San Francisco dedicates a cable car to Tony Bennett
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Tuesday, November 12, 2024


San Francisco dedicates a cable car to Tony Bennett
Mayor London Breed and Susan Benedetto, left, Tony Bennett’s widow, ride cable car No. 53 in San Francisco after it was dedicated to the late singer on Feb. 14, 2024. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times)

by Heather Knight



SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Cable car No. 53 took a special Valentine’s Day ride up Nob Hill in San Francisco on Wednesday morning, including a stop outside the Fairmont Hotel, where the car was officially dedicated to the singer Tony Bennett, who died in July at age 96.

It was inside that hotel — at the Venetian Room, in 1961 — that Bennett first publicly performed his signature song, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” with its lyrics about cable cars climbing halfway to the stars. The tune still stirs pride and nostalgia in many San Franciscans, and the Giants play it after every home victory.

The dedication, attended by Susan Benedetto, Bennett’s widow, added to a recent string of positive news about the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which operates the city’s buses, streetcars and light rail lines.

Not long ago, the agency’s director, Jeffrey Tumlin, was worried that it was barreling toward a “fiscal cliff,” when it would run out of money and have to make big cuts in service.

But like a cable car climbing steep California Street, the agency’s fortunes are slowly rising.

The system now has 71% of the ridership it had before the pandemic, Tumlin said, which is fairly high compared with other public transportation agencies in the Bay Area. The figure for weekend ridership is even better, at 86%. Some bus lines have more riders than ever before, and Tumlin said the system’s three historic cable car routes, loved by tourists, were once again fairly full.

“The cable cars are thriving,” he said. “Everyone who visits San Francisco is apparently getting on our cable cars.”

Tumlin said the agency worked hard during the pandemic to make the Muni system “fast, frequent, reliable, clean and safe” — and it seems to be paying off.

The biggest key to Muni’s rebound has been adjusting routes to serve a variety of neighborhoods and destinations, rather than relying primarily on serving downtown office workers, many of whom now work from home. Routes that pass by hospitals or the Chase Center, where the Warriors play, are doing well.

The agency has built 25 miles of transit-only lanes to speed up bus service. The line that travels down Van Ness Avenue past City Hall now moves so quickly that people who are buried in their phones often miss their stops and complain that the bus is too fast, Tumlin said.

The agency has abandoned strict time schedules for its buses and has switched to a system called headway management that focuses on the time interval between buses and gives drivers more flexibility to keep from bunching up along the route.

Of course, it’s not all rosy. The subway lines that run on fixed rails to the financial district and the Moscone Center are struggling without office workers and convention-goers to fill them.

The situation for BART, the rail system that connects the city with much of the Bay Area, is far more dire. With downtown still struggling to rebound, BART is, too: It has recovered just 43% of its prepandemic ridership.

“Our ridership mirrors office occupancy,” Alicia Trost, a spokesperson for BART, said. “It’s as simple as that.”

BART still faces a very real fiscal cliff. A windfall of extra state money last year postponed that scary scenario until 2026, but if a ballot measure that is expected to be put before voters that year does not pass, the agency will be in real trouble, Trost said. The agency, with an annual operating budget of about $1 billion, will find itself short by about $300 million in 2026 without an infusion of funds.

Bus agencies around the Bay Area are generally doing fairly well. SamTrans in San Mateo County is back up to 88% of its prepandemic ridership. Fixed rail services that serve mainly downtown commuters are not: Caltrain, which runs between San Francisco and Silicon Valley, has recovered just 38% of its ridership.

Even so, on Wednesday morning the mood when it came to public transit in the San Francisco area was pure happiness. Mayor London Breed; Larry Baer, the president of the San Francisco Giants; and other notables celebrated Bennett’s life and the newly dedicated cable car. Benedetto said she wished her husband could have seen it.

“He would have been absolutely thrilled,” she said. “He loved the people of San Francisco, and they loved him.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

February 18, 2024

Stolen jewels, now on display

'Across the Avenues: Fairfield Porter in New York' featuring works from Parrish Art Museum permanent collection

'Scratching at the Moon', first focused survey of Asian American artists in major LA contemporary art museum

Museum of the City of New York presents 'Four Seasons of Central Park: Watercolors by Frederick Brosen'

Wu Tsang's immersive, extended reality installation 'Of Whales' opened Feb. 15 at ICA in Boston

Warhol's 'Liz' and original artworks by Andre Brasilier and Radcliffe Bailery to be auctioned by Ahlers & Ogletree

City of Helsinki announces funding for new museum of architecture and design

Mao Zedong's 'Little Red Book' signed for Pakistan's foreign minister's wife hits the auction block

'Arthur Okamura: Buddha's Garden' has debut at Paul Thiebaud Gallery

Life imitates art as a 'Master and Margarita' movie stirs Russia

Solo exhibition at Frac MÉCA 'Ellipse' by Jane Harris

Group show 'Luxe Benen' curated by Ralf Kokke at Marian Cramer Projects now showing

Exhibition of sculpture, installation and painting by Tiona Nekkia McClodden on view at White Cube

Schubert's operas were failures. Is their music worth saving?

The barefoot memoirist: Ina Garten takes her story to a new publisher

'Between Two Knees' review: A virtuosic romp through a century of terrors

With $60 million gift, San Francisco Ballet plans focus on new works

Using opera to shine a light on wrongful imprisonment

Booksellers on the Seine in Paris get an Olympic reprieve

'Six' creators announce their second act

For Tobias Menzies, acting is a less-is-more kind of thing

San Francisco dedicates a cable car to Tony Bennett

Alonzo King wants to wake up the world with ballet

Montclair Art Museum presenting a landmark exhibition 'Century: 100 Years of Black Art at MAM'

SingularityNET Prices Volatile in Month of Great Expectation

Challenges and Opportunities in VN88 Rezence wireless charging

Coolest Men's Costume Ideas Inspired by Artworks

The Future of Home Selling: Leveraging Technology to Enhance Client Relationships




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful