From K-QED.

Hey guys, you're listening to Bay Curious.

I'm Olivia Allen Price.

I met our question-asker on the streets of San Francisco.

My name is John Angelico. I live in San Francisco. We are in, I guess it would be described as the tenderloin. It's a pretty busy intersection. There's lots of traffic, cars drive through here on the way to someplace else.

We're at Turk and Larkin to be exact.

As far as San Francisco intersections go,

this one seems pretty unremarkable.

There's an old federal building on one corner and a tire shop on another, but locals know this intersection because of the big six foot sign on display in the tire shop parking lot.

And can you read what the sign says right now?

Knowledge is sturdier, more important, and more virtuous than beliefs or opinions or suspicious.

Catherine Schultz.

This isn't an unusual message to see on the Khan and Keville tire shop sign.

You might say they've got a reputation.

For a tire shop to have this huge marquee out front giving us something totally unrelated to the sale of tires and auto service is

It's kind of a very San Franciscan thing.

And what do you want to know about this sign?

I want to know when the sign started,

who's responsible for the sign's content, and what kind of reaction have they gotten over the years

from the sign?

As it turns out, the tire shop has been posting quotes since the late 1950s.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Kane

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