News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
GARDENS | JOAN HOCKADAY At the corner of Jackson and Steiner Streets, atop a garage once filled with rooms for servants, rests a handsome experiment in rooftop garden design created by John Wheatman, San Francisco’s eminent emeritus designer. “I am as old as this building,” Wheatman declares, gesturing skyward at the elegant 12-story apartment tower built…
GARDENS | JOAN HOCKADAY The cow is gone, the windmill torn down, the pharmacy delivery trucks missing from the garage behind the house. The gas pump and the water well no longer pump at all. But some reminders of the storied past of the historic Shumate house and garden at the corner of Pine and…
LANDMARKS | BRIDGET MALEY A llyne Park, at the corner of Green and Gough Streets, is a San Francisco gem for which I have a strong affection. It’s across the street from our home. The park, adjacent to the historic Octagon House, is a little plot of green that is a daily gathering place for neighborhood…
LOCALS AGREE there are problems with Alta Plaza Park, situated atop a former rock quarry and bounded by Scott, Clay, Steiner and Jackson Streets. Among them: decayed columns, stairs, walls and pathways; haphazard and incongruous plantings; outdated and ineffective lighting; and drainage and irrigation issues. So far, the fixes have been piecemeal — and ineffective,…
“LET A thousand flowers blossom,” Chairman Mao supposedly said. Kaiser Permanente has taken a similar approach with the block-long empty lot at Divisadero and Geary it fought — and paid dearly — to clear for a new medical building, now delayed. Just beginning to bear first fruit in the summer sun is a new orchard…
THERE HAD BEEN TALK for years about cutting down the rapidly growing redwood trees in the park along Cottage Row. Suddenly one day in mid-February the five redwoods were felled, along with a massive eucalyptus tree and other smaller trees. The howls of outrage among many neighbors now seem to be giving way to acceptance.…
WORK BEGINS in early March on an ambitious new plan to transform the forlorn public plaza at Fillmore and O’Farrell streets into a dynamic green space that honors the history and culture of the neighborhood. “It’s got a lot packed in,” said architect Jane Martin, whose Shift Design Studio designed the new plaza. “We want…
By Nina Hatvany SALE PRICES of real estate in San Francisco’s southern neighborhoods have taken off dramatically in recent months. Noe Valley, Potrero Hill and South Beach are especially sought after by people who commute to the Peninsula, but still want to live in the city, or couples in which one person commutes south or…
By Maria Marchetti IN THE DEPTHS of the real estate crisis in 2011, the defaulting owners who had spent millions restoring the Ellinwood mansion at 2799 Pacific were removed and the home was put on the market as bank owned. In the same family for more than a century after it was completed in 1894…
BY THE TIME it moves downtown next year, the University of the Pacific’s dental school will have made room for a lot of attractive — and expensive — new housing in the neighborhood. Trumark Urban has now bought the dental school’s longtime home at 2155 Webster Street, at the corner of Sacramento, and will convert…