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Next Three Events:

Bicycle and Walking tours, Public Talks, plus Bay Cruises!

Download our new Spring 2024 calendar as a pdf here.

Thursday, March 21, 1-3:30 pm

Along the Yardarm: Maritime History and Resources

Walking Tour

Get a look inside the spaces holding our San Francisco water-based stories, interpretations, and archives. Starting with a visit to the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park Visitor Center with its excellent “Waterfront Exhibit,” wander with us past the evolving Hyde Street Pier to the Maritime Museum inside the historic Aquatic Park Bathhouse Building. There we are introduced to the WPA murals and maritime era artifacts by a National Park Service Ranger, including a special visit to the 3rd floor restored murals. The newly opened Black Point Terrace Gardens lead us up to Fort Mason, through the Great Meadow, and to the Maritime Research Center where librarians host and introduce us to the resources they steward. Stay with us afterwards for no host refreshments at the Interval Bar at Long Now. Presented with the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park and Research Center. RSVP required to shaping@foundsf.org.


This is a free event, but we gladly accept donations. donate now!

Saturday, March 30, 10 am-3 pm

Beholding SF's Birds Pedal by Pedal

Meet at 10 AM at McLaren Lodge, Stanyan and JFK Drive, Golden Gate Park.

RSVP required: shaping@foundsf.org.

Tour ends at Cliff House

A special bicycling field trip with Habitat Potential's Josiah Clark covering Golden Gate Park and the northern shoreline. Expect to see 80-100 bird species, overlooked habitats, trees where they never were, water where there was no water… Explore challenges and opportunities for sustainable urban ecology in SF.

RSVP  or donate now!

Wednesday, April 10, 7:30 pm

Life and Death in a Great American City

at 518 Valencia

Cities grow, cities change. Some businesses and institutions thrive, while others die off and are replaced. In this joint presentation of words and images, Lorri Ungaretti (Vanished San Francisco), and Alec Scott (Oldest San Francisco) speak to the history of our great, sometimes troubled city, what's been lost over the years, what's stuck around. Expect the discussion to range widely, from science to religion, from food to drink, from sports to shopping, from sex to death.


This is a free event, but we gladly accept donations. donate now!

Explore Shaping San Francisco:

Ecology Emerges poster art by Mona Caron

Ecology Emerges

Discussions and reflections on the history of Bay Area ecological activism, based on oral histories documenting the past 50 years.

Ecology Emerges is an oral history gathering project to explore the past 50 years of ecological activism in the Bay Area and the role that individual and institutional memories play in the development, policy proposals, and interrelationships that together make up the existing networks of ecological politics.  We document the living ecological activist movement, in their own words, but also in a larger context of urban growth and globalization.

Read more…

Oral Histories

Oral Histories

Shaping San Francisco, as part of our ongoing work, sits down with people who have stories to tell and conducts oral history interviews.

Check them out here.

"Editor's Pick Tour" from FoundSF.org

Comprised of over 1,400 pages, and 2,500 historical photos, the wiki-based archive FoundSF.org is the product of hundreds of contributors, regular people who were compelled by the chance to investigate some piece of this City's past.

See the latest highlights…