As we plow into the 2020s, we can’t help but feel nostalgic for the decade we’re leaving behind. The Bold Italic launched 10 years ago, and over the years, as the publication has changed, it’s been an evolving experiment in local journalism.
TBI has covered the housing crisis, the state of art and culture in the Bay, and the unstoppable rise of tech and gentrification. We’ve run reports on sketchy landlords and weird tech trends, published personal essays — on everything from dating co-workers to living in one’s car to attending eye-contact orgies — and provided some much needed humor during dark times.
There’s a lot more great stuff coming your way from us in 2020. But for now, let’s take a look back at our archives. Below is a story from each year of TBI’s existence, and each reflects an aspect of living in this area during a decade of great change.
2009
In the first story ever published by The Bold Italic, writer Jonny Waldman staked out a bike rack in front of the San Francisco Public Library in an attempt to catch bike thieves in the act—to no avail. Some things have changed over the past decade, but the shock of having your bike stolen isn’t one of them.
2010
Hidden in West Portal is one of San Francisco’s greatest private treasures: a former brothel that became a living work of art, “a surreal space that looks like the lovechild of Cleopatra and Salvador Dalí,” according to TBI writer Sara Faith Alterman. Owner Gregangelo Herrera and his friends spent more than 30 years transforming the space into a shrine to mythology, circus arts, and craftsmanship.
2011
Broke-Ass Stuart has been the Herb Caen of an entire generation of the “young, broke, and beautiful” in San Francisco. In this piece, he captured the cranky and wistful experience of what it’s like to love and live in a city where we’re all “still doing whatever the fuck it takes to pay rent in this city.”
2012
So you’re moving to San Francisco, and you don’t know where you want to live. From North Beach to SOMA to the Inner Richmond to the Outer Sunset, Drew Hoolhurst broke down the options for new San Franciscans in his two articles detailing the neighborhood stereotypes you need to know before you make your decision. Reading it now, we can’t help but be surprised by how much has already changed since this guide was published.
2013
Writer Michelle Tea chronicled how her cocaine habit evolved from “a special-occasion party treat into a weekend party treat,” and then became an everyday habit. “Like a lot of people, I had a cartoon idea of an addict in my head: an unshaven man trembling in the gutter,” she wrote. “That wasn’t me. I was an unshaven woman, trembling on my bedroom floor. Totally different!”
2014
One of the most popular features in the history of The Bold Italic involved kids reviewing fancy Michelin-starred restaurants with their faces. This one featured four-year-old Lyla munching her way through a five-and-a-half-hour marathon at Thomas Keller’s French Laundry, told by writer Jessica Saia.
2015
Writer and former TBI editor Dan Moore penned one of our most popular pieces ever to tech transplants. “Many of your neighbors won’t see you as a benevolent outsider caught unknowingly in the middle of what is, essentially, a class war,” he wrote. “People are right to be angry; shit is certainly fucked up. Since 2010, rents have risen by 40%, and eviction rates have risen by 38%.
2016
Everyone in tech is on the hustle, and Sunil Rajamaran (founder of Scripted and the previous owner of The Bold Italic) has seen it all in Silicon Valley. From the agonizing status awareness of social media to the ridiculous culture of tech companies trying to change the world, he outlines the hamster wheel of the industry’s excesses.
2017
Finding a place to live in San Francisco has become an exhausting physical and mental sport that will push you to your breaking point. TBI writer Mel Burke details her experience.
2018
Writer Kimberley Reyes gives a personal account of how SF is “a haven of white privilege, with walls much more difficult to breach than any physical manifestation of will and power.”
2019
A former Uber driver shares what she learned about the city while driving part-time and working full-time in tech. “Welcome to San Francisco, a city where everyone is welcome but not always equal,” she writes.
Do you have a story to tell? Pitch us.
