"Best cruise through the past!" — SF Bay Guardian "Best of the Bay" 2007
Shaping SF Walking Tours, $5-10 sliding scale donation requested to benefit Shaping San Francisco
History of Market Street
- Saturday, February 23: Meet at front of Ferry Building 1-3:00 pm
Market Street has long been San Francisco's most prominent boulevard where all its residents come together in public, as well as the site of countless protests, celebrations, riots, festivals, and more. Uncover the hidden histories during this two-hour walk through the heart of the city.
Palace Hotel to Mission Bay
- Sunday, March 10: Meet at New Montgomery and Market, SW corner 1:00 pm
Explore the multi-layered history of the South of Market and Rincon Hill between 2nd and 4th Streets stretching from Market Street south to Mission Bay in this two hour walking tour. Find out how the ecology of place dictated travel and the plans — up to present day — to shape the transit corridors and public uses here.
Ten Years That Shook the City
- Sunday, June 16: Meet at 16th Street BART sw plaza 12 noon
Enjoy a half dozen stops of the "Ten Years..." audio tour, hosted by Chris Carlsson and LisaRuth Elliott.
Bending Over Backwards:
Labor and Art in SOMA/North Mission
- Sat., July 20: Meet NE corner of 9th St. and Harrison 12 noon
Discover a new walking tour stretching from the site of the City's first sugar mill across the old industrial North Mission, connecting two murals by artist Susan Greene, hosted by Chris Carlsson and LisaRuth Elliott.
Bicycle Tours
Social, historical, and critical tours through San Francisco.
Shaping San Francisco co-director Chris Carlsson conducts historical tours of San Francisco by bicycle. Bring a snack and water — we don't stop for food! Please email us to RSVP, less than five people cancels! (And include your phone number so we can call you if rain washes out the tour!)
Spring 2013 Tours:
Fall 2013 Tours:
Sun. Oct. 27, 2013 12 noon-4 pm (meet at COLMA BART)
Tours start at 12 noon at 518 Valencia (at 16th Street) in San Francisco unless otherwise indicated. We request a $15-50 sliding scale donation for our bike tours (but are flexible and you can pay less--or more!--as you see fit), benefiting Shaping San Francisco
More info: 415.608.9035
Need to Rent a Bike? Go to Pier 40 to the Bike Hut!
Labor history
Saturday, July 6, noon
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.
Ecological History (north)
Saturday, May 11
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 tour through the city's ecological past and present.
Transit History
Saturday, April 13
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 tour through the city's transportation past and present.
Ecological History (south)
Sunday, March 31
This trip through San Francisco's lost sand dunes, ponds, creeks and coastline will focus on the city from the center southward, covering the Mission before heading to Heron's Head Park and then making our way northward along the bayshore. Heron's Head Park, The Farm, water and sewage, geology, community gardens, San Bruno Mountain, and more! It's a social, historical and critical tour through the city's ecological past and present.
Dissent
Sunday, April 28
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 tour through the city's contrarian past and present.
Food politics
Saturday, June 22
Explore the many ethnic threads that, knit together, have produced our amazing local cuisine. From the old Italian food industries to Chinese shrimping villages, to the prodigious Bay Area fresh fruit and vegetable trade, get ready for an illuminating and tasty tour that will change how you think about what you eat.
Special food stops all the way!
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.”
— San Francisco Bay Guardian Best of the Bay 2007
“A REAL CHARACTER AND A HILARIOUS GUY”
Last weekend I had the fortune to spend four hours in the company of Chris Carlsson, maybe the most knowledgeable man around when it comes to all things San Francisco. Seriously. He offers six more tours this year, ranging in subject from food history (the one I opted for) to dissent to ecological history. Best of all, the tours are in no way obnoxious. Carlsson is a real character and a hilarious guy. You can tell he cares about his city as much as he cares about the people who live in it. And his tours are punctuated with tasty snacks. I was joined by about fifteen other folks (including two friends on an obscenely large tandem bicycle with whom I got lost afterwards in a pretty bad neighborhood…needless to say, heads were turning). Carlsson steered us around the sites of factories I didn’t even know had existed in San Francisco – mayonnaise, Twinkie, coffee – and way beyond.
—Lucy Schiller, Broke-Ass Stuart Destitute Dispatcher, Oct. 19, 2011
“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.”
—San Francisco Examiner
“TREMENDOUS NARRATIVE SKILL”
“I recently rode on the Shaping San Francisco 'Labor History' bike tour led by Chris Carlsson, a cycling encyclopedia of the many layers of SF history. With tremendous narrative skill, Chris point out visible urban features and architecture I'd passed by countless times without a notice, to bring the lived experience of the past into perspective. Upcoming tours include Ecological History, Dissent, and Food Politics. I hope to go on more these and suggest both visitors and long-time residents check them out as well. There's pretty much no better way of spending a beautiful day and getting a deeper look at the city we live in.”
“UNRIVALED”
“The bike tours are unrivaled for their information to minute ratio. Chris Carlsson = top 5 people in SF.”
— Yelp Review