SFO's One-of-a-Kind Art Museum

Bay Curious

KQED

Places & Travel, History, Society & Culture

4.9 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2025

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Barry Asin flies through SFO about once a month and often stops to take a look at the art exhibits dotted throughout the terminals. He particularly loves the history exhibits that showcase what makes the Bay Area unique, seeing it as a nice welcome to travelers visiting the area. He wants to know more about who curates the exhibits, how they decide what to bring in and what we can expect in the future. Additional Resources: Read the transcript for this episode Why the 'O' In San Francisco's Airport Code, SFO? Why SFO Is Notorious For Delays Sign up for our newsletter Enter our Sierra Nevada Brewing Company monthly trivia contest Got a question you want answered? Ask! Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts This story was reported by Ericka Cruz Guevarra and Jessica Kariisa. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz and Christopher Beale. Additional support from Alan Montecillo, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and everyone on Team KQED.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From KQED.
0:07.3	Between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day,
0:10.1	6.3 million passengers are expected to travel
0:14.0	through San Francisco International Airport.
0:16.8	And one of them is today's question asker.
0:19.7	I'm Barry Aeson, and I live in Palo Alto for the past 23 years or so.
0:27.0	Barry flies about once a month.
0:29.1	A lot of the time he's rushing to make his flight or eager to get home after a long trip.
0:34.4	But every once in a while, he's got some time to kill at the airport.
0:38.3	That's when he's especially grateful for the art exhibits dotted throughout the terminals at SFO.
0:44.3	I do have a memory of having like an hour's long delay and just like a fascinating time reading
0:50.3	through all the exhibits as something better to do than be on my phone. I can remember
0:57.0	like a history of United Airlines or, you know, when they have old artifacts and things like
1:03.0	that, or a history of radio. In fact, SFO is the only airport museum accredited by the American
1:08.9	Alliance of Museums.
1:12.8	Barry wants to know how it all works.
1:21.4	I'd like to know more about the art and history exhibits that I've seen at SFO, and what's behind them, and who makes the decisions about these, and how do they decide what goes in there and what sorts of things
1:29.1	can we expect in the future.
1:32.9	Today on the show, we're headed to SFO, behind security, even though we aren't traveling
1:38.8	anywhere.
1:40.1	We'll meet the curators of this unique museum.
1:43.0	Check out what's on display now and give you the inside scoop on how you can see it all for free.
	...

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