Icer Air 2005, slated for Aug. 27, will put snow, a ski jump, camera crews and crowds on Fillmore Hill to help celebrate Olympic skier Jonny Moseley's 30th birthday and hawk Icer's line of apparel, ski waxes and snowboard waxes. Moseley and 30 other professionals -- including several Norwegians -- will fly off a jump at Fillmore and Vallejo streets, do mid- air acrobatics and land near Green Street.
But neighbors, as well as Hindu monks who worship nearby and a bride who plans to get married at the historic Flood Mansion a half-block away, are upset about the street closures, inconvenience, potential trash and noise. [...]
In February 1934, the Auburn Ski Club of Truckee put 43,000 cubic feet of snow -- four times the amount headed for Fillmore Street -- on six Southern Pacific boxcars and shipped it to the steep slopes of Hearst Avenue, just north of the UC Berkeley campus, for a ski jump demonstration. About 45,000 people, including thousands on Tightwad Hill, gathered to watch the novelty.
But in true Berkeley fashion, the event ended in a riot. College students, many of whom had never seen snow before, stormed the barricades and launched an enormous snowball fight, disrupting the event before it could finish.
"So you see, San Francisco is a bit slow," Klaumann said.
I am fully in favor of temporary ski jumps on major urban thoroughfares
It's hard to imagine, but some people are not. Hey, you! Get outta my town! djinnaya explains.
Tags: pranks, sf
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12 Responses:
That is awesome! I demand pictures when the time comes!
Looks like at least some of it is going to be on tv...
I can't wait for the lawsuits.
I misread that as "temporary autonomous ski jump."
I'm better now.
that's really not okay.
I have a firm commitment to never seeing snow again *EVER*
so I guess I'll be avoiding that area, though I will probably be working so that could be tricky.
snow sucks.
Part of the reason I have plans on moving to San Francisco myself. Though I have to admit if I was blocked into my goddamn house because some fucking snowboard company wanted to have a publicity stunt outside my house I'd be pissed as hell. This is the sort of the thing the city ought to be protecting me from.
Yes, it sounds cool, but fucking people over like this to do it isn't.
No, this is the sort of thing the city should be funding on a daily basis!
If that's how you feel, then please don't move to San Francisco. I think you'll find Palo Alto or Walnut Creek or San Jose more to your liking.
While it is indeed an awesome idea, I tend to think that a public street probably isn't the best place for it.
I understand your position. That is why I would prefer you not live here.
Dear JWZ,
You rock.
(And it looks cancelled due to whining. Dammit.)
It'd make much more sense to just create a ski jump on a trailer. It'd make Ullr proud.
Too bad this isn't happening, now. :< Egan >:>