The Detroit Steps Project continues making giant strides. Launched on November 3, 2018, the multi-year and multi-phase community-led beautification project, with an objective of fashioning 186 stairs with either mosaic or colored tiles, has taken another significant step towards its goal with the inauguration of the “2020 Drawing Contest.” “The contest is to derive imaginative […]
Drive-by shooting at Sussex and Diamond leaves one man with non-life-threatening injuries
A mid-afternoon drive-by shooting on Sunday in Glen Park left a man with non-life-threatening injuries and Diamond street blocked for several hours as police investigated. Officers arrived on the scene and found an adult male victim suffering from a gunshot wound, police said. The victim was transported to a local hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. No […]
Glen Park artist’s work chosen for de Young exhibit
You’ve seen his work if you’ve read the Glen Park News, or perhaps strolling down Chenery Street. In the coming months you will be able to see it at the de Young museum. Glen Park resident Michael Waldstein’s piece “Red” is one of numerous Bay Area artists whose work was chosen to be part of […]
Bird & Beckett is open despite the pandemic — stop in and safely say hi
With dire warnings from City public health officials that the coronavirus will continue through a dark winter and with California beginning a statewide curfew, Eric Whittington, owner of Bird and Beckett Books and Records continues keeping Glen Park supplied the latest in best seller releases and used titles. “As long as the COVID numbers stay […]
Get out of your COVID rut — Go on a tree tour of Glen Park
Glen Park neighbors have long experienced California wildflower walks through Glen Canyon Park along with spider walks, and then of course Glen Park Neighborhoods History Project history walks. But they have never encountered anything like what greeted them on Sunday morning, October 25, 2020. Chalked on the sidewalk in front Bird & Beckett’s Books and […]
Pandemic or no, the Detroit Street steps are getting the love they deserve
In the midst of the COIVID-19 pandemic, San Francisco needs more inviting outdoor spaces to pause and enjoy being outdoors. Which is why Sunnyside neighbors aren’t stopping in their efforts to beautify one of the City’s lesser-known stairways. “We are continuing to clean up the Detroit Steps,” Suna Mullins emailed the Glen Park News on […]
Scary times: COVID stops Halloween this year, but we’ll be back in 2021!
Note: Several readers have asked for a downloadable version of the lovely poster created by GPA webmaster and designer Mary Szczepanik. You can click the link below to get a printable copy. GPA Halloween 2020 PDF Halloween has always been a joyous time in Glen Park. Chenery and many side streets are awash in trick-or-treaters. […]
Fire skies over Glen Park – September 9, 2020
Smoke from distant wildfires layered on top of fog produced reddish-orange skies over San Francisco on Wednesday, September 9, 2020, giving the day a surreal feel that was compared online to variously Mars, the movie Blade Runner and the Apocalypse. Even at midday the city remained darkened. Many street lights stayed on all day and […]
Mask up, Glen Park! Local seamstresses make it easy
“We’re in a major health emergency and neighbors looked around and asked, ‘how can I get involved, how can I help my community?’” Joan Lasselle told the Glen Park News on August 13. Lasselle, who has lived on Laidley Street since 1987, is a charter member of It Takes a Village, a nonprofit that credits […]
Geoffrey Gallegos: Glen Park’s 7 o’clock trumpet serenader
If you’ve stopped in Glen Park at 7 pm and heard the haunting strains of a trumpet and wondered where they came from, it’s Geoffrey Gallegos playing on his front steps over on Congo Street. He’s been playing almost every night since early April to honor essential workers — teachers, grocery clerks, public transit […]
Quick-acting neighbors save chickens, bees after vandalism at SOTA farm
Vandals destroyed a chicken coop atop Diamond Heights at the ECOSF student farm by the School of the Arts and smashed an adjacent beehive earlier this month. The eight fowl —seven hens and one bantam rooster named Diego — would almost certainly have become dinner for local wildlife if not for the quick action of […]
With COVID, cones are a no-no, but Mitchell’s Ice Cream is still dishing the good stuff
Photos by Linda Mitchell Many things have changed about the legendary Mitchell’s Ice Cream in its years at 688 San Jose Avenue, but never the quality. In 1860 Edward and Margaret Mitchell ran a dairy on 29th and grazed their cows on Red Rock Hill just above what’s now Glen Canyon Park. In 1953 their […]
Bus-only lanes may be coming to O’Shaughnessy, Bosworth — MTA wants your comments
Editor’s Note: Many people are leaving messages in the Comments section below. If you want to tell readers of the Glen Park News how you feel, that’s the right thing to do. But if you want to tell the SF Metropolitan Transportation Agency or District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, you need to email them directly. […]
Chenery Slow Street a little shorter than originally planned, still quite popular
Fifteen swaths of street in San Francisco have so far been blocked off to create Slow Streets where people on foot and bicycles can more easily share the space. It’s part of the city’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic but life on the streets doesn’t always play out exactly as it’s depicted on the City’s […]
Could there be turkeys on Turquoise?
