Author: KQED

A UC Berkeley study estimates there are about 38,000 acres of land owned by faith groups in California, an area roughly the size of Stockton, that are largely going unused. Some churches want to build affordable housing on that extra land— but building any kind of housing in California means jumping through a lot of hoops. Reporter Adhiti Bandlamudi finds out what it would take for houses of worship to house people in God's backyard.

Additional Reading:

• California Churches Want to Build Affordable Housing on Their Land, So Why Is It So Hard?
• Transcript of this episode
• Preorder the Bay Curious Book! Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org  Chronicle Books. International buyers go here!

Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts

This story was reported by Adhiti Bandlamudi. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Amanda Font and Brendan Willard. Special thanks to Erika Kelly, Christopher Beale and Paul Lancour for their help on this story.

For more than a century, people in the Bay Area — and especially the East Bay — have puzzled over the existence of stone walls scattered on ridges from near San Jose north through the Berkeley Hills. Sometimes the walls are built in long straight lines. Sometimes they form angles. Occasionally you’ll find rectangular or circular constructions. "Who built these things? How long ago? And why?" asked listener Eric Haven. It's a tougher question to answer than you might imagine, but reporter Dan Brekke does his best.

Learn more

• Uncovering the Real Story Behind the 'East Bay Mystery Walls'
• Video: The Real, True Story of the Mystery of the East Bay Walls (YouTube)
• Sign up for the Bay Curious newsletter

Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts

This story was reported by Dan Brekke. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Amanda Font and Brendan Willard. Additional support from Paul Lancour, Christopher Beale, Cesar Saldana, Jen Chien, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Jenny Pritchett and Holly Kernan.

Beth Touchette has lived in Marin County for a long time, and has often seen seen cattle grazing in Point Reyes National Seashore. It's an unusual sight, one not common in National Parks around the United States. She asked Bay Curious: "How did we end up allowing cattle in a national park?" Beth’s question won a voting round on BayCurious.org, and is at the heart of a battle that’s been heating up between environmental groups, ranchers and the National Park Service for years.

Additional Reading:

• Cattle Ranching Has Existed in Point Reyes for a Century. Conservationists Want to Return to a Time Without It.
• Sign up for the Bay Curious newsletter
• Follow Olivia on Instagram
• Transcript of this episode

Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts

This story was reported by Katrina Schwartz. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Amanda Font and Brendan Willard. Our Social Video Intern is Darren Tu. Additional support from Cesar Saldana, Jen Chien, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Anna Vignet, Jenny Pritchett and Holly Kernan.

For our final episode of the year, Olivia Allen-Price and Katrina Schwartz answer the questions we get most often about the show: How do you choose which questions to answer? How long does it take to make an episode? What's your favorite episode of all time? And more! Join us for a behind-the-scenes chat about the making of the show, plus we'll share some big news about something exciting coming in 2023!

Links, in order of being mentioned on the show:

• How the Filbert Steps Came to Be an Oasis in San Francisco
• How Did a 184-Foot Shipwreck Wind Up Grounded in the Carquinez Strait?
• The Sordid Saga of San Francisco's Trash Cans
• Are You Inked? How a San Francisco Tattoo Artist Changed the Industry
• Sign up for the monthly Bay Curious Newsletter
• Feel Like the SF Bay Used to Be Bluer? You're Not Imagining It
• You Used to Be Able to Call POP-CORN and Get the Time. What Happened to That?
• Inside Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera's Life in San Francisco
• Endless Winter: A Fresh Look at the Donner Party Saga
• The Bay Area During the Ice Age (Think Saber-Tooth Cats and Mammoths)
• Preorder the Bay Curious Book! Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org  Chronicle Books. International buyers go here!

Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts

Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Amanda Font and Brendan Willard. Our Social Video Intern is Darren Tu. Additional support from Cesar Saldaña, Jen Chien, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Jenny Pritchett and Holly Kernan.

Over the years, many Bay Curious listeners have wondered about how the iconic Transamerica Pyramid came to be. So, in the year of its 50th birthday we bring you the story of a building that was once deemed "architectural butchery," but is now beloved by many.

