For more than 42 years, print editions of our neighborhood newspaper have landed on doorsteps and been put out at businesses, giving neighbors the ultimate in local news.
In 1979 the Glen Park Perspective featured articles about the redesign of the corner of O’Shaughnessy, Bosworth, Congo and Elk and the naming of Dorothy Erskine Park. That story includes a picture of then-mayor Dianne Feinstein standing with Erskine.
A 1982 edition of the Glen Park News tells residents they could take aluminum cans, newspapers and glass to a recycling center at McAteer High School. That was back when San Francisco had no curbside recycling program and just before the high school at the top of O’Shaughnessy it became what is now known as Ruth Asawa School of the Arts.
A host of dedicated people over nearly half a century have kept various presses, from Xerox machines to mimeographs, running to produce the News, but this year’s spring print edition was its last.
After more than 15 years of working on the print edition of the News, Rachel Gordon (editor-in-chief), Liz Mangelsdorf (photos, design and layout) and Gail Bensinger (village editor) have hung up their hats and taken a well-deserved retirement from their entirely volunteer effort putting a quarterly print paper out on the streets.
Together with Denis Wade (copy editor extraordinaire) the team produced a remarkable body of work that resides in online archives and at the San Francisco Public Library, the Internet Archive the Glen Park Neighborhood History Project, which represents some of the best hyperlocal journalism in the city.
Murray Schneider and his dedicated band of newspaper carriers will also lay down their bags, as there will no longer be a print edition to hand deliver. Thanks to Murray not just for all his writing (which will continue) but for taking on that enormous task in the first place.
While we have asked, no one has stepped forward to take on the daunting task that requires 60+ hours for each edition. Thus, the staff of the News, in consultation with the Glen Park Association (which publishes the paper) has made the decision to shift to a more current all-online Glen Park News format at www.glenparkassociation.org.
In its new guise, the Glen Park News will continue to publish timely news and neighborhood-specific articles under the guidance of our long-time digital team, Beth Weise, Bonnee Waldstein, Heather World and Mary Szczepanik.
Readers will still enjoy the stories and columns that were in the print edition, but they will now be published on the site as they become available.
Our new columns editor will be Nora Dowley, who for years has been the advertising representative for the News and for years before that did layout. Our stalwart news reporters will continue to work with our editors.
In all this, we continue to seek writers and editors to work on the News and welcome new staff members dedicated, as we are, to covering Glen Park and our neighbors in Sunnyside and Diamond Heights. Please, get in touch if you have a story or column to share (good music and B&B? A peach pie recipe with Canyon’s produce? Tell us!)