The bird site

The other day I stopped by the site of THE BIRD SITE as aspirationally-but-didn’t-quite-stick Mastodon users would say, home of the latest public enemy number one for San Franciscans, temporarily stealing the crown from Ron DeSantis, presumably until the run up to 2024 where MSNBC will put them back on target again.

Unknownst to most, Twitter isn’t only the latest front of the culture war, but also one of its first. A big reason that Twitter HQ is located in the midst of San Francisco’s mid-Market blight in the first place is that the city’s last mayor incentivized the move back in 2011 by erasing the 1.5% payroll tax the company would normally pay in hopes that its presence could help revitalize the neighborhood. San Francisco’s resident regressive population screamed at the perceived giveaway to big tech, and would spend the next ten years fighting an ever escalating war to keep the city frozen in time, a war that they eventually won as tech fled in 2020.

I take these photos to capture a moment in time – my guess is that this sign isn’t around for much longer. The latest news is that Twitter’s office space has been downsized from six floors to two, and given Musk’s history of moving companies to more friendly and lower tax states like Texas, I’d be surprised if this isn’t San Francisco’s newest empty building sometime soon.