from 3,252 last year. And for ninth grade, the numbers were 4,334 this year and 4,188 in 2012.
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The search is on for a new chancellor at City College of San Francisco.
Now that school officials have submitted their “show cause” report to the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges in hopes of staying open, the board of trustees wants to return to some unfinished business.
On Thursday, trustees are expected to approve a request for bids to contract for up to $150,000 with a private firm to begin preparations for the search, college documents show.
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San Francisco is indisputably a Giants town.
But Sunday night, baseball fans took over the Orange and Black’s territory for a semifinal game in the World Baseball Classic. Though the Giants didn’t take the field, fan favorite Angel Pagan and his Puerto Rico team helped bring fans to AT&T Park weeks before Opening Day.
“I’m a baseball fan,” said Manny Lopez, 48, of San Francisco. “I’ve been late to work for the Little League World Series.”
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On the eve of the deadline for officials at City College of San Francisco to turn in a report that could decide if the school remains in operation, students, faculty and community members made a last-ditch effort to urge leaders to save the
institution they love.
Hundreds of students, staff and community members marched from the various CCSF campuses to City Hall to call on city leaders for
assistance.
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At least one concert by the San Francisco Symphony has been canceled this week after contract negotiations reached a standstill and musicians went on strike Wednesday.
If an agreement is not reached soon, three other concerts at Davies Symphony Hall could be canceled along with an East Coast tour that includes two performances at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
“Our membership instructed us, with unanimity and authority, they do not wish to go on tour without a contract,” said David Gaudry, a violist and member of the musicians’ negotiating team.
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A threat to close Bacon Bacon’s brick-and-mortar location on Frederick Street near Ashbury Street over a neighbor’s complaint may have found a resolution in a filtration system.
The complaint stems from the fact that the restaurant owner needed to reapply for permits in order to continue operating because certain permits had changed, according to the Planning Department.
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In February, police arrested five people after a melee involving about 200 people broke out on Broadway.
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Lisa Dazols and Jenni Chang traveled to East Africa in 2011 in search of inspirational gay men and women, and among the folks they met was a straight reverend in Kenya who felt it was wrong for a church to discriminate against gays.
The man’s beliefs led to him being labeled gay, and he lost his position with his church. Yet he still works with Christian and Muslim leaders to challenge their stances and ways of thinking.
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A rise in sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies has prompted a local high school district to begin distributing condoms to students who have taken a class in health education.
Daly City’s Jefferson Union High School District approved the Condom Availability Program last month, and now the district’s health center is looking for donations to get it off the ground.
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A housing development approved Thursday for the west side of Mount Sutro will feature 34 units in 12 two-unit and 10 one-unit buildings.
It also will create a new road to access the development, 68 parking spaces and a water-catching system to prevent the hillside from getting saturated and potentially creating landslides, according to development plans.
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Ten months ago, when Chancellor Pamila Fisher of City College of San Francisco received a package from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, she knew her school was in trouble.
Fisher, who had agreed to serve as CCSF’s interim leader for about six months while the institution searched for a new chancellor after the retirement of Don Griffin, knew nothing about the pending document or the accrediting team’s prior visit.
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A daytime shooting in South Beach neighborhood sent one man to the hospital with a chest wound and shut down Market Street in downtown for more than an hour Thursday afternoon after the victim and his driver tried to find help in the Financial District.
The shooting, which occurred just after 3:45 p.m. Thursday, happened in the first block of Bryant Street, near The Embarcadero. The victim was described by police as a man in his 30s.
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A 46-year-old man from Texas died while competing in the 33rd Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon, according to race organizers.The man, whose name has not been released, is from Austin and is believed to have suffered a heart attack during the swim portion of the event, race organizers said in a released statement.
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