Ep. 145: The enduring impact of 'Forgotten Cemeteries' on San Francisco

Muni Diaries

What lies beneath the streets of San Francisco? In some cases, the history of how those streets and infrastructure we know and love (or at least use and tolerate) came to be.

San Francisco’s Forgotten Cemeteries: A Buried History, the newest book from local author Beth Winegarner, is out now. Beth stopped by the podcast to discuss the role the city's dead have on infrastructure (which includes public transit, as you'll learn in this episode), early NIMBY antics, and our civic responsibility to residents who've passed on.

Beth is a journalist, author, essayist and pop culture critic who has contributed to The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The San Francisco Examiner—where she first met Muni Diaries cofounder Tara Ramroop. She is the author of several books, including Sacred Sonoma, Beloved, The Columbine Effect: How Five Teen Pastimes Got Caught in the Crossfire and Why Teens are Taking Them Back, and Tenacity: Heavy Metal in the Middle East and Africa.

Check out more of Beth's work at bethwinegarner.com.