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Tommy Baik is still pondering whether to reopen Glen Park Cleaners

September 17, 2022 by Elizabeth Weise

The burned out front entrance of the Glen Park Cleaners at Diamond on Chenery Streets on Sept. 17, 2022. The building was swept by fire on June 4, 2022. Photo: Bonnee Waldstein

Editors’ note: Baik reached out to the Glen Park News to clarify that he’s still considering his options when it comes to reopening his business. The story has been updated to reflect this. The Glen Park News regrets the error

Four months after a fire swept through building at the corner of Chenery and Diamond, Glen Park Cleaners owner Tommy Baik says he’s not sure if he’ll be reopening the business.

He said he was still pondering and trying to decide. He spent Saturday, September 17 overseeing a cleanup crew in hazmat suits and masks cleaning the burned out space.

Whatever he eventually decides, it won’t be anytime soon. “There’s still a lot of work to do with our customers and the insurance,” he said. “I’m busy.”

The fire began at about 7:00 pm on June 4, 2022, in one of the dryers in the rear of the building. One of Baik’s employees suffered a minor hand injury and was treated by paramedics on the scene but otherwise there were no injuries.

Heavy grey smoke from the fire entered the business and the apartment on the second floor and billowed out of the building. Firefighters had to cut several holes in the roof to stop the progression of the fire and vent the smoke. Luckily, no one was home in the apartment at the time.

Since the blaze, Baik has been working to replace or repay customers who had clothing at the cleaners when it struck. While the fire itself was relatively small, smoke and water damage meant none of the clothing could be salvaged.

Insurance is paying for the replacement and repayment but because all the cleaner’s records were destroyed in the fire, figuring out who lost what is time consuming, he said.

A notice on the front door of the boarded up cleaners directs customers to contact Baik to  work things out. He said a surprising number of customers had reached out to him just to say “don’t worry about it. ”

“They’ve been really nice,” Baik said as workers clothed head to toe in white hazmat suits carried out bags of burned equipment. They spent much of Saturday dismantling the shop’s large dry cleaning machine so it could be removed.

Tommy Baik and the GP cleaning crew on Nov. 18, 2018.

Baik said the building’s owner planned to repair the damage and reopen the building, a process that he estimated would take a year to a year and a half.

Asked if he planned to reopen the cleaner when the building was ready, he says he’s still deciding.

“I started working here when I was 19, as a presser,” he said. Then when he was 22 he bought the business and has worked there ever since. After more than 40 years in the business he’s weighing his options.

Baik said he misses seeing people and chatting with neighbors and as the crew worked people kept coming up to him to ask how he was doing and check in. “People are nice here,” he said of Glen Park.

A cleaning crew removed burned debris from the Glen Park Cleaner at Diamond on Chenery Streets on Sept. 17, 2022. The building was swept by fire on June 4, 2022.
San Francisco Fire Department fire fighers battle a blaze that gutted the Glen Park Cleaners at Chenery and Diamond Streets on June 4, 2022 which made the apartment above the business uninhabitable.

 

Filed Under: Businesses, Featured

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Glen Park Association is at Glen Park Greenway.
13 hours ago
Glen Park Association

Saturday’s Glen Park Greenway Work Party is Cancelled.

“I’m very sorry to say that
we have cancelled our Work Party for this Saturday July 12, along with all organized volunteer activity on the Greenway until further notice.
As you may have read in the news, our fiscal sponsor, San Francisco Parks Alliance (SFPA), has shut itself down. Just as SFPA has shut itself down, the Greenway, as an organized part of SFPA, has also been “shut down.” We are busy looking for a suitable alternative fiscal sponsor that is willing to replace SFPA. That search is going well but it is a slow process. We had hoped to find temporary ways to enable the Greenway project to function responsibly as a community activity without a fiscal sponsor. Sadly, despite our best efforts and the help of many others in Glen Park, we have failed. That is why we must cancel our Saturday Work Party and discontinue future work parties and other organized volunteer activity on the Greenway (like weeding and watering) until further notice. We recognize that the Greenway is public open space and that the organizers of the Greenway project have no control over the activities of you or of anyone else on the Greenway. However, if you do venture onto the Greenway to satisfy your urge for outdoor recreation, please be aware that your activity is not in any way organized or sanctioned by the organizers of the Glen Park Greenway project. I’m well aware of the efforts that many of the
Greenway’s supporters are making to get the Greenway organized with a new fiscal sponsor and I’m confident that this will be arranged within weeks or perhaps a few months.
However long it takes, I will contact you with news of our progress.
Many thanks for all that you do for the Greenway.”

Nicholas Dewar, volunteer Project Director

#glenparkgreenway #glenparksf #sanfrancisco @rafaelmandelmand8 @danielluriesf @crosstowntrail
#crosstowntrail #sfparksalliance #publicspace #nature
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Wonder what’s stopping just organizing it separate from that non-profit. It seems like the volunteers largely come from Glen Park.

Glen Park Association is at Laidley Street SFO.
4 days ago
Glen Park Association

It was a beautiful day for the annual #july4th celebration on Laidley street!

📷: Photos courtesy of Michael Waldstein

#glenparksf #sanfrancisco #laidley
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It was a beautiful day for the annual #july4th celebration on Laidley street! 

📷: Photos courtesy of Michael Waldstein 

#glenparksf #sanfrancisco #laidley
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