Shaping San Francisco

updated August 6, 2010

SUMMER/FALL 2010 415.608.9035, sliding scale $15-50, benefitting Shaping San Francisco CounterPULSE and Shaping San Francisco director Chris Carlsson conducts ~4-hour historical tours of San Francisco by bicycle. Bring a snack and water, and reserve your spot now! Meet at CounterPULSE, at noon on the dates above (unless otherwise noted). Bibliography/Sources for Bike History Tours Download calendar for Bike Tours
Sun., Aug. 22, noon: Cemetery Tour (Colma) We meet at the COLMA BART STATION at 12 noon, and then take a spirited tour of several massive cemeteries where famous San Franciscans are buried. We'll visit Woodlawn, Home of Peace and Hills of Eternity, Cypress Lawn, and Holy Cross.
	Sat., Sept. 4, 11 a.m.: Food history We're starting an hour earlier. Meet at the Valet Bike Parking across from the Ferry Building. After that we'll go north to explore the old Italian food industries, before turning south to explore the multiple food histories of the Mission and with luck, making it to Alemany Farm for our final stop. Special food stops all the way!
Sat., Oct. 9, noon: Dissent Covering everything from literary dissenters to urban riots and protests, this tour examines sites of conflict and unrest, the social movements and upheavals, that have shaped San Francisco since its origins. It's a social, historical and critical 4-hour tour through the city's contrarian past and present.
At Heron's Head Park during southern ecological history tour	Sun., Oct. 17, noon: Ecological History (south) This trip through San Francisco's lost sand dunes, ponds, creeks and coastline will focus on the city south of downtown and SOMA, traversing the Mission, Mission Bay, Potrero Hill, Bayview, and the southeast coastline, including several new public parks. It's a social, historical and critical 4-hour tour through the city's ecological past and present.
Sat. Oct. 23, noon: Transit Discover lost freeways, ghosts of train routes, and a vivid account of how San Franciscans moved around this peninsula through time. Hear about the violent strikes that shaped public transit, the graft and corruption that conquered the Outside Lands. It's a social, historical and critical 4-hour tour through the city's transportation past and present.
	Sun., Nov. 7, noon: Ecological History (north) This trip through San Francisco's lost sand dunes, ponds, creeks and coastline will focus on the city from downtown north, covering the heart of the city, the waterfront and Yerba Buena cove, Telegraph Hill, Black Point, and Crissy Field in the Presidio... It's a social, historical and critical 4-hour tour through the city's ecological past and present.
	Sat., Nov. 20, noon: Labor history From the pre-urban history of Indian Slavery to the earliest 8-hour day movement in the U.S., the ebb and flow of class war is traced. SF's radical working class organizations are shaped in part by racist complicity in genocide and slavery, but from the 1870s to the 1940s there are dozens of epic battles between owners and workers, culminating in the 1934 General Strike and its aftermath. This is an entirely different look, during a four hour bike tour, at San Francisco labor history.
Awards and Testimonials BEST CRUISE THROUGH THE PAST "While in principle we'd be the first to advocate sitting at home with a good history book on weekends, we'd also be the first to admit that such studious discipline can be hard to maintain on those rare summer afternoons when the sun is shining. Thanks to local activist Chris Carlsson's Bicycle History Tours, which depart regularly from CounterPULSE in SoMa, you can get your fun in the sun while simultaneously learning loads about San Francisco's various social, political, and ecological histories. As director and curator of the ambitiously far-reaching Shaping San Francisco history preservation project, Carlsson has amassed a wealth of local archival information regarding such absorbing topics as the subterranean waterways flowing beneath our streets and the Bay Area's long-standing penchant for protest. Usually the bike ride turns out to be the least strenuous activity of the day, but the great gray muscle that is your brain will definitely get a workout." —SF Bay Guardian Best of the Bay 2007 A GREAT BIKE RIDE SAN FRANCISCO - Labor History Tour Explore the colorful history of the labor movement here in San Francisco with CounterPULSE and Shaping San Francisco director Chris Carlsson on this four-hour bicycle tour. You will visit Pier 38 where the 1877 riots almost burned the Pacific Mail docks (and led to the Workingmen’s Party) and the foot of Market Street where many labor marches began. Get off at the Civic Center BART/Muni Station — remember you can bring your bike on BART —and meet up with new friends at Mission and 9th streets. Do not forget your high-energy snack and some H2O. $15-50 sliding scale." —SF Examiner UNRIVALED "The bike tours are unrivaled for their information to minute ratio. Chris Carlsson = top 5 people in SF." —Yelp Review
transit tour, BikeSummer 1999	Carlsson with Ecological history tour on Shotwell

SUMMER/FALL 2010
415.608.9035, sliding scale $15-50, benefitting Shaping San Francisco

CounterPULSE and Shaping San Francisco director Chris Carlsson conducts ~4-hour historical tours of San Francisco by bicycle. Bring a snack and water, and reserve your spot now! Meet at CounterPULSE, at noon on the dates above (unless otherwise noted).

