San Francisco, CA
The EndUp Turns 50 and They're Taking Over Union Square With a Dance Party Saturday
That venerable, inimitable, sloppy palace of bad decisions The EndUp was born 50 (and a half) years ago, and they’re now getting around to celebrating — appropriately kinda late — with a Union Square takeover dance party.
Once upon a time in an era of SoMa dominated by leather and country-and-western bars (The Stud, after all, began as a country-and-western themed bar, hence the double-entendre name), The EndUp was born. It was actually born in mid-November 1973, as a sibling establishment to The RoundUp, a western bar one block up 6th Street, owned by Al Hanken and Greg Loughner.
The bar was primarily gay from the 70s into the 90s, becoming known starting in 1974 for its Jockey Shorts Dance Contest — which was featured in Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City column in the Chronicle and subsequently featured in the PBS mini-series based on the first book of those columns.
It was always known as a big dance bar with indoor and outdoor spaces, and as an after-hours club — and the latter has made it legendary in an IYKYK kind of way.
In the 90s, it was home to the legendary Club Uranus, which birthed such stars as Justin Vivian Bond, Heklina, Kitty Litter, and Trauma Flintstone. And Fag Fridays launched in 1996 and ran through 2008, featuring an array of LGTBQ club DJs from the Bay Area including Ellen Ferrato and resident DJ David Harness.
After a series of ownership changes and the demise of those weekly LGBTQ events, the club became more mixed and attracted various crowds to events like Sunrise Sunday. And some bad vibes arrived in 2016 with two separate fatal shooting incidents that could have threatened the club’s existence — one in June 2016 that took place inside the club, and one that took place outside in October 2016.
But The EndUp has endured, it was granted Legacy Business status by the city in 2019, and Saturday, June 15 will be a big 50th birthday bash in Union Square — potentially drawing a pretty huge crowd.
Given that the actual birthday was seven months ago, the Facebook invite just calls this party a “fashionably late” one.
“Known as San Francisco’s most legendary after-hours nightclub and premier day-club, @endupsf celebrates dance culture fifty years strong since 1973,” the club says.
DJs include Oscar G, Paul Goodyear, Dean Samaras, Brian Salazar, and Hawthorne. (See the DJ bios here.)
The free party in Union Square runs from 1 pm to 9 pm, Saturday — and, of course, the party continues at The EndUp after that, with DJ Oscar G doing an encore set, joined by DJs Hawthorne, Steve Fabus, and more.
San Francisco, CA
Homeless families in San Francisco will no longer be limited to 90-days in a shelter
Fire crews responded to a fire at a South San Jose post office early Sunday morning, the San Jose Fire Department said.
The fire happened just before 3 a.m. on the 6500 block of Crown Boulevard. According to the Fire Department, a vehicle crashed into the post office and caught fire.
A suspect was arrested, and an investigation into the crash is underway, the Fire Department and San Jose Police said in a joint statement.
About 50 firefighters were sent to the scene after a second alarm was called, and the fire was knocked down around 4:30 a.m., the Fire Department said.
According to the United States Postal Service, the US Postal Inspection Service is investigating the incident.
The USPS said PO box customers and notice-left mail who use the Almaden station will have to go to the Willow Glen Post Office at 1750 Meridian Avenue, which will be open Monday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Customers will need a photo ID for all mail pick-up.
SAN FRANCISCO – Alcatraz is one of San Francisco’s biggest sightseeing attractions, but on Thursday two members of the Trump administration toured the former federal prison, indicating they were on a mission to follow through on President Trump’s proposal to reopen the site as a prison.
Back to ‘law and order’?
What they’re saying:
“I like the symbolism, the message that it sends, one that America is going to go back to a country of law and order,” John Dennis, the California Republican Party Chair of Chairs said.
On Thursday, crowds of tourists boarded the ferries to visit the island where the infamous former federal prison stood until it closed in 1963.
“It was interesting. I’ve always been curious, so it answered a lot of questions,” Ross Schoenharr, a tourist from Detroit said, after taking a tour of the island.
Those who saw the aging infrastructure said they were surprised that Attorney General Pam Bondi And Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum were on the island earlier in the day. Bondi and Burgum toured the site, on a mission to look into President Trump’s proposal to revert it back to a federal prison.
Cost of restoration -taxpayer money
Some say it could take hundreds of millions of dollars to restore the facility, due to the fact Alcatraz is about 1.5 miles from shore and needs to have supplies brought by boat.
“It did close down for a reason because it wasn’t economically sound, and it wasn’t a good proposition, so I think it should be left alone,” Judy Park, a tourist from Carlsbad, said.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and others say reopening a prison there would be a loss of revenue and a waste of taxpayers’ money.
“Tourists come from all over the world to visit Alcatraz, over 100 million visitors, tens of million in economic activity to the city and the region,” Lurie said.
“I don’t like the idea of spending all the money that you need to spend to make it into a prison,” former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown said.
“The revenue that it generates is so much needed, especially at this time,” Claudine Cheng of San Francisco said.
Historic and sacred ground
Alcatraz island also holds historic and sacred meaning for some Bay Area indigenous people, who staged a 1969 protest there to reclaim the land and have held annual ceremonies ever since to honor their ancestors.
Redbird Willie of Sebastopol was a child during the protest, and traces his ancestry to the Pomo, Wailaki, Wintu and Paiute tribes.
“I feel like we’ve been spending all this time since then trying to heal that place and trying, trying to make it a good place…having that gathering out there and Thanksgiving and on Indigenous Peoples Day,” Willie said.
Trolling SF
San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman says he thinks the Trump administration is trying to create a distraction.
“They’re making a lot of noise. They’re excellent at trolling us. They want us to be chasing after every crazy idea they throw out there. This is a crazy idea. I don’t think we should be chasing after it until we know it’s real,” Mandelman said.
Dennis says while some Republicans might agree on the Alcatraz prison site in principle, there might be resistance due to the cost.
“Republicans that have been a little loose on spending might come around and say hey, ‘We got to do something about this’, so that ultimately might be the hangup on it. But again, I like the idea of doing it because it sends a message that we’re serious about crime and law and order,” Dennis said.
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