YOUR HUMBLE NARRATOR
Joe Eskenazi
Managing Editor and Columnist
Joe reports on the people, power and peculiar machinery that run San Francisco.
SPJ NorCal’s 2019 Journalist of the Year. His 2023 columns took first and second place at the California Journalism Awards.
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Latest Column
A cabbie, a camera and a disappearing San Francisco
Walter Mackins spent years driving cabs and photographing San Francisco. That was easier in an era of cab drivers — and plentiful homes for people like Walter Mackins.
Start with Joe
Three columns that show the range of Joe’s reporting and point of view.
Award Winner
Bob Lee deserved better than to be killed — and then co-opted in death
Robert Harold “Crazy Bob” Lee died on the pavement in the wee hours last Tuesday after being stabbed while he walked through an abandoned downtown street. He was 43, a father, and while the moments after a man’s violent, senseless death are not ideal for gleaning unvarnished opinions, the heartfelt tributes emanating from his many…
How SF Works
San Francisco spends HOW MUCH on toilet paper?
The most fascinating portion of the Louvre may not be the Venus De Milo or the Mona Lisa (good luck pawing through the cellphone-wielding hordes on the latter) but, rather, its less-traveled and dimly lit basement. Here one finds the foundations of the medieval castle that once stood here. But you’ll find more than that.…
Power & Money
Who is Michael Moritz, and what does he want for San Francisco?
Doctors told the billionaire donor he should be gone by now. Instead, he’s just getting started — and spending millions to remake the city.
Joe’s San Francisco
Follow recurring threads through the city’s power structure, machinery and lore.
Power & Money
The donors, dealmakers and institutions that shape city decisions.
How SF Works
A close look at the systems, rules and habits behind City Hall.
Strange and Terrible Sagas
San Francisco stories that reveal more with every turn.
All Columns
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About Joe
Joe Eskenazi was born in San Francisco, raised in the Bay Area and attended U.C. Berkeley. He never left.
“Your humble narrator” was a writer and columnist for SF Weekly from 2007 to 2015 and a senior editor at San Francisco Magazine from 2015 to 2017. His work has also appeared in the Guardian, San Francisco Public Press, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, the Dallas Morning News and elsewhere.
He lives in the Excelsior with his wife and three kids, 4.3 miles from his birthplace and 5,474 from hers.
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