News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
ON THE HEELS of news that one of Alta Plaza Park’s neighbors — William Benjamin Bobo of 2580 Clay Street — left $3.2 million in his estate for more benches, now comes a report of another neighbor’s bequest to the park. Park leaders learned over the weekend that Jeanette Ann Goldstein, who resided a block…
JUST ABOUT THIS time of year, for decades, Joe Pecora would be throwing open the doors of his beautifully maintained Victorian home near Alamo Square for his annual Christmas pot luck. The house would be brimming with friends and neighbors and decorated from top to bottom with his collection of antique ornaments and Christmas cards.…
By FRAN MORELAND JOHNS While most of his neighbors are still asleep, Robert Starkey can be found roaming Alta Plaza Park, searching for new angles to photograph the dawn. “Walking to Alta Plaza to photograph the sunrise I get exercise, connection with nature, the unconditional love of dogs — and a feeling of accomplishment,” he…
LOCAL HISTORY | CHRISTOPHER POLLOCK Of the 220 public spaces the city’s Recreation and Park Department administers in San Francisco, Lafayette Park is unique: It has a privately owned six-story apartment building cut right into its municipal landscape on the side bordering Gough Street. In the city’s early days, several parks had issues over real…
AFTER MONTHS of being surrounded by chain link fencing while its irrigation system was overhauled, the top side of Alta Plaza Park has reopened to the public. The lawns have been replanted and new drains installed to capture water runoff. Some areas of the park are still fenced off as final details, including a new…
THE ON-AGAIN, off-again plan to create a memorial Zen garden at the foot of Cottage Row — once a Japanese enclave — is back on again. On October 19, the Recreation & Park Commission approved the garden, a memorial to the founders of Japantown. But approval on the commission’s consent calendar came only after another…
GRAND PLANS to renovate Alta Plaza Park have been scaled back due to a lack of funding, but more limited measures to conserve water are proceeding. The Recreation & Park Commission has awarded a construction contract to replace the sod and irrigation system on the north side of the park and to install perimeter drainage…
A PLAN TO build a Zen-style Japanese rock garden at the foot of Cottage Row has been derailed, at least for now. In June, a committee of the Recreation and Park Commission approved the garden, which would honor the Issei generation of Japanese-Americans who founded Japantown 110 years ago after the 1906 earthquake. But Bush…
WHEN NEIGHBORHOOD RESIDENT David Thompson read about plans for a Zen rock garden at the southern end of Cottage Row to commemorate the 110th anniversary of Japantown, he had an idea: That might be the perfect place for his century-old bonsai tree. The tree has been in the same family since it was brought from…