A crowd of San Francisco progressives, including politicians, union workers, and activists gathered on a corner at the top of Potrero Hill Monday afternoon to unveil a sign added below Connecticut Street, as the stretch was officially renamed Art Agnos Way after a former mayor whose brand of leftist policymaking came to define the city during and after his term.
Agnos, now 87, stood tall and lean, his tanned, leathered face framed by a white, neatly trimmed beard. He greeted the crowd of around 200 like they were all part of his extended Greek family. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Mayor Daniel Lurie, former and current District 10 Supervisors Sophie Maxwell and Shamann Walton spoke at the event emceed by former Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin. Supervisor Connie Chan, who is running to replace Pelosi, was seated in the audience next to Agnos’s family. Two women held up an old “Art Agnos for Mayor” poster; an older man wore a vintage sweatshirt with the same slogan.
Politicians spoke about Agnos’s contributions to the city, especially his role in demolishing the Embarcadero Freeway following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Lurie, in his speech, noted how Agnos started his career as a social worker before going on to the California state assembly in 1976 and city hall in 1988, where he served as mayor until 1992. Lurie told the crowd about Agnos’s expansion of affordable housing, and the “broader range of San Franciscans” he attracted to serve in city government.
“That kind of commitment, Sir, and Mayor, is not manufactured,” Lurie said. “It comes from caring deeply about the place that you call home.”
When Agnos spoke about his own legacy of service on behalf of working class people in the city, he came across as sincere and unrehearsed.
“This is very emotional,” he said, crying as he started his speech. “I didn’t expect…this.”
“That I’ve got my back to Nancy Pelosi — are you kidding me?,” Agnos joked.
Agnos said in his speech that he connected with Lurie “chemistry-wise,” given their shared experience as mayor. He said Lurie is far more popular than he ever was, excepting maybe a two- month period after Agnos managed the aftermath of Loma Prieta.
When Agnos moved to San Francisco in 1966, he lived briefly with a friend in Pacific Heights, where he said he didn’t feel comfortable. Seeking a neighborhood where people “work for a living, in the trades,” Agnos said he discovered Potrero Hill.
Agnos said he met with Lurie at nearby Thinker’s Cafe, before Lurie was elected mayor. Lurie, as luck would have it, was briefly residing in Potrero Hill while his Pacific Heights home was being renovated. Lurie, Agnos joked, absorbed lessons of how to be popular from the neighborhood.
As Agnos concluded his speech he said that he hopes that when he’s gone, someone looks at the new street sign bearing his name, and asks who he was.
“And some of you will respond that he was one of us,” Agnos said. The street sign, he said, “tells me I met my commitment.”
