The sweet sounds of music at BART stations

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Band playing at 16th & Mission BART station
Photo by Flickr user Steve Rhodes

We got this email today from Alan (bold ours):

Hi there,

My name is Alan and I seriously considering of playing [sic] music at BART STATIONS, is it legal? Can I do it? I play acoustic guitar and sing and since I lost my job as a Web Designer, I can’t find another one. I need to do something before I die. Please let me know, I need to act quickly.

If I can play music there, what’s the best time to arrive?

Now, first of all. It’s hard to say whether or not to take his desperate words seriously. This rough economy is, well, rough, on a lot of people.

That said, we’re assuming that Alan is just failing to channel his energy into a funemployment activity. And his question is an odd one: Is playing music at BART stations legal?

We don’t see how it could be otherwise, so we poked around BART’s website to try to find some sort of policy. Nothing.

Let’s assume, based on its proliferation, that playing music at BART, at least outside of gated, ticketed areas, is legit. Reminds us of how, last month, we posted a story from BART’s Seen and Heard series about one such rocker, the Punk Rock Johnny Cash. It also reminds us of countless musicians we see just about every time we ride BART.

So I got to wondering: What are some of your favorite BART musicians? Let us know in comments, please.

Category: BART

BART photos: A (semi-)clean, well-lighted place for books

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2009-10-31 08:15:48 -0700
Photo by Flickr user mikedthorn

Noteworthy BART-related news chunk of the week:

Former Your Black Muslim Bakery associate loses BART contract (Oakland Tribune)

And hipsters! Check this old-timey bicycle (called a penny-farthing in its day), as seen on BART.

Enjoy the weekend, and we’ll see you back here Monday.

24th St BART escalator
Photo by Flickr user bellasboots

amatuer week
Photo by Flickr user mikedthorn

BART Break Room Fridge
Photo by Flickr user moppet65535

I see you seeing me
Photo by Flickr user hereandthereblog

Category: BART

Archival SF films show old streetcars, cable cars

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By now, you might’ve seen a video floating around the intertubes called, to varying discrepancies, “A trip down Market Street.” If not, go watch it. If our guess is correct, and you have this soft spot for San Francisco in the middle of all your frustrations and angst, you’ll love this footage of our city in its simpler, yet equally fascinating days. It shows the view from a streetcar traveling east toward the Ferry Building, on a Market Street free of cars (easier to do in those days), with pedestrians and horses and buggies crossing the tracks ever so lawlessly.

Owing to the popularity of that video, we came across the above program, sponsored by The Long Now Foundation. The very long program is broken up into easy-to-digest chapters. The un-embeddable chapters we want to call your attention to are: Fillmore Hill Cable Car (lots of great footage of Fillmore and other old cable car lines) and South of Market (which includes archival footage of the Transbay Terminal around 1941). There might be other transit-related bits, but frankly, we haven’t had enough time to watch it all. Here’s a link to the entire program, but you can watch it by the chapter.

The man responsible for the footage, Rick Prelinger, will be presenting more archival video of San Francisco on December 4 at the Herbst Theater.

Category: diaries, reflection Tags: ,

The clippers on the bus go ‘snip, snip, snip’

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nail clipper

Matt Baume sends the above photo (we edited it slightly to protect the guilty), along with these words:

Thought this might make good fodder for a post. Maybe you’d want to mask his face before posting? Personally I’d leave it as is. Anyway, we can all agree: this person is gross.

Yes, we can agree with Matt here. But I’m sure nail-clipping on Muni has its ardent defenders. As always, we’d love to hear from all sides. But remember: Play nicely.

Category: diaries, Funny: Muni LOLs Tags:
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