Watch a video from May 20 by Roz Romney here: IMG_9554 On May 23, Glen Park Association president Scott Stawicki was walking his dog on Amber Street near the top of Glen Canyon Park when he encountered something he’d never expected to see in San Francisco — a wild turkey. “We saw it walking from […]
Two months in: Reminiscing about Glen Park during the lock down
Two months ago, on March 17, San Francisco went on lockdown when the City ordered residents to shelter in place to slow the spread of COVID-19. Long-time Glen Park News writer Murray Schneider spent some time over the past few weeks using the time to revisit sites he’s written about over the past decade. There’s […]
Local designer creates “We’ve got you covered!” sign for businesses
As of Friday night midnight, San Franciscans are required to wear face coverings when they go into grocery stores, medical offices and other essential businesses — including hardware stores. Madee Hatfield, who’s been working at Glen Park Hardware for the last nine months, realized there was a need and quickly worked up a sign for […]
Stop and smell the wildflowers of Malta — Malta and O’Shaughnessy, that is
The next time you catch the 44 O’Shaughnessy — which is one of only 16 buses still operating in San Francisco during the coronavirus crisis — at Malta Drive you might want to stop and smell the flowers along the way. Denise Louie — who resides only a hop-skip-and-a-jump from the boulevard that serpentines from […]
Business update from Sunday
Please refer to our latest story, which you can read here. It’s been updated as of Monday, March 23. UPDATED: Saturday, March 21 Glen Park Hardware is OPEN Glen Park Cleaners is OPEN Critter Fritters is OPEN Cafe Bello is OPEN. Buddies Market is OPEN Glen Park Market (across from BART) is OPEN […]
Take a hike and visit a newly revitalized local park with an amazing view
Fairmount Plaza sounds as if it’s located at an El Camino Real shopping mall in San Mateo County. It isn’t. It hugs a hilltop — part of the Rancho San Miguel Mexican land grant bestowed to José de Jesús Noé in 1845 — and now acts as a natural area frontier separating San Francisco’s Fairmount […]
Glen Park: Home to one of the City’s long-term, intimate venues for live jazz
Neighborhoods change. Just look at ours. In a little over a decade Glen Park has witnessed Canyon Market claim the corner of Diamond Street and Wilder Street while it watched Hal and Susan Tauber retire as hardware store owners on Chenery Street and Aaron Esquivel and his crew take it on. We’ve seen Chenery Park […]
Did you miss Tuesday’s amazing sunset? Here’s a reprise
Courtesy of Marian Dalere
Planting woodland strawberries with the City’s “Most Empowering Employee”
On January 8, five members of Friends of Glen Canyon Park worked in Glen Canyon planting varieties of California native plants. Supervised by Dylan Hayes, a Recreation and Park’s Natural Resource Division natural resource specialist, the volunteers placed woodland strawberry, Douglas iris and pink flowering currant on either side of a split rail fence bordering […]
For the first time ever, a Summer Tanager appears in Glen Park, attracting flocks of bird watchers
Glen Canyon was aflutter early Wednesday morning, January 22nd. A flock of bird watchers descended on the 70-acre natural area, armed with cameras boasting the latest high-powered lenses. They stood, even sat, beneath the eucalyptus tree that houses Great horned owls each year, trained their cameras on another gum tree rooted on the bank of […]
Detroit Street step-a-thon raises money to beautify Sunnyside
by Murray Schneider “Won’t you be my neighbor?” Children and parents, sans Tom Hanks in red cardigan and sneakers, gathered at 10 a.m. on Nov.24 at the foot of the neighborhood’s lower Detroit Street steps to kick off the inaugural step-a-thon run, a fundraiser to beautify a Sunnyside neighborhood landmark. An early fall chill had […]
The Glen Park email lists have a new home
The Glen Park Parents list is dead. Long live the Glen Park Parents list! Fifteen years ago, I launched an email group for parents in Glen Park. The idea was to help connect people and give a stronger sense of community. It worked. Today the group has 2,277 members. That first email was a notice […]
Deb Lunsford’s rent party at Bird and Beckett — What goes ’round, comes ’round
“Dollars for Deb” Eric Whittington billed the fund-raiser. Whittington, proprietor of Bird & Beckett, has thrown rent parties with live jazz before, to help keep his independent bookstore open for another month. But over the summer, he threw a rent party for Destination Bakery’s Deb Lunsford, a neighborhood favorite who’s recovering from surgery. Bakery regulars […]
