BART

BART
Author: Michael C. Healy
Publisher: Heyday.ORIM
Total Pages: 426
Release: 2013-01-01
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 1597143812

An insider’s “indispensible” behind-the-scenes history of the transit system of San Francisco and surrounding counties (Houston Chronicle). In the first-ever history book about BART, longtime agency spokesman Michael C. Healy gives an insider’s account of the rapid transit system’s inception, hard-won approval, construction, and operations, warts and all. With a master storyteller’s wit and sharp attention to detail, Healy recreates the politically fraught venture to bring a new kind of public transit to the West Coast. What emerges is a sense of the individuals who made (and make) BART happen. From tales of staying up until 3:00 a.m. with BART pioneers Bill Stokes and Jack Everson to hear the election results for the rapid transit vote to stories of weathering scandals, strikes, and growing pains, this look behind the scenes of an iconic, seemingly monolithic structure reveals people at their most human—and determined to change the status quo. “The Metro. The T. The Tube. The world's most famous subway systems are known by simple monikers, and San Francisco's BART belongs in that class. Michael C. Healy delivers a tour-de-force telling of its roots, hard-fought approval, and challenging construction that will delight fans of American urban history.”—Doug Most, author of The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway

A People's Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area

A People's Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area
Author: Rachel Brahinsky
Publisher: University of California Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2020-10-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520288378

An alternative history and geography of the Bay Area that highlights sites of oppression, resistance, and transformation. A People’s Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area looks beyond the mythologized image of San Francisco to the places where collective struggle has built the region. Countering romanticized commercial narratives about the Bay Area, geographers Rachel Brahinsky and Alexander Tarr highlight the cultural and economic landscape of indigenous resistance to colonial rule, radical interracial and cross-class organizing against housing discrimination and police violence, young people demanding economically and ecologically sustainable futures, and the often-unrecognized labor of farmworkers and everyday people. The book asks who had—and who has—the power to shape the geography of one of the most watched regions in the world. As Silicon Valley's wealth dramatically transforms the look and feel of every corner of the region, like bankers' wealth did in the past, what do we need to remember about the people and places that have made the Bay Area, with its rich political legacies? With over 100 sites that you can visit and learn from, this book demonstrates critical ways of reading the landscape itself for clues to these histories. A useful companion for travelers, educators, or longtime residents, this guide links multicultural streets and lush hills to suburban cul-de-sacs and wetlands, stretching from the North Bay to the South Bay, from the East Bay to San Francisco. Original maps help guide readers, and thematic tours offer starting points for creating your own routes through the region.

Divided Loyalties

Divided Loyalties
Author: Robert Morris Anderson
Publisher: Purdue University Press
Total Pages: 414
Release: 1980
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780931682094

This study provides a detailed, in-depth analysis of a single incident rooted in the effort of a group of professional employees to serve the public welfare. It reveals in microcosm the interplay of political forces, economic interests, personal ambition, organizational structure, and professional ethics that culminated in an act of whistle-blowing. The incident took place during the final construction phase of the Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART), designed to be America's first attempt at space-age mass transportation. Three BART engineers, convinced of the lack of responsiveness of management to their concerns about the system's safety, were fired for insubordination and other organizational sins. Based upon repeated interviews with the engineers, with BART managers and directors, and with the professional societies involved, as well as upon an extensive body of documents and court depositions, legislative reports, media reports, and institutional memoranda. Divided Loyalties sets a theoretical context for the issues, traces the incident from its beginning, examines the aftermath of the engineers' dismissal, and concludes with a set of recommendations that should be considered by public and private organizations, professional associations, agencies of government, and individual professional employees.

All about Skin

All about Skin
Author: Jina Ortiz
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2014-11-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 029930194X

A short fiction anthology of work by award-winning, multicultural, women writers, All about Skin captures the reality of harsh media pressures, difficult family relationships, racial prejudices, and other problems that face women of color around the world.

Agglomeration Economics

Agglomeration Economics
Author: Edward L. Glaeser
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2010-04-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226297926

When firms and people are located near each other in cities and in industrial clusters, they benefit in various ways, including by reducing the costs of exchanging goods and ideas. One might assume that these benefits would become less important as transportation and communication costs fall. Paradoxically, however, cities have become increasingly important, and even within cities industrial clusters remain vital. Agglomeration Economics brings together a group of essays that examine the reasons why economic activity continues to cluster together despite the falling costs of moving goods and transmitting information. The studies cover a wide range of topics and approach the economics of agglomeration from different angles. Together they advance our understanding of agglomeration and its implications for a globalized world.

