The Noonan Building is a three-story wood-frame warehouse building, dating from World War II, located on Pier 70 in San Francisco. The building has been used as artist studios for at least the last 40 years, and I happen to be one of the current tenants. We have a good group of people here, mostly painters, some photographers, mixed-media artists, architects and designers.

Pier 70 has been scheduled for redevelopment for decades, but it seems like the wheels are in motion and planning has begun to make it really happen. At this point, we’re not sure what this means for the neighborhood, the Building and our studios. I can say that the Port of San Francisco and the developers, Orton and Forest City, have at least made some efforts to include us in the planning process and to keep us advised of how things are going. The impending redevelopment has also motivated the occupants of the Noonan Building to organize – mainly to make sure our interests are represented during the process, though we have plenty of other reasons from safety to organizing ping-pong tournaments. Organizing artists is a process akin to herding cats, but being the mature bunch that we are, we’ve managed it.

Over the weekend I spent some time developing a site for the Noonan Building Artists. It’s a simple site, with a blog for news updates, a photo grid of the artists, links to their web sites, and contact info/directions. This link will bring you to the site, where you can check out the artists we have in the Building and see if anything interesting is going on here. Recommended if you’re interested in the continued health of San Francisco’s artist community.

Photo by David Magnusson.