Infinite City: Lost World

San Francisco's South of Market district is a poignant example of a shifting landscape that holds many histories in a small area. The "Lost World" map looks at the few blocks bounded by Second, Fourth, Market, and Folsom streets, and reveals that this sector now known for its museumgoers and shoppers was once the blue-collar heart of San Francisco. By using the footprints and names of long-disappeared hotels, factories, and shops, as well as stunning photographs by Ira Nowinski, the map builds an in-depth panorama of what the neighborhood looked like in 1960. Thursday, December 9, 2010, 7:00 p.m., Phyllis Wattis Theater: When SFMOMA Was a Pawn Shop Ira Nowinski, photographer Rebecca Solnit, writer In the early 1970s, San Francisco-based photographer Ira Nowinski developed a relationship with the men of the South of Market district who were being displaced in the name of the "greater good" of redevelopment. The resulting book, No Vacancy: Urban Renewal and the Elderly, profiles a changing neighborhood and the men who fought for the right to live there. Tonight Nowinski discusses the subject matter of the book as well as the "Lost World" map, which includes two of his breathtaking images. Saturday, December 11, 2010, 3:00 p.m., Phyllis Wattis Theater: SoMa Before SFMOMA Ruth Askevold, cartographic specialist, San Francisco Estuary Institute Chris Carlsson, writer Estella Habal, historian Carl Nolte, writer Ira Nowinski, photographer David Solnit, activist Rebecca Solnit, writer Join us for a trip back in time. This program reveals the South of Market neighborhood's many faces and phases, as local experts take us backwards through the neighborhood's many histories. Before the museums and convention centers there were leather-clad punk rockers; anti-gentrification protests and even riots; SRO havens; and the Third Street of Jack Kerouac and Jack London. We revisit the rich Filipino cultural history of the neighborhood and look back to the days when Mission Bay was actually a bay. SFMOMA