About Bayview Hunters Point

BAYVIEW HUNTERS POINT is a singular universe. It's geographically bounded and ethnically distinct. 

RESIDENTS ARE AN INTENSE AND HUMOROUS FOLK. Black natives represent a deep and soulful history. They speak a rich and varied patois imported from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, a panoply of idioms, mixed with ever-changing street lingo. Creative newcomers of all colors are bringing warm and fascinating human stories with them. Despite it's hurts, the Bayview Hunters Point community is a close-knit family, where people know each other's names and faces.

BAYVIEW HISTORY IS AMERICAN HISTORY, including shipbuilding in the 1800's, a Navy Shipyard from which the Little Boy atomic bomb embarked to Hiroshima 1945, Italian slaughterhouses, Chinese shrimp fishermen, a "rebellion" in 1966 featuring National Guard tanks and bullets flying, a Superfund toxic site courtesy of the U.S. Navy in the '70's, and more. Some forces threaten to extinguish essential parts Bayview's history or landmarks. 

TODAY, BAYVIEW BOASTS SF's LARGEST BLACK community, and is also home to Asian, Hispanic, Samoan, and white residents. Bayview offers soul food restaurants, organic pizza, nouveau North African food, many community gardens, warm sunny weather, some gorgeous views, car and motorcycle clubs, San Francisco's highest rate of home-ownership, the largest artist colony in the United States, the highest number of children in San Francisco, and so much more. 

BUT, SORROW LIVES HERE TOO. Working families of color have comprised most of the Bayview Hunters Point population for over 70 years. But, for the past 3 decades, they have been struggling, under massive unemployment, aggrieved by the US Navy's radioactive waste dump, mothers destroyed by crack-cocaine, military-grade weapons in the hands of teenagers, countless homicides and brutal violence, substandard housing, and liquor stores on nearly every corner. Residents suffer from unemployment, homelessness, lack of access to health care, the fewest number of pediatricians in SF, tainted soil, mental illness, drug-addiction, severe health problems from stress and environmental toxins, and lack of appreciation. Many San Franciscans have no notion of all this history and struggle. 

THE YOUTHS are a precious creative resource. They are beautiful and exuberant, yet many kids are caught up in violent turf battles between neighborhoods, incapacitating drugs, and dysfunctional families. Others simply lack the economic resources to fulfill their potential. 

THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO and business interests are busy promoting an economic renaissance in 94124. Which is potentially a wonderful blessing for San Franciscans. But, often the voices of underprivileged local residents seem left out of the conversation about Bayview's future.