This event will take place online. It was formerly to take place in Kerouac Alley. The time has also changed to 6:00 pm PST/9:00 pm EST. Please take note of the the venue and time change. The event is free to the public but requires registration.
City Lights and Shaping San Francisco celebrate the 2nd Edition of
Hidden San Francisco: A Guide to Lost Landscapes, Unsung Heroes, and Radical Histories
by Chris Carlsson
published by Pluto Press
Hidden San Francisco is a guidebook like no other. Structured around the four major themes of ecology, labour, transit and dissent, Chris Carlsson peels back the layers of the city’s history to reveal a storied past: behind old walls and gleaming glass facades lurk former industries, secret music and poetry venues, forgotten terrorist bombings, and much more. Carlsson also delves into the Bay Area’s long prehistory, examining the region’s geography and the lives of its indigenous inhabitants before the 1849 Gold Rush changed everything.
This second edition includes new tours on the wild and natural parts of San Francisco that most tourists never visit, from Glen Canyon to Sutro Forest, as well as a new themed walk on the Summer of Love. There is also a new introduction examining the devastating impact of the pandemic, as well as a mini-history of tech in the city, from the Gold Rush to AI.
Chris Carlsson is a San Francisco historian and award-winning tour guide. He directs ‘Shaping San Francisco’ – an impressive archive of local history, and co-founded the urban cycling movement Critical Mass in 1992. He is the author of four books, including novels and histories about the city. He has lived in San Francisco since 1978. To learn more about Chris’ work visit his website: https://nowtopians.com/
Praise for Hidden San Francisco
‘With the city awash these days with more and more newcomers, Hidden San Francisco is more vital than ever for keeping us all connected to the wild, weird, and radical histories that make this place so special’
– Susan Stryker, trans activist and gender academic
‘San Francisco is long overdue for a history like this! Smart and accessible, this is a book that everyone who has left a piece of their heart in the city needs to read’
– Barbara Berglund Sokolov, historian at Presidio Trust
‘The history of San Francisco I’ve been waiting for. It not only reorients our conceptions of the past, it gives us walking tour itineraries so we can viscerally experience how we are participants in the region’s remaking’
– Sean Burns, writer and filmaker
‘Brings erudition, curiosity and passionate progressivism to a remarkably wide range of subjects – from the city’s profaned natural glories, to little-known episodes in its labor history’
– Gary Kamiya, writer, historian and tour guide to San Francisco
‘Unlike your conventional guidebooks telling you where to shop, eat, and be entertained, this is a dissenter’s guidebook that invites you into a holistic view of the city’
– Peter Booth Wiley, publisher and author of The National Trust Guide to San Francisco
‘Few people know the streets of San Francisco as well as Chris Carlsson. Sadly, gentrification is fast ripping the heart out of a city that generations of artists, immigrants, and working-class radicals have made into a unique and wondrous place. This book is call to arms to renew the city again’
– Peter Cole, author of Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area
‘Every city needs and deserves a Chris Carlsson’
– Jon Christensen, Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
‘Scores of sparkling vignettes – from Mission Rock to the Haight, Balmy Alley to Telegraph Hill – illuminate the city with the torch of social criticism and the sharp lens of a local sage’
– Richard Walker, author of Pictures of a Gone City: Tech and the Dark Side of Prosperity in the San Francisco Bay Area
‘An original, vivid people’s history of the nation’s ‘Left Coast City’. Photos, maps, and self-guided tours of over one hundred of the most important and iconic historic places and spaces bring to life the authors’ beautifully crafted and well-informed San Francisco stories’
– Bill Issel, Professor Emeritus of History, San Francisco State University
This event made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation