inINSIDE OLLI -  
Information about Who Is Who and 
What Is Going on in Our OLLI Program        
The entrance to our new location  -   Kathy Bruin                                    

A Tour of Our New OLLI Classroom
in Downtown San Francisco
by  Kathy Bruin

We are in our new home in downtown San Francisco. Finally!
 
The lease for classroom and office space for San Francisco State at the 835 Market Street location—The Westfield Centre—came to an end on Dec. 31, 2021. We knew early in 2021 that was going to happen and worked with representatives of the University to find us another space not too far from the Market Street corridor with proximity to a BART/Muni station.
 
Starting on April 4, 2022, we have been offering 8 classes on Zoom and 8 in person, with 7 of those in classrooms at the new building, 160 Spear Street. We are renting classroom space from the SFSU Lam Family College of Business. The SFSU College of Extended Learning also has classrooms and office space at this site and we are leasing our office workspace from them.
 
There are attendants in the lobby and 6 elevators to take you to the 5th floor where our classrooms and OLLI workspaces are.
 
Both the new building and the new neighborhood are lovely. 
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You can enter our new building either from Spear Street or Main Street. This is the Spear Street entrance. 
Here is the Main Street entrance to the building.
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Our large classroom, room 505, seats 48 lifelong learners but to allow for some distancing in the classrooms we are currently setting capacity at 35 people. Instead of a projector and screen like we had at Westfield Center, the room has two large video monitors. 
​Here is another view of classroom 505. It has a folding wall on the far side of the room which can be opened to the adjacent classroom. Depending upon availability, we may be able to rent the full space for some larger gatherings, like Faculty Previews of courses or the Vistas & Byways Launch events. 
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We have access to two other rooms based on availability.

​Room 508:
And Room 510:
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The new building has welcoming spaces with seating in the lobby and a landscaped patio area on the east side of the building. If the weather is nice, some of our Interest Groups may find this a good place to hold their sessions. We have 8 interest groups now meeting via Zoom in addition to the Hiker group.
 
Lobby: 
Patio:   
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Our new home at 160 Spear Street is in a very interesting section of downtown San Francisco: 1 and 1/2 blocks south of Market Street, 2 blocks west of the waterfront and the Embarcadero, and 1 block from the elevated Salesforce Park. Here is a Google Map of the location: 
Just as at our 835 Market St. location, we are close to public transit. The large Embarcadero MUNI and BART station is a block and a half away. Many of MUNI’s bus lines run on Mission St. which is ½ block away. The City-owned public auto parking lot at 5th Street and Mission Street is walkable in good weather. Or, after parking there, you can hop onto a bus on Mission Street to go east about 5 blocks to Spear Street. 
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The Salesforce Transit Center is a few blocks away at 425 Mission St. It is surely a landmark for the San Francisco Bay Area. It has sociable, open space for people to gather, it’s grand and bold in design, yet built for simply having a good time. This striking, innovative, and sustainable building transforms a transportation hub into an urban experience, complete with a gondola, and topped off by a 5.4-acre rooftop park open to the sky.

Here is a view of the elevated garden:   
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​I am still learning the new neighborhood, but one of my favorite places to walk is along the Embarcadero, and there are many places to eat and drink nearby, including the longtime San Francisco restaurant, Perry’s.
 
On the same block as our new building is the beautifully renovated Rincon Annex Post Office (now the Rincon Center) with the murals painted by Anton Refregier in the 1940s.
 
A few blocks away is the Ferry Building which will hopefully reinstate it’s Tuesday and Thursday Farmers Markets before long. The Ferry Building has great local shops and wonderful dining options including Hog Island Oyster Co., Gotts Roadside, and Imperial Tea Court.
 
Some businesses are still closed downtown but there is a Peet’s directly across from the Spear Street entrance of our building, and Yank Sing and Thai-To-Go are nearby, too. 
​Come on down and participate in an OLLI activity in our new location at 160 Spear Street. See our web site at olli.sfsu.edu to see what events are happening soon. 
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​Kathy Bruin, an experienced program manager, joined OLLI San Francisco State as Director in 2019. Prior to OLLI, she helped launch the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State. As Operations Manager at the Impact Hub between 2012-2015, Kathy supported more than 700 members and 500 guests annually. Over her career, Kathy has supervised magazine production, events, and conferences.
 
In 1995 Kathy founded About-Face, a media literacy campaign that educates about the impact of media on female body image and equips girls and young women with media literacy skills. In 2004 she was “punked” on a spoof debate show on Comedy Central called Crossballs.
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Vistas & Byways Review is the semiannual journal of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by members of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at San Francisco State University​.​
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​Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State University (OLLI at SF State) provides communal and material support to theVistas & Byways  ​volunteer staff.