December in SOMA
- Events and Activities
- Giving Back to SOMA
- SWNA Advocacy Work Update
- SOMA Name Dropping: Moss Street
- Culture Collective: How it is Nowadays & the Moon Man of SOMA
Events
12.5 – 6:00 PM
💡Let it Glow Countdown Event
📍Ferry Building
The nation's largest FREE holiday projection arts festival features Breathtaking animated projections will illuminate eight iconic buildings across the city's core nightly from December 4-15th.
More Details
12.18 – 6-8 PM
🥂Free Neighborhood Happy Hour
📍TBD
Mark your calendars for the last happy hour of 2025! More details to follow
12.20 – 5-until
SOMA Holiday Sweater Stroll
📍 Various SOMA West Locations
We’ll start with a warm, welcoming sweater-decorating party at our neighborhood coffee shop, then wander through SOMA’s restaurants and bars spreading cheer in our holiday best. Come for the part or all and celebrate the Holidays with your neighbors!
RSVP
Giving Back to SOMA
Our give back efforts in November were a huge success, with neighbors helping with everything from serving Thanksgiving dinners to building planters. Join us in giving back this December by donating to one of our neighborhood sponsored drives.
🎁 Compass Family Services’ Holiday Pop-Up Shop Donation Drive
Opus38 Studio is collecting gifts to donate to the Holiday Pop-Up Shop that services the families served by Compass up until Christmas Eve. We will be delivering all donations on December 19th. Compass has a special need for gifts for older kids and teenagers, who are often the hardest to shop for and receive fewer donations. Since our studio operates by appointment only, neighbors who wish to contribute are warmly invited to contact us to arrange a drop-off Email: info@opus38.studio or Text: Lisa Maresch at (702) 372-3720
🎎 SF Firefighters Toy Drive
Proudly sponsored by The San Francisco Firefighters Local 798 and run by active and retired SF Firefighters this toy drive ensures no child should be without a toy during the holiday season. Donate new toys before December 19th at:
- Suspiro Coffee (1246 Folsom)
- The Box SF (1073 Howard St)
🧥 One Warm Coat Drive
One Warm Coat's mission is to provide free coats to children and adults. Donate your lightly used coats at:
- San Francisco Pretrial Diversion Project (1200 Folsom St)
- Suspiro Coffee (1246 Folsom)
- The Box SF (1073 Howard St)
Want to take the conversation deeper and be more involved? Join our neighborhood Slack channel and get more connected.
SWNA Advocacy Work Update
The Government Relations Committee has been working to hold city leadership accountable and secure necessary resources for SOMA. One of our primary focuses has been the "Staff Southern Station" campaign, culminating in attendance at two Police Commission meetings and over 300 petition signatures delivered to the Commission, demanding increased staffing to handle the district's expansion which forecasts a 25-29% surge in calls with the upcoming boundary re-draw.
Simultaneously, we are working with the Mayor's office and Supervisor Dorsey regarding the proposed 6th Street sobering center, since a new facility violates the spirit and letter of the Geographic Equity legislation and exacerbates the neighborhood's existing overburden. Additionally, the committee successfully advocated for the inclusion of "Youth Centers" in legislation aimed at creating drug-free zones around schools and parks. We continue to push for better oversight of city-funded non-profit housing on 6th Street and advocate for more security in the area.
State of the Neighborhood Survey
Take our neighborhood survey to let us know what’s important to you! Take the survey
SOMA Name Dropping: Moss St
By Cindy Casey
Moss Street was named after Joseph Moravia Moss, who was born in Philadelphia, PA on March 1, 1809. Moss arrived in California about 1850. He was a partner in the banking firm of Pioche and Bayerque until 1859. J. Mora Moss was the first vice-president and the third president of the San Francisco Gas Co. (later to become P.G.& E.) and a trustee of the Sacramento Valley Railroad Co. in the early 1860s. In the late 1860s, his business interests expanded to include the California State Telegraph Co., Market Street Railroad, and the Sitka Ice Industry. He was a Regent for the University of California and one of the directors of the School for the Deaf and Blind. In 1867, he married his housekeeper, Julia Wood. On November 21, 1880, he died at his estate, Mosswood, in Oakland.
Culture Collective: How it is Nowadays & the Moon Man of SOMA
by Taylor Snowberger aka RuthieDay
November was a quiet month in SOMA after two major events, with SITE+SOUND and Open Studios SF carrying the torch of lively, multi-venue art hopping opportunities in this precocious hamlet. However, I was lucky to have attended an art teacher activity for my day job at Root Division, killing two birds with one stone. I also attended the neighborhood happy hour at one of the newest third spaces to grace SOMA, Decentered. All in all, that's four birds total, right on time for the time honored bird feast that we SF transplants colloquially call Friendsgiving.
Root Divisions How It Is Nowadays is a refreshing approach to exhibition with sculptural representations of the literal maps, man made systems, and natural structures that govern our modern topography for better and for worse. Light and shadow, 3d paper sculptures, and precarious stacked objects make for fascinating explorations of artists looking at the world. Both alienated and unflinching, romantic and scientific, the exhibition is a true original.
Decentered is a cozy, laid back third space which features murals and revolving exhibits. The current exhibit, Pablo Moisés Ruiz Arroyo’s Changing Faces: Exploring the Portrait is an excellent parlance into the general vibe of Decentered, with sincere artist statements explaining the origins of each piece. The artist's extensive resume of travels brings a worldly, down to earth perspective to the figurative works in a magenta color palette.
The heavy hitters of the neighborhood, aka The MoMa and YBCA, bring us work from graffiti writers turned commercially successful artists who range in ethos from heart breakingly sincere to proto-Koonsian brand makers. YBCA’s ‘Bay Area Then’ explores works both recent and vintage from such household names as Margaret Killgallen and Barry Mcgee. Bay Area Then is a survey of the grassroots art movement circa 1990 that made San Francisco a hub of skateboarding and zine culture ‘back in the day’. A delightful reconstruction of Margaret Kilgallen's monumental work, Main Drag is a must see. MoMA’s mini-retrospective of graffiti-artist-turned-brand KAWS is a Frankenstein's monster of Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol and General Mills cereal in this survey of what happens when finance bros stick their hands in the chex mix of voices that comprise the art world. Also a must-see, the works on display are honestly pretty fun to look at, and interesting to contemplate for bitter artists and laissez-faire lookie-loos alike.
Make sure to go to the opening night of Heron Arts new exhibit, Lucid Plane, on December 12 from 6-9, as well as Lets Glow 2025, an outdoor light and projection event all over the neighborhood.
Make sure to go to the opening night of Heron Arts new exhibit on December 12 from 6-9, as well as Lets Glow 2025, an outdoor light and projection event all over the neighborhood.