Portal:San Francisco Bay Area

WELCOME TO THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA   BAY AREA CITIES   RECOGNIZED BAY AREA CONTENT The San Francisco Bay Area Portal California Bay Area county map The San Francisco Bay Area (referred to locally as the Bay Area) is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses the major cities and metropolitan areas of San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland, along with smaller urban and rural areas. The Bay Area's nine counties are Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. Home to approximately 7.68 million people, the nine-county Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a network of roads, highways, railroads, bridges, tunnels, and commuter rail. The combined statistical area of the region is the second-largest in California (after the Greater Los Angeles area), the fifth-largest in the United States, and the 43rd-largest urban area in the world with 8.80 million people. The Bay Area has the second-most Fortune 500 companies in the United States, after the New York metropolitan area, and is known for its natural beauty, liberal politics, entrepreneurship, and diversity. The area ranks second in highest density of college graduates, after the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and performs above the state median household income in the 2010 census; it includes the five highest California counties by per capita income and two of the top 25 wealthiest counties in the United States. Based on a 2013 population report from the California Department of Finance, the Bay Area is the only region in California where the rate of people migrating in from other areas in the United States is greater than the rate of those leaving the region, led by Alameda and Contra Costa counties. (more...) Selected article Flower Drum Song was the eighth musical by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. It was based on the 1957 novel, The Flower Drum Song, by Chinese-American author C. Y. Lee. The piece opened in 1958 on Broadway and was afterwards presented in the West End and on tour. It was subsequently made into a 1961 musical film.After their extraordinary early successes, beginning with Oklahoma! in 1943, Rodgers and Hammerstein had written two musicals in the 1950s that did not do well and sought a new hit to revive their fortunes. Lee's novel focuses on a father, Wang Chi-yang, a wealthy refugee from China, who clings to traditional values in San Francisco's Chinatown. Rodgers and Hammerstein shifted the focus of the musical to his son, Wang Ta, who is torn between his Chinese roots and assimilation into American culture. The team hired Gene Kelly to make his debut as a stage director with the musical and scoured the country for a suitable Asian – or at least, plausibly Asian-looking – cast. The musical, much more light-hearted than Lee's novel, was profitable on Broadway and was followed by a national tour. (more...) Selected biography Melvin Mouron Belli (July 29, 1907 – July 9, 1996) was a prominent American lawyer known as "The King of Torts" and by detractors as 'Melvin Bellicose'. He had many celebrity clients, including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Errol Flynn, Chuck Berry, Muhammad Ali, the Rolling Stones, Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker, Martha Mitchell, Lana Turner, Tony Curtis, and Mae West. He won over USD $600,000,000 in judgments during his legal career. He was also the attorney of Jack Ruby, who shot Lee Harvey Oswald for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Belli was born in the California Gold Rush town of Sonora, California in the Sierra foothills. His parents were of Italian ancestry from Switzerland. His grandmother Anna Mouron was the first female pharmacist in California. By the 1920s, the family had moved to the city of Stockton, California where Belli attended Stockton High School. After winning a court case, Belli would raise a Jolly Roger flag over his Montgomery Street office building in the Barbary Coast district of San Francisco (which Belli claimed had been a Gold Rush-era brothel) and fire a cannon, mounted on his office roof, to announce the victory and the impending party. (more...) Selected city Historic Hunt's Cannery water tower Hayward (/ˈheɪwərd/; formerly, Haywards, Haywards Station, and Haywood) is a city located in Alameda County, California in the East Bay subregion of the San Francisco Bay Area. With a population in 2014 of 149,392 Hayward is the sixth-largest city in the Bay Area and the third largest in Alameda County. Hayward was ranked as the 37th most populous municipality in California. It is included in the San Francisco–Oakland–Hayward, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area by the US Census. It is located primarily between Castro Valley and Union City, and lies at the eastern terminus of the San Mateo–Hayward Bridge. The city was devastated early in its history by the namesake 1868 Hayward earthquake. From the early 20th century until the beginning of the 1980s, Hayward's economy was dominated by its now defunct food canning and salt production industries. (more...) Selected image San Francisco skyline at dusk. Prominent buildings include the Transamerica Pyramid (at right) and 555 California (at left). image credit: Basil D Soufi The Bay Area by year 1935 Woman with a Hat, from the SFMOMA collection Former capitol building, Benicia 1941 trolleybus model  • The San Francisco Museum of Art opens at the War Memorial Veterans Building on Van Ness Avenue in the Civic Center (Woman with a Hat by Matisse, from the museum collection, pictured, left)  • Benjamin Franklin Davis, grandson of the man who helped develop Levi's jeans, opens his eponymous clothing store in San Francisco  • Benicia Capitol State Historic Park opens at the site of California’s third capital building (pictured, right), where the California State Legislature convened from February 3, 1853 to February 24, 1854  • San Francisco Junior College is established  • Lucky Stores is founded in Alameda County  • Trolleybuses (pictured, right) begin operating in San Francisco Selected historical image San Francisco Municipal Railway car, 1967 image credit: Drew Jacksich Did you know... San Francisco Bay Salt Ponds ... that the vivid colors of the San Francisco Bay Salt Ponds (pictured), ranging