We’re swimming in change in San Francisco
San Francisco is constantly reinventing itself. Gold Rush seekers giving way to Comstock silver barons. Merchantman brigs surrendering to coal powered steamships, then complemented by coal-powered railroads. The latter engineered by entrepreneurs with names such as Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins and Crocker. Which got me thinking about how, less than a century later, the outer Sunset […]
Sunnyside’s Detroit Street steps got spruced up on June 8
The Detroit Street steps in Sunnyside are getting a spruce up and local residents can take part on June 8, when Sunnyside volunteers are scheduling a “Cleanup and Celebration Day.” During the event, neighbors will have an opportunity to work alongside DPW’s Green and Clean Team, weeding the upper and lower steps. It’s the start […]
Dogs of Glen Park: Meet Bruce Bochy
San Francisco Giants Bruce Bochy is taking victory laps around National League ball parks as he finishes a storied major league career as a big-league catcher and manager. There’s another Bruce Bochy, the Chenery Street Bochy, and he’s caught a few pitches himself. The Glen Park Bochy is in mid-career, takes his own laps and […]
Destination Bakery’s Deb Lunsford Delights
Deb has a destination. For 16 years Deb Lunsford has mounted her Raleigh bicycle and peddled to Destination Bakery from her Bernal Heights home. She crosses Mission Street, picks up Arlington Street, takes a right on Natick, then a left on Chenery and arrives at Destination five days a week before the sun comes up. […]
After three years away, the owls are back in Glen Park
The missing great horned owls have returned! A eucalyptus tree only yards from the Recreation Center has once again become a wooded refuge to a great horned owl family. Their return comes three years after Glen Canyon’s resident owls disappeared. On March 16, 2016 a distant relative was found dead on a trail just west […]
Eco Fair at Denman Middle School March 16
2019 Annual Arbor Day Eco Fair Saturday, March 16, 2019 | 9 am to noon James Denman Middle School, 241 Oneida Avenue, San Francisco FREE Activities Include: Build A Planter Box For Fresh Herbs Pet Goats Get Your Face Painted Ride In A Bucket Truck During the annual Arbor Day celebration, the focus will be […]
Surrey Street’s J. John Priola show at Dog Patch gallery
J. John Priola, who lives on Surrey Street only blocks from Glen Canyon Park, was born on a five-acre farm in Colorado where his parents put up field corn for silage and grew sweet corn for more than just their Thanksgiving table. “My mother sold the corn from a stand,” Priola told the Glen Park […]
Keeping Islais creek running with pickaxes and loppers
Photos: Christopher Campbell Islais Creek is the second longest creek running through San Francisco. Because of drought, it has recently trickled rather than raced. The creek is also inhibited because along its banks invasive Cape ivy and Himalayan blackberry mitigate its flow. Consequently, any dash through Glen Canyon Park on the waterway’s journey to […]
Got a lemon tree? It’s quarantined now. Yellow Dragon Disease has arrived in San Francisco
An innocuous insect that carries a devastating disease which has destroyed citrus groves in Africa and South America has arrived in San Francisco. The Asian citrus psyllid has been found in the Marina district and the California Department of Food and Agriculture is making anyone with citrus trees on their property to avoid moving fruit and […]
Glen Canyon gardener’s landscape show through Jan. 27
Christopher Campbell pulls weeds and paints willows. An early member of San Francisco’s Recreation and Parks Natural Resources Division, Campbell, 55, has been familiar with Glen Canyon for 20 years, removing geriatric eucalyptus and colonizing Himalayan blackberry and replacing them with habitat-friendly dogwood, elderberry and sticky monkey flower. And for the last six years, influenced […]
Mitchell’s ice cream celebrates 65 delicious years delighting an adoring public
Linda Mitchell has a scoop for her legions of customers who flock each day to her San Jose Avenue ice cream store. In a month of Sundays, they’d never have guessed. Actually, in Linda Mitchell’s case, they’d never have guessed in a month of sundaes. “When my father began the shop in June 1953 he’d […]
Arlington Street’s Pauline Scholten and her Prairie Rose Band play city-wide
