It was quite a year to be by the Bay.
San Franciscans elected a new leader, handing the keys to the mayor's office to a guy who had already been running the city for quite some time.
We had some important birthdays: A culinary revolution turned 40, and an artistic institution celebrated its centennial. While the Giants only managed to disappoint, our other favorite underdog really stepped up its game. We moved a few steps forward on our quest to host the world's oldest sporting event, but our thriving medical marijuana industry took a few steps back. Oh, and we got to keep Twitter!
Of course, it wouldn't have been a year in San Francisco without a protest. And there were lots and lots of protests.
We had our own iteration of the Occupy movement, whose now-defunct encampment in Justin Herman Plaza frequently spread down Market Street and into the lobbies of big banks. Violent police activity brought the national spotlight onto its sister camp across the bay, and more than 150 different Occupy groups sprouted throughout the state.
But the protests spread beyond the ideals of the 99 percent. For the past 12 months, the city hosted a flurry of demonstrations over everything from police shootings and BART surveillance to naked people in restaurants and naked people on towels.
Behold, San Francisco's biggest stories of 2011, neatly packaged for your few moments of reflection before 2012 comes to sweep you away:
