November 18, 2016, San Francisco, CA — If you live anywhere long enough, certain local quirks seem normal. In the Bay Area, maybe it’s the unusual belted shape of Sutro Tower. Or the overwhelming noise of a BART train as it travels underneath the bay. Or the mere existence of those brightly colored parrots perched above San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill. For most of us, these idiosyncrasies and mysteries are like wallpaper: barely noticed and largely unquestioned. But what if we stopped to take a closer look?
Enter KQED’s new podcast Bay Curious. For more than a year, Bay Curious has been an audience favorite on KQED 88.5 FM and KQED.org. Now the Bay Curious podcast will release a new episode each Thursday. You can listen whenever you want.
The new podcast is hosted by Olivia Allen-Price, a Bay Area transplant who’s fallen hard and fast for her new home. Bay Curious gets to the bottom of the under-the-radar mysteries and peculiarities that help give our region its unique identity. And she does it with the help of Bay Curious listeners, who submit questions through the Bay Curious website.
Bay Curious will answer questions like: Why are there so many ships buried under San Francisco? What is the origin of the word hella? What would it take to make Lake Merritt swimmable?
“Listeners sent us more than 1,800 questions about the Bay Area over the past year,” Allen-Price says. “There’s so much in our own backyard that’s completely fascinating, but not often talked about. I can’t wait for the adventures we’ll find while looking for answers with our listeners. It’s going to be a blast!”