For many arts groups, the tech bubble of the late 1990s was a boon unlike any other in recent history, a time when businesspeople were rolling in cash and eager to dole it out to needy nonprofits. But in San Francisco, one of the centers of the dot-com boom, the arts were nearly drowned by the concomitant tidal wave of rising real estate prices. “The real estate crunch may have eased when the boom went bust, but now the focus has shifted to battling even more aggressively for financial support, as public and private funding dried up.” The crisis gave new direction to the Bay Area group known as Intersection for the Arts, which has been connecting artists, performers and audiences in an attempt to promote a citywide sense of community ownership of the arts.