from magenta to blue-green, come from the brine shrimp and microorganisms that thrive in the water? ... that the Laguna Creek watershed debouches into the San Francisco Bay near the site of the ghost town of Drawbridge? ... that the chase scene from the 1968 Steve McQueen film Bullitt starts on Cesar Chavez Street (then Army Street) before continuing through San Francisco? ... that the title of There There, a 2018 novel about urban Indians in Oakland, California, mirrors Gertrude Stein's quip about the city that "There is no there there"? Previous Did you know... ... that a 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon from Stag's Leap Wine Cellars (pictured) in Napa Valley won a blind taste test at the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976? ... that the Port of Oakland was the first major port on the West Coast to handle container ships? ... that craigslist was founded in 1995 by Craig Newmark and, since 2004, has been partly owned by eBay? ... that colonies of the San Bruno elfin butterfly, an endangered species, are located on San Bruno Mountain and near the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve? December 2006 Selected periodic event The Susan Comstock Quintet in 2010 The Cotati Jazz Festival is an annual free music festival held in Cotati since 1980. It typically takes place on Father's Day weekend in mid-June. (the Susan Comstock Quintet pictured) Quote “ B Street station was nothing more than a little shed. There was no ticket office, nothing but a couple of whittled and carven benches. It was built close to the railroad tracks, just across which was the dirty, muddy shore of San Francisco Bay. About a quarter of a mile back from the station was the edge of the town of Oakland. Between the station and the first houses of the town lay immense salt flats, here and there broken by winding streams of black water. They were covered with a growth of wiry grass, strangely discolored in places by enormous stains of orange yellow. Near the station a bit of fence painted with a cigar advertisement reeled over into the mud, while under its lee lay an abandoned gravel wagon with dished wheels. The station was connected with the town by the extension of B Street, which struck across the flats geometrically straight, a file of tall poles with intervening wires marching along with it. At the station these were headed by an iron electric-light pole that, with its supports and outriggers, looked for all the world like an immense grasshopper on its hind legs. Across the flats, at the fringe of the town, were the dump heaps, the figures of a few Chinese rag-pickers moving over them. Far to the left the view was shut off by the immense red-brown drum of the gas-works; to the right it was bounded by the chimneys and workshops of an iron foundry. Across the railroad tracks, to seaward, one saw the long stretch of black mud bank left bare by the tide, which was far out, nearly half a mile. Clouds of sea-gulls were forever rising and settling upon this mud bank; a wrecked and abandoned wharf crawled over it on tottering legs; close in an old sailboat lay canted on her bilge. But farther on, across the yellow waters of the bay, beyond Goat Island, lay San Francisco, a blue line of hills, rugged with roofs and spires. Far to the westward opened the Golden Gate, a bleak cutting in the sand-hills, through which one caught a glimpse of the open Pacific. The station at B Street was solitary; no trains passed at this hour; except the distant rag-pickers, not a soul was in sight. The wind blew strong, carrying with it the mingled smell of salt, of tar, of dead seaweed, and of bilge. The sky hung low and brown; at long intervals a few drops of rain fell. ” ~ Frank Norris, McTeague (1899) Selected multimedia file 1906 San Francisco earthquake aftermath credit: Prelinger Archives Bay Area regions, geographic features and protected areas Regions East Bay North Bay Peninsula Santa Clara Valley Silicon Valley Wine Country West Marin Geographic features San Francisco Bay San Pablo Bay Suisun Bay Islands of the Bay Marin Headlands Diablo Range Berkeley Hills Santa Cruz Mountains Protected areas Golden Gate Recreation Area Farallones Marine Sanctuary Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge Point Reyes Seashore Mount Tamalpais State Park Henry Coe State Park Midpeninsula Open Space East Bay Regional Parks Related Portals WikiProject You are invited to participate in the San Francisco Bay Area task force, a task force dedicated to developing and improving articles about the San Francisco Bay Area. Things you can do Oakland, California. Junior Employment Service. Filling out applications. The girls want part time work in domestic service. 1940 *Write an article on a Bay Area-related subject *Propose new material or features for this portal *Add new selected articles *Add new selected biographies *Add new selected cities *Add new selected images *Add new selected historical images *Add new selected events *Add new selected multimedia files *Add new quotes *Add new historical events *Add new selected panoramas Selected panorama Redwood City image credit: Vlad Butsky] San Francisco Bay Area categories Bay Area | San Francisco Bay | San Francisco | San Jose | Oakland | Cities | Census-designated places | Historic Places | National Landmarks | Counties: Alameda | Contra Costa | Marin | Napa | San Mateo | Santa Clara | Solano | Sonoma Architecture | Attractions | Books | Culture | Economy | Education | Environment | Events & Festivals | Geography | Government | History | Landmarks | Law | Mass media | Military | Music | Organizations | Parks | People | Politics | Science | Sports | Transport Full category tree Select [►] to view the full category tree. San Francisco Bay Area Associated Wikimedia The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject: Commons Free media repository Wikibooks Free textbooks and manuals Wikidata Free knowledge base Wikinews Free-content news Wikiquote Collection of quotations Wikisource Free-content library Wikiversity Free learning tools Wikivoyage Free travel guide Wiktionary Dictionary and thesaurus Discover Wikipedia using portals List of all portals The arts portal Biography portal Current events portal Geography portal History portal Mathematics portal Science portal Society portal Technology portal Random portal WikiProject Portals