Neighborhood Improvements

First, I forgot to share the highly exciting news that we're getting a tree for the front of our building! When we first moved into our building, the square tree planter directly in front of it was an empty plot of soil, its tree having perished in a huge November 2009 storm.  (You can see the now-deceased tree in this antiquated Google Streeview photo of our building.)  According to our downstairs neighbors, during the storm the tree plunged through their living room windows, prompting the landlord to replace the windows throughout their apartment (lucky!).  But while the building got an upgrade, the planter sat idle.  (To be fair, last year this plot of soil did bear potatoes, thanks to another enterprising neighbor, Jaime.  I'm just not sure if I'd eat street potatoes.)

Last summer, I looked into what it would require to plant a new tree in the planter.  Turns out we'd have to get permits, contact the owner of the building, blah blah blah--not to mention find a way to get a tree home in the Volvo.  A local nonprofit, Friends of the Urban Forest, facilitates some of the paperwork and provides the actual trees for a modest fee, but will only work on a neighborhood scale -- they want at least 20 residents to be involved before they'll sign onto a neighborhood planting.

So I temporarily gave up on my quest for a tree and instead we planted this cordyline, which has flourished.

But!  A local blog that I read recently announced that a FUF South Bernal Tree Planting was in the works!  Within a day we'd obtained permission and signatures from our landlord and are all set to receive a tree for our building.  Cole is going to the first planting meeting tomorrow evening and we even get to lodge our first and second choices for the type of tree we'd like.  We'll also be helping with other plantings throughout the neighborhood -- it's a team effort.  Personally, I'm dreaming of a magnolia.  And don't worry--our trusty cordyline will be relocated to a large planter somewhere in the vicinity of our entryway.

Second, I've just read my first review of the newly-renovated and under-new-ownership St. Mary's Pub.  This place is about seven or eight blocks from our place, and I've always admired the sign.  More importantly, the new owners are our neighbors across the street.  Cole met them at last fall's block party, which I missed.  Now that I can see from the photos that some of the walls inside this joint appear to be painted the same color as my kitchen, I really feel the need to stop in for a drink.

Yes sirree--exciting things are afoot in SoBe.

Sun & Storm

I was out with my camera recently and spotted this amazing woodwork at the top of a house near ours.  I'm blown away.  I mean, look at the faces on the sun and the storm cloud.  Don't they convey so much?

Achtung!

Cautionary sign thoughtfully provided by a friendly neighbor.

Shadows & Sun

I love shadows, I love sun, I love succulents.  On a recent afternoon these three loves came together on the front steps of my building.

These are my neighbors' plants; aren't they beautiful?  Between our place and theirs, I'd wager that our building holds at least a hundred plants of different varieties.  I recently started some dahlia bulbs on my side of the steps...crossing my fingers that they push up as promised by the flower woman at the farmers market.

Small World/Smaller Neighborhood

In a very serendipitous turn of events, Cole saw one of my ilivehere: sf photos on a newish Bernal Heights blog this morning. 

This blog contains some serious Bernal Heights awesomeness, including old and new photos of sights around the hill.  Add it to your list of worthy work distractions.

My 'Hood

I wrote a Neighborhood Guide for Apartment Therapy--check it out here!

{More} Entertainment from the Hood

I'd been wanting to capture this house and vehicle with my camera because they are both so over the top.  The faux street sign off to the left of the house proclaims it to be the crossing of "The Love Shack" and "John and Sandy Lane," and these people decorate to the nines for holidays.  The vehicle advertises some sort of mobile DJ service, and always sports this egregious amount of bling, along with various flashing lights.

I'm all for these people's self expression, but please remove the "It's all good!" sign immediately.  NOT A FAN.

Entertainment from the Hood

I've seen my fair share of front yard shrines, but this one takes the cake.  Did they bury Jesus up to his shoulders on purpose?  Did the bottom half of a once-whole statue break off in an unfortunate accident, prompting the owner to just stick the remainder into the ground?

Either way, I think it looks pretty awesome.  Almost as if Jesus is going to start rising from the white gravel at any second.

Neighborhood Haul

Succulents and flowers and plants of all types love Bernal Heights.  They're all so ubiquitous that a person doesn't feel bad snipping a few cuttings for herself now and then.

One such mission was conducted a few nights ago.  I personally went to bed, but my minions fanned out into the streets to procure some cuttings and THIS is what I woke up to the next morning.  Amazing!  [Everything but the sunflowers came from our streets.]

Now I just need to find permanent homes for all of them :)

Saint...Kevin?

Cortland Avenue, the main street running through our neighborhood, is home to a Catholic church called St. Kevin's.  I've been walking past it for a few months now wondering whether there really was a St. Kevin.  It just sounds...odd.  As strange as "St. Todd" or "St. Owen" --  both of which make me think of a surfer dude saint.  {For all I know, they could be lesser-known saints too.}

{St. Kevin's, built in 1924}

Anyway, I was poking around on a San Francisco history site (one of my favorite pastimes) and I discovered that St. Kevin is a legitimate saint.  It's not really a surprise, since I doubt the Catholic church would allow just ANY name to be slapped onto a church.  According to an official St. Kevin of Ireland web page, "Kevin appears to have been more comfortable among fauna and flora than with humans, yet he developed such a devoted following that he was eventually compelled to found [a] monastery at Glendalough in order to accommodate them." 