Bibliography/Sources for Bike History Tours

Download calendar for Bike Tours

Sun., Aug. 22, noon:
Cemetery Tour (Colma)

We meet at the COLMA BART STATION at 12 noon, and then take a spirited tour of several massive cemeteries where famous San Franciscans are buried. We'll visit Woodlawn, Home of Peace and Hills of Eternity, Cypress Lawn, and Holy Cross.

Sat., Sept. 4, 11 a.m.:
Food history

We're starting an hour earlier. Meet at the Valet Bike Parking across from the Ferry Building. After that we'll go north to explore the old Italian food industries, before turning south to explore the multiple food histories of the Mission and with luck, making it to Alemany Farm for our final stop.
Special food stops all the way!

Sat., Oct. 9, noon:
Dissent

Covering everything from literary dissenters to urban riots and protests, this tour examines sites of conflict and unrest, the social movements and upheavals, that have shaped San Francisco since its origins. It's a social, historical and critical 4-hour tour through the city's contrarian past and present.

At Heron's Head Park during southern ecological history tour

Sun., Oct. 17, noon:
Ecological History (south)

This trip through San Francisco's lost sand dunes, ponds, creeks and coastline will focus on the city south of downtown and SOMA, traversing the Mission, Mission Bay, Potrero Hill, Bayview, and the southeast coastline, including several new public parks. It's a social, historical and critical 4-hour tour through the city's ecological past and present.

Sat. Oct. 23, noon:
Transit

Discover lost freeways, ghosts of train routes, and a vivid account of how San Franciscans moved around this peninsula through time. Hear about the violent strikes that shaped public transit, the graft and corruption that conquered the Outside Lands. It's a social, historical and critical 4-hour tour through the city's transportation past and present.

Sun., Nov. 7, noon:
Ecological History (north)

This trip through San Francisco's lost sand dunes, ponds, creeks and coastline will focus on the city from downtown north, covering the heart of the city, the waterfront and Yerba Buena cove, Telegraph Hill, Black Point, and Crissy Field in the Presidio... It's a social, historical and critical 4-hour tour through the city's ecological past and present.

Sat., Nov. 20, noon:
Labor history

From the pre-urban history of Indian Slavery to the earliest 8-hour day movement in the U.S., the ebb and flow of class war is traced. SF's radical working class organizations are shaped in part by racist complicity in genocide and slavery, but from the 1870s to the 1940s there are dozens of epic battles between owners and workers, culminating in the 1934 General Strike and its aftermath. This is an entirely different look, during a four hour bike tour, at San Francisco labor history.

Awards and Testimonials

BEST CRUISE THROUGH THE PAST

"While in principle we'd be the first to advocate sitting at home with a good history book on weekends, we'd also be the first to admit that such studious discipline can be hard to maintain on those rare summer afternoons when the sun is shining. Thanks to local activist Chris Carlsson's Bicycle History Tours, which depart regularly from CounterPULSE in SoMa, you can get your fun in the sun while simultaneously learning loads about San Francisco's various social, political, and ecological histories. As director and curator of the ambitiously far-reaching Shaping San Francisco history preservation project, Carlsson has amassed a wealth of local archival information regarding such absorbing topics as the subterranean waterways flowing beneath our streets and the Bay Area's long-standing penchant for protest. Usually the bike ride turns out to be the least strenuous activity of the day, but the great gray muscle that is your brain will definitely get a workout."
—SF Bay Guardian Best of the Bay 2007

A GREAT BIKE RIDE SAN FRANCISCO -
Labor History Tour

Explore the colorful history of the labor movement here in San Francisco with CounterPULSE and Shaping San Francisco director Chris Carlsson on this four-hour bicycle tour. You will visit Pier 38 where the 1877 riots almost burned the Pacific Mail docks (and led to the Workingmen’s Party) and the foot of Market Street where many labor marches began. Get off at the Civic Center BART/Muni Station — remember you can bring your bike on BART —and meet up with new friends at Mission and 9th streets. Do not forget your high-energy snack and some H2O. $15-50 sliding scale."
—SF Examiner

UNRIVALED "The bike tours are unrivaled for their information to minute ratio. Chris Carlsson = top 5 people in SF."
—Yelp Review

transit tour, BikeSummer 1999

Online History Portal - Version 5: Found SF	"Towering Ideas" Talks Series Wed nights at CounterPULSE	Bicycle Tours - Weekend tours on ecology, transit and more	Reclaiming San Francisco book available here

Sun., Aug. 22, noon: Cemetery Tour (Colma)

Sat., Sept. 4, 11 a.m.: Food history

Sun., Oct. 17, noon: Ecological History (south)

Sun., Nov. 7, noon: Ecological History (north)

Sat., Nov. 20, noon: Labor history

Sun., Aug. 22, noon:
Cemetery Tour (Colma)

Sat., Sept. 4, 11 a.m.:
Food history

Sun., Oct. 17, noon:
Ecological History (south)

Sun., Nov. 7, noon:
Ecological History (north)

Sat., Nov. 20, noon:
Labor history