Bay Curious

Bay Curious
Author: Olivia Allen-Price
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2023-05-02
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1797216392

Curious about the San Francisco Bay Area? With explorations into unique local legends, interesting landmarks, and uncovered histories, Bay Curious is a fun, quirky guide to the secret stories of the Bay Area for visitors, newcomers, and California natives alike. Who was America's first and only Emperor? Why are there ships buried under the streets of San Francisco? Was the word "hella" really created in the East Bay? Bay Curious brings you the answers to these questions and much more through fun and fascinating illustrated deep-dives into hidden gems of Bay Area trivia, history, and culture. Based on the award-winning KQED podcast of the same name, Bay Curious brings a fresh eye to some of its most popular pieces and expands to cover stories unique to this book. With subjects ranging from Marin's redwood forests to the Winchester Mystery House, from the Black Panther Party's school program to the invention of the Mai Tai, Bay Curious gives you the entertaining and informative, weird and wonderful true stories of the San Francisco Bay Area. NOT YOUR AVERAGE GUIDEBOOK: Bay Curious takes a unique approach to exploring the Bay Area through its lesser known but just as fascinating stories, taking readers on a reportorial rather than literal tour. BEYOND THE PODCAST: With 49 entries—inspired by the famous 49-Mile Drive—Bay Curious includes a combination of updated popular episodes from the podcast and brand-new, never-before-heard stories researched for the book, plus fun illustrations and irresistible trivia sidebars. GIFT OR SELF-PURCHASE FOR SF ENTHUSIASTS: For anyone living in San Francisco or visiting with a goal of getting beyond the beaten tourist path, this volume holds a treasure trove of inspiration for an armchair adventure or self-guided tour. Perfect for: Bay Area locals and new arrivals A fun and unique San Francisco reference book for tourists and visitors Fans of the KQED podcast History buffs Anyone who enjoys unexpected, quirky true stories

Shotguns and Stagecoaches

Shotguns and Stagecoaches
Author: John Boessenecker
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2018-10-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1250184908

“A rip-roaring history of moving the mail in the wildest of the Wild West days” from the New York Times–bestselling author of Texas Ranger (Kirkus Reviews). Here are the true stories of the Wild West heroes who guarded the iconic Wells Fargo stagecoaches and trains, battling colorful thieves, vicious highwaymen, and robbers armed with explosives. The phrase “riding shotgun” was no teenage game to the men who guarded stagecoaches and trains on the Western frontier. Armed with sawed-off, double-barreled shotguns and an occasional revolver, these express messengers guarded valuable cargo through lawless terrain. They were tough, fighting men who risked their lives every time they climbed into the front boot of a Concord coach. Boessenecker introduces soon-to-be iconic personalities like “Chips” Hodgkins, an express rider known for his white mule and his ability to outrace his competitors, and Henry Johnson, the first Wells Fargo detective. Their lives weren’t just one shootout after another—their encounters with desperadoes were won just as often with quick wits and memorized-by-heart knowledge of the land. The highway robbers also get their due. It wouldn’t be a book about the Wild West without Black Bart, the most infamous stagecoach robber of all time, and Butch Cassidy’s gang, America’s most legendary train robbers. Through the Gold Rush and the early days of delivery with horses and saddlebags, to the heyday of stagecoaches and huge shipments of gold, and finally the rise of the railroad and the robbers who concocted unheard-of schemes to loot trains, Wells Fargo always had courageous men to protect its treasure. Their unforgettable bravery and ingenuity make this book a thrilling read.

The Race Underground

The Race Underground
Author: Doug Most
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 415
Release: 2014-02-04
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 1466842008

In the late nineteenth century, as cities like Boston and New York grew more congested, the streets became clogged with plodding, horse-drawn carts. When the great blizzard of 1888 crippled the entire northeast, a solution had to be found. Two brothers from one of the nation's great families-Henry Melville Whitney of Boston and William Collins Whitney of New York-pursued the dream of his city digging America's first subway, and the great race was on. The competition between Boston and New York played out in an era not unlike our own, one of economic upheaval, life-changing innovations, class warfare, bitter political tensions, and the question of America's place in the world.The Race Underground is peopled with the famous, like Boss Tweed, Grover Cleveland and Thomas Edison, and the not-so-famous, from brilliant engineers to the countless "sandhogs" who shoveled, hoisted and blasted their way into the earth's crust, sometimes losing their lives in the construction of the tunnels. Doug Most chronicles the science of the subway, looks at the centuries of fears people overcame about traveling underground and tells a story as exciting as any ever ripped from the pages of U.S. history. The Race Underground is a great American saga of two rival American cities, their rich, powerful and sometimes corrupt interests, and an invention that changed the lives of millions.

Bay Area Ridge Trail

Bay Area Ridge Trail
Author: Jean Rusmore
Publisher: Wilderness Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2010-11-01
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 0899975968

The official guide to the ever-growing Bay Area Ridge Trail, a proposed 400-mile route that circles the ridgeline of the San Francisco Bay, crossing over nine counties. Five new trails and 13 more miles await discovery in this new edition, bringing the mileage of the completed Ridge Trail to 225.