Speaking of Western SoMa, a plan to demolish the two-story industrial building at 81-85 Bluxome between 4th and 5th Streets has been quietly floated with Planning. As proposed, a 65-foot-tall office building without parking would rise on the site.
While current zoning allows for up to 65 feet in height on the parcel, as does the proposed Western SoMa Community Plan, the proposed plan’s increase in density would need to be adopted in order for the building to be built as designed.
And as a reader notes, currently housed at 81 Bluxome is Hot House Entertainment, “one of the last original San Francisco adult studios left in SOMA.”
So long Hothouse entertainment, one of the last original San Francisco adult studios left in SOMA. Make way for the soulless techies and baby carriages…
Is it wrong to sort of miss the edgier and somewhat poorer San Francisco of the past? I miss some of the areas that were not safe for the current “techie/baby carriage” crowd. Oh well, let’s just hope Silver Lake down in Los Angeles is not ruined as well.
So let me see…we are losing an edgy past huh? What about land uses before these edgy ones? Let’s hear it for pre-’06 quake and fire…the days mixed use residential in west soma (go check the old Sanborn Maps). How about the post ’06 quake land use of … you guessed it, residential with plenty of Irish families…just check out all the old churches that still remain…parishes long gone.
Year the good ol days…things change…hothouses get cold. Change is good but only if its your kind of change.
F_A and Sigh, you’ll always still have access to the output of San Pornando Valley, so no true loss. Specialization and gains from trade, and all that other propaganda we all learned in Econ 101.
The whole, “this place sucks now” debate is so tired. When I moved to the city in ’91 I remember hearing people say that this city isn’t what it used to be. It seems like in 1967 people were saying the same thing. Does the debate never end or do people start to realize that things change over time?
For those that opine for a taste of the good ‘ole days of SF, go sit at Leavenworth and Turk. Nothing has changed in mid-market/UN plaza since I moved here.
I’m bummed about Hothouse. They are one of my favorites when I don’t have a Saturday night date.
Because filming location is really important in porn…?
The “baby carriage crowd” The horror, people having kids
My baby is adorable you deviants!
Don’t worry, there’s plenty of room for porn in the Armory. We could have a porn super-studio in all that space. Kink.com could sublet to Hothouse and Raging Stallion and Falcon and whoever else gets pushed out of the sacred South of Market.
Seriously, there is nothing all that special about a porn studio HQ..and it’s funny that we’re talking about it at all.
Hi Zig,
I’m sure your baby is adorable, but there are lots of good reasons for you to consider the role of “deviant” porn in your life. That “deviant” porn probably keeps the father of your adorable baby sexually satisfied much of the time. Current estimates are that 80 million American men use online pornography weekly. If you are lucky, that “deviant” porn might actually provide the sexual satisfaction the father of your adorable baby will require over the next few decades. And it might even provide for some chance that he won’t dump you for a different gal as you grow plump and much less satisfying. And wouldn’t that be a nice outcome for “deviant” porn production to play in your life?
Is San Francisco better now without some of the “deviant” nightlife of decades past? Maybe.
I think the point was that there was a time when this city was pretty wild, and for some of us, a LOT of fun. On weekend evenings Folsom sidewalks were wall to wall people and the Castro crowds would spill out onto and take over the streets by midnight, with no parklets to encourage pedestrians. The city was up all night, loud, fun and VERY young!
The “Tales of the City” days of San Francisco are long gone, but there was something special about a city that was affordable enough to move to just to experience a freedom that at one time was not available in most other places, though not the case any more. There was also something magical about a city that attracted people to move here because they LOVED the city itself. There are many people who move here now for financial reasons only and could care less about what was the unique soul of this city.
I am glad the city is changing (mostly for the better) but am also glad I have the memories of how special it was.
@nsfw. Mid-Market is changing right now at the fastest pace it has in decades: Market Street Place, Trinity Place, Ava, Fox Plaza, Dolby Labs, Twitter, Square, 150 UN Plaza, Grant Bldg, Hugo Hotel, ACT, CVS @ Oddfellows, Warfield, to name just a few, with more sure to come. Market and Mission Streets themselves appear to be ready for transformation themselves with mass transit, pedestrian, and cyclist paths shifted.
Now if we could only know what will become of the Hibernia Bank and the rest of the Tenderloin.
Just because the building is being demolished doesn’t mean that HotHouse is going anywhere! While they may rent space at that building this article really has nothing to do with HotHouse or porn. Besides, there’s plenty of empty space over at Kink! 🙂
Maybe what you remember is not that the city used to be fun but that YOU used to be fun. The idea that a city needs to be blighted and crime-ridden to have fun nightlife is ludicrous. By that rationale Detroit should be the most fun city in the US and all the good nightlife in SF these days should be in Bayview.
SF is still a fun city full of great people, it’s you who are an old coot.
SF was clearly the most fun during the days of Emperor Norton.
(Unless you were Chinese)
gentrified – no one is saying The City needs to be blighted and crime-ridden in order to be fun. There’s a certain amount of nostalgia (it’s Greek roots mean “pain from an old wound” – thank you, Don Draper) that goes on whenever people talk about the “good old days” – I don’t think anyone denies that. Yes, as we grow older the younger generation usurping us in the bars and nightclubs do seem different – they are. As far as whether or not San Francisco has lost it’s “soul” or not, I don’t know. This April marks 20 years for me that I’ve lived here – was San Francisco more fun back then? I’d say yes, but I also realize that I was younger and things were different.
Actually, Hot House only moved to that location about a year ago and was previously located in Hayes Valley. SOMA is still home to nearly every major gay porn studio in the US including Titan, Falcon, Raging Stallion, NakedSword, Treasure Island, and Factory Video.
^^^Now that’s a Western SOMA Community Plan I can adopt!.
Eldergay here… that was also a porn studio in the early 70’s for deRnzy and Adonis and Frenchy’s K&T when the actual filming was technically illegal. We moved from location to location to outwit vice. The outlaw days of SOMA are long gone but not the memories.
UPDATE: From Porn Studio To Creative Office Space In SoMa.