San Francisco
Third anniversary of the Iraq invasion – Answer Coalition protests in cities across the country.
In San Francisco:
WHERE: Civic Center, at Grove and Larkin Streets (near Civic Center BART)
WHEN: Saturday, March 18, Gather at 11 a.m.
Click Here For: March 18 San Francisco flyer
To get involved, call 415-821-6545, email sf@internationalanswer.org, or go to http://www.actionsf.org/. Weekly Organizers Meetings every Tuesday at 7 pm, 2489 Mission St., #24.
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This is one of those “I’ve lived in San Francisco for years and I can’t believe I’ve never been here before” places: Buena Vista Park. The Haight is just north of this hilltop park, and the Castro is to the southeast on the other side of the R Museum. The N-Judah runs underneath it in one of San Francisco’s transit tunnels. The park is really astoundingly scenic, with huge full-grown trees from decades of Arbor Day plantings. The views of The City are framed by those trees; the top of the Golden Gate Bridge can be seen Northward and Point Bonita is visible past the Richmond District.
I went up there for the first time a couple weeks ago on one of my “urban wander-walking” excursions; I hiked through again this morning with a friend to excercise, get another look and take some pictures. It’s a dog-friendly park and a lot of them were out and about this morning — what fun.
As usual, I went online for some more information. Buena Vista Park was created in 1867 — originally called Hill Park — which makes it the oldest park in San Francisco. This is less of a neighborhood park, and much more of a landscape design showcase, if I may use such a term. The Neighborhood Parks Council has much more historical information on their site.
As for me, I really recommend checking it out.
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I’ve walked down Buchanan Street many times, passing what looks like a very small community park at Page Street. The other day I walked in to that small park and found a great deal more of it was on the other side, including a community garden running down the hill.
I was walking through early in the morning, so the ground was wet and the leaves of the plants were covered in dew. It was fiercely quiet and peaceful; I could hear my feet crunching on the dirt paths. The planting boxes form terraces of sorts, with paths around them descending gently and then curving back up to the garden’s gate.
I did some web searching to find out more about Koshland Park. That brought me to San Francisco Beautiful, which awarded a beautification award, under the theme, “Civic Engagement: Meeting the Challenge,” to the park in 2003. Koshland Park is maintained by the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Parks Group, which meets to work on the park on the second Saturday of the month from 11am to 2pm.
More of the Parks that have received awards from San Francisco Beautiful can be found on their site.
Another group that works on the parks in San Francisco is the SF Neighborhood Parks Council. They describe themselves as, “a coalition of community-based park groups actively involved in improving neighborhood parks throughout San Francisco. Since 1996, NPC has grown to include 120+ park groups and 4,000 park volunteers, establishing itself as San Francisco”™s premier park advocacy group.”
One of the many reasons I love living in San Francisco is the combination of amazing things, such as the parks, and the community interest and actual people that give their time and energy to maintain those things.
I’ll be adding entries about more SF parks and places as I come across them.
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