Your place to share stories on and off the bus.
Artists Diane Ramirez and Stephen Kral created a series of drawings and paintings about public transit, like the image above. The artists also produced a “collaborative zine” called Tales from the Tenderloin, which, in their own words, “documents the freaky, fun and grimy stories of life in the Tenderloin as told and drawn by those who have walked its streets, breathed its air, and came out the other side with a tale to tell.”
And can you teach us all to be at least half as awesome as you are, dear sir?
Via Muni rider Karen: “I couldn’t even approach the glory of the gold top hat guy on the 5-Fulton.”
Image via Meanwhile, in San Francisco
We met artist Wendy MacNaughton back in 2010 when she illustrated a series of gorgeous, whimsical, and very San Francisco drawings done on Muni and BART. Since then, she’s done loads of amazing work, including Pen and Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them, written with Muni Diaries Live alum Isaac Fitzgerald (watch his story here). Her latest book, Meanwhile, in San Francisco, is an ode to the city we all know and love. Featured prominently at the beginning of the book, of course, is the personal story of a Muni driver.
The illustrations shows a day in the life of a Muni operator in his own words. From Wendy: “The driver is my neighbor, Edmundo. he lives just up the street from me – so I asked if I could join him at work. I went at the crack of dawn with him one day – before 5 a.m., I think it was.”
We asked Wendy in an earlier story about why she draws on public transit: Read more
Wait, the 1-Sutter? We polled our readers about what they knew of this curious line, as seen in the undated photo via Flickr user Muni Better Late Than Never. Reader Lisa point out that the San Francisco public library has a partial list of Market Street Railroad route names, which includes the 1-Sutter, which had long been changed to the 1-California.
Reader Gary Soup commented about the origins of this curious little car:
The 1 Sutter-California was a motor coach line from July 1949 (when it replaced the #1 Streetcar line) until January 1951, when it was replaced by a trolley coach. In the late 70s the outer portion of the line was combined with the (newly electrified) #55 Sacramento motor coach line of fond memory to form the current #1 California. The #1 never ran on Market Street; the photo is obviously of an excursion or historic motor coach event long after the fact, judging from the presence of the vehicle with the creamsicle livery.
This post originally appeared in Muni Time Capsule. Got a Muni throw-back moment we should know about? Email us and tell us all about it!
Our Twitter followers pointed us to this new sweatshirt, featuring the all-too-familiar Muni worm. You can buy the shirt on Fabrily. I think there must be a “your mom” joke in here somewhere that I am not finding.
Want more Muni-inspired shirts? Here’s the “I Love and Hate Muni” T-shirt. And, of course, “Fuckin’ Muni.”
Photo by Thomas Subtil
Blink again, is that a giraffe trying to squeeze into BART there? Photographers Thomas Subtil and Clarisse Rebotier have imagined what the Paris metro would look like if zoo animals took it over.
In their photo series, a lion passes through the turnstile, another giraffe cranes its neck to see the view from the train, and an elephant gracefully rides the subway with a tiny bird on its back. You can see all the photos in the gallery here.
Another favorite:
Prefer real animals? Browse through our Animals on Muni page – some seem more surreal than others.
Via Mashable.