Now when the "Obscure Catholic Saints" category surfaces on Jeopardy, you'll be able to sweep your TV competitors.

Steps or Slide?

I forget when this was, but on one of our many walks through Bernal Heights we stumbled upon something so intrinsically awesome and wonderful that I think I actually squealed with delight.  We had taken a walk up to the top of Bernal Hill (which is all parkland and open space) and decided to explore the west side of the neighborhood by taking a flight of stairs down the hillside, back into the area of streets and houses.  Bernal Hill actually has several cool stairways cut into the hillside, and the one we took this day was almost jungle-like, with leafy trees and vines and ferns everywhere.

It deposited us onto a cute street with a lot of cute houses, and across that street we found another stairway to take us further down the hillside.  Repeat one or two more times, with more cute streets and cute houses and stairways. 

Then, across the next street, we came to a small clearing with a sign painted in the familiar green "SF Rec & Parks" color.  It was a mini-park, set into the hillside, with the usual set of steps leading down to the street below. 

But it also had the most awesome set of TWO SLIDES!  This mini-park offers you a choice:  step or slide to your destination.  The slides are side by side, so you can slide with a companion next to you.  They're fast slides, and long, and shaded, so you could never get burned on them.  That day, we took the slides, of course, as a couple of older tourists photographed it all from the top.  The slides spit us out into more leafy trees and a beautiful succulent garden.  It was SO FUN.

Weeks later, I am still marvelling at those slides.  ONLY IN SF.  For some reason, that mini-park with its slides gets me more than anything else I've seen or experienced here.  When a flight of stone steps would have done the trick, this city chose to transform the simple action of ascending or descending into something utterly fun and whimsical.

I actually found some history about the slides here:

"A more boisterous park amenity--the city’s longest pair of outdoor slides--greets visitors to Bernal Heights Mini Park just a few blocks away at Winfield and Esmeralda. In the late 1970s, neighborhood activists, with help from then-Mayor George Moscone, turned the empty corner lot into a garden spot with spectacular views and a twin, 42-foot sloping steel slide. The highlight of its dedication in 1979 was the photograph of Mayor Dianne Feinstein flying exuberantly down the chute."

Next task is to find that photo of DiFi choosing the slide over the stairs.

Quake Shacks

This morning while perusing my new favorite San Francisco history website, FoundSF, I stumbled upon these photos of Bernal Heights houses that apparently started out as earthquake shacks following the 1906 earthquake and fire.  I think it's really cool that some of the shacks were turned into permanent housing and are not only still standing, but taken care of too.

Check out these awesome photographs of the earthquake shacks, past and present:

{all photographs from FoundSF}

Earthquake shack on Crescent Avenue (this is our street!)

Quake shack being taken from Precita Park by horses

Quake shacks on Shotwell opposite Aztec

Two quake shacks joined together by a hall area.  Read more about it here.

Quake shack at 164 Bocana

From now on when I'm walking around the neighborhood, I'm going to be on the lookout for the smaller, one-story houses that might be quake shacks.  I think there could be quite a few given that Bernal Heights was a largely undeveloped refuge area in the months and years following the 1906 quake and fire.

Succulent Love.

I MUST have a succulent wall like this at some point in my life.

And a raised bed planter like this...

So I can nurture awesome succulents like this...

And this.

Such Great Heights

Yesterday after work I walked (no, actually hiked) up to the top of Bernal Hill from our apartment.  I'd been up there once before but hadn't explored much.  Like most San Francisco parks, Bernal Heights Park is naturally beautiful.  All of the different wildflowers and succulents on the way to, inside, and from the park sidetracked me and I was wishing I was better at identifying them.  I would have loved to have been a botanist.  Or a linguist.  Because I love plants and languages.  But I digress.

Here's a photo tour of Bernal Heights Park, on a chilly, windy day!

A garden at the base of hill before you go up to the park.

Looking the other way from the garden towards the park.

Not at the top of the hill yet, but looking southeast towards the bay.

The view of downtown San Francisco.  You can just make out the Bay Bridge at the upper right.

Um, a park wouldn't be a park without some graffiti.

Looking toward our old neighborhood and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Shaded stairs.

Looking towards the top of the park.

Big hair after being out in the wind for an hour.

A garden on the way home.  I love poppies!

Our New Neighborhood!

Yesterday we signed the lease for our new apartment at 777 Crescent Avenue in Bernal Heights.  I did some sleuthing and found out that the building was constructed in 1912--so it's even older than our current apartment building.  It's a really pretty unit, with a decorative fireplace in the living room, 3 sets of bay windows, French doors, our own entrance/stairs, hardwood floors with decorative inlays around the edge, a formal dining room with a built-in cabinet, 2 bedrooms, and a sunroom.  When we found out that it comes with our own garaged parking space and washer/dryer hookups, and is only $50 more per month than we're currently paying, we were sold.  It's got some quirky touches, too--like a lever on the stairs that allows you to open the front door from 10 feet away, a built-in ironing board in the sunroom, and a little fold-out seat at the phone nook in the hall. 

The apartment has tons of windows all over the place--my plants are going to love it!  It's exciting to know that we'll be exploring a new neighborhood, too.  Bernal Heights is one of the sunniest neighborhoods in the city, and Cortland Avenue at the top of the hill is a ridiculously cute street.  It will be so much fun to check out all of the neighborhood spots like we did when we moved to the Western Addition last year.

Pictures of the apartment itself to come!