While Clement Street is a bit of a stretch from Chenery Street, Pauline Scholten has performed music along both San Francisco avenues. Her most recent Glen Park gig was at Chenery Street’s Bird & Beckett on October 11. Scholten, who lives on Arlington Street, fronts a four-member group called The Prairie Rose Band, which two […]
10th Anniversary Retrospective: Dalere’s Beauty Salon, oldest business in Glen Park, gets a visit from the Mayor
To celebrate the Glen Park Association Website turning ten years old, we are reposting some of our favorite stories from the last ten years. Fifty years ago, a lot was happening in the world and in San Francisco. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. The Beatles released the White Album […]
Mom Writes an Ode to Glen Park Before Moving
Lauren Tilston wrote a post on the Glen Park Parents’ online forum that attracted the attention of a lot of readers. She wasn’t looking for a high chair or asking about an after- school program or seeking a nanny share. The mother of two, ages 6 and 8, was leav- ing the neighborhood and wrote […]
10th Anniversary Retrospective: Tikkun Olam, on Diamond Street
To celebrate the Glen Park Association Website turning ten years old, we are reposting some of our favorite stories from the last ten years. I’ve been seeing him for months now. But the first time he really registered was this summer. He stands outside Canyon Market, a white Styrofoam cup in his hand. Sometimes it’s […]
Camp Mather workers, shut down by fires, come to Glen Canyon to work in the park
As wildfires continued taking their toll near Yosemite National Park in the fourth week of July, San Francisco Rec & Park officials closed Camp Mather, its City-run summer camp. As a result, McLaren Lodge administrators offered seasonal Mather employees an opportunity to come to Glen Park and work with its Natural Resource Division. Six young […]
Assault and attempted phone theft near BART thwarted by victim’s screams, passersby
An attack and attempted phone theft last week in broad daylight by the BART station was thwarted by a screaming victim and multiple passersby who came to the victim’s aid. While it ended well, it’s a reminder to always pay attention as you walk and not carry your phone where it’s visible. The assault took […]
Hit and run crashes on Chenery Street
Two recent hit and run crashes on Chenery St. are reminders that the dangers of driving don’t end once you’re parked. Certainly cars in San Francisco are sideswiped all the time, whether from people losing control on tiny roadways or simply traveling too fast on surface streets. These usually result in a smashed sideview mirror or […]
A San Francisco original gone: Nancy Keane, Glen Park resident and long-time owner of the 3300 Club on Mission Street
Glen Park lost a Mission High School old girl on June 12. Nancy Mifflin Keane, who lived in the heart of the village, graduated from Mission, Class of 1954. On June 22, Keane’s daughter, Theresa Keane-Lama, sat in her Diamond Street home and reminisced about her mother, who was born in Noe Valley on July […]
Left turn signal being installed at Diamond and Bosworth
Photos by Michael Rice SFMTA installed a protected left-turn signal on southbound Diamond for vehicles turning left on to Bosworth on Wednesday July 18. This from SFMTA spokesperson Lolita Sweet: Just a heads up, to increase pedestrian safety, the project team is moving forward with Glen Park Association suggestions on signal strategy on Bosworth and […]
The call of the white-breasted nuthatch across Glen Canyon
By Murray Schneider Richard Craib raised his family on Turquoise Way, his backyard abutting the upper reaches of Glen Canyon. Now he’s overseeing a family of white-breasted nuthatches in the house he’s lived in since 1962. Craib sat recently in his living room, which overlooks a mini forest of pines, cypresses and redwoods. A barn […]
San Francisco Mayor-elect, Calif. Senator attend Laidley Street 4th of July parade
As they have for years now, the wonderful folks on Laidley street held their annual Fourth of July parade this year, featuring a stroll down the red-white-and-blue-festooned street, a reading of the Declaration of Independence by a costumed town crier, and a host of great food cooked up by neighbors. This year’s parade got two […]
What’s up with the parking lot on Kern Alley?
Glen Park Association Meeting Roundup: April 19, 2018 By Heather World Neighbors peppered politicians and a public utility wonk with questions about everything from parking lots to poop at the Glen Park Association spring quarterly meeting April 19. Kern Alley More than a few neighbors asked about the unofficial parking lot on Kern Alley, which […]