Additional Reading:

•  The Transamerica Pyramid at 50: From 'Architectural Butchery' to Icon
• San Francisco Chronicle archival photos of the Transamerica Pyramid
• Sign up for our newsletter!

Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts

This story was reported by Carly Severn. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Amanda Font and Brendan Willard. Our Social Video Intern is Darren Tu. Additional support from Cesar Saldana, Jen Chien, Jasmine Garnett, Jenny Pritchett and Holly Kernan.

A group of Black ministers convinced a local Richmond developer to build homes that would be available to all Americans, including Black Americans, in the early 1950s long before the Fair Housing Act. We trace the history of that activism and the fate of the community over the decades.

Additional Reading:

• Homes for All: Richmond's 1950s Attempt at Integrated Housing
• To Place Our Deeds: The African American Community in Richmond, California, 1910-1963
• An Exploration of Our History: The Story of North Richmond
• Sign up for the Bay Curious newsletter
• Read the transcript here

Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts

This story was reported by Ariana Proehl. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Amanda Font and Brendan Willard. Our Social Video Intern is Darren Tu. Additional support from Cesar Saldana, Jen Chien, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Jenny Pritchett and Holly Kernan.

UC Berkeley graduate student Ziad Shafi was surprised when he arrived in the Bay Area and saw that BART trains only have one route through San Francisco. He'd taken metro trains in Prague, Stockholm and Washington, D.C., where the route maps are shaped like spiderwebs — allowing riders to get in striking distance of anywhere in the city. But BART looks more like a tree. He asked: "Why do four of the five BART lines go all the way from West Oakland to Daly City together?" KQED transit editor Dan Brekke gives us some BART history and offers an outlook for what's next for public transit in the Bay Area.

Additional Reading:

• Podcast Episode: You're Really Really Curious About BART (Apple Podcasts)
• Podcast Episode: Why Are BART Trains So Loud? (Apple Podcasts)
• Olivia's Instagram
• Sign up for the monthly Bay Curious newsletter

Read the transcript here.

Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts

This story was reported by Dan Brekke. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz and Brendan Willard. Our Social Video Intern is Darren Tu. Additional support from Cesar Saldana, Jen Chien, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Jenny Pritchett and Holly Kernan.

The Bay Area has a vibrant and eclectic music scene, but when Jessica Kariisa moved here last year she couldn’t find many places playing the African dance hits she loves. But African music is her passion, so Jessica went on a mission to find it. You'll definitely want to turn the volume up for this episode!

Additional Reading:

• Finding Musical Gems in the Bay Area’s African Club Scene
• A longer version of this story first appeared on Afropop Worldwide
• Read the transcript here

Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts

This story was reported by Jessica Kariisa. It was edited by Victoria Mauleon. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz and Brendan Willard. Our Social Video Intern is Darren Tu. Additional support from Kyana Moghadam, Jen Chien, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, Jenny Pritchett and Holly Kernan.

Oakland resident Paul Beach cares a lot about recycling. So, he was troubled to hear rumors that all his carefully sorted recyclables might be going into the landfill. He wants to know, how much of our recycling is actually getting recycled? Turns out, when it comes to plastic, not a lot.

Additional Reading:

•  'You Can't Recycle Your Way Out': California's Plastic Problem and What We Can Do About It
• California's Plastic Problem
• Prop Fest playlist
• Listen to a transcript of this episode

Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts

This story was reported by Monica Lam. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Amanda Font and Brendan Willard. Our Social Video Intern is Darren Tu. Additional support from Cesar Saldaña, Jen Chien, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Jenny Pritchett and Holly Kernan.

Can spirits really speak to us from beyond death? That's what science editor and skeptic Jon Brooks has been wondering for 27 years, since he and a friend had an experience with a Ouija board that they just can't explain. After losing his mother, Jon decides to dust off the same board he used in 1995 and try to recreate the original experience with as much scientific rigor as one can manage while attempting to contact the dead.

Additional Reading:

• Did I Actually Contact a Dead Person? A Science Editor In Search of His Mother’s Ghost 
• You can read a transcript of the episode here

This story was reported by Jon Brooks. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Amanda Font and Brendan Willard. Our Social Video Intern is